Division  JK24-6 

.BS 

1311 


Section 


■ 


► 


t- 


THE  AMERICAN  COMMONWEALTH 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •  BOSTON  •  CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •  SAN  FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd, 

TORONTO 


THE* 


AMERICAN  COMMONWEALTH 


JAMES  BRYCE 

AUTHOR  OF  “THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE” 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.  II 

The  Party  System  —  Public  Opinion  —  Illustrations 
and  Reflections  —  Social  Institutions 


NEW  EDITION 

COMPLETELY  REVISED  THROUGHOUT 
WITH  ADDITIONAL  CHAPTERS 


jSto  jgotk 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1911 


All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1893, 

By  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 

Copyright,  1910, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.  Published  November,  1910.  Reprinted 
January,  1911, 


Norfoaoh  IPresa 

J.  S.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


VOL.  II 

PART  III  —  The  Party  System 

CHAP. 

liii.  Political  Parties  and  their  History 

liv.  The  Parties  of  To-day  ...... 

lv.  Composition  of  the  Parties  .... 

lyi.  Further  Observations  on  the  Parties 
lvii.  The  Politicians  ....... 

lviii.  Why  the  Best  Men  do  not  go  into  Politics  . 
lix.  Party  Organizations  ...... 

lx.  The  Machine  ....... 

Note  on  Recent  Legislation  regarding  Primaries 
lxi.  What  the  Machine  has  to  do  . 
lxii.  How  the  Machine  Works  ..... 

lxiii.  Rings  and  Bosses  ...... 

lxiv.  Local  Extension  of  Rings  and  Bosses 
lxv.  Spoils  ......... 

lxvi.  Elections  and  their  Machinery 
lxvii.  Corruption  .  .  .  .  . 

lxviii.  The  War  against  Bossdom  .... 

lxix.  Nominating  Conventions  ..... 

lxx.  The  Nominating  Convention  at  Work 
lxxi.  The  Presidential  Campaign-  .... 

lxxii.  The  Issues  in  Presidential  Elections 
lxxiii.  Further  Observations  on  Nominations  and  Elec¬ 
tions  ........ 

lxxiv.  Types  of  American  Statesmen  .... 

lxxv.  What  the  People  Think  of  It  . 

Note  on  the  Party  System  ..... 

PART  IV  —  Public  Opinion 

lxxvi.  The  Nature  of  Public  Opinion  . 

lxxvii.  Government  by  Public  Opinion  . 


PAGE 

3 

21 

31 

41 

56 

69 

76 

82 

89 

93 

101 

111 

124 

136 

146 

156 

168 

176 

186 

204 

214 

222 

230 

239 

246 


251 

259 


v 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

lxxviii.  How  Public  Opinion  Rules  in  America 
lxxix.  Organs  of  Public  Opinion  . 
lxxx.  National  Characteristics  as  Moulding  Public 

Opinion  . . 

lxxxi.  Classes  as  Influencing  Opinion  . 
lxxxii.  Local  Types  of  Opinion  —  East,  West,  and  South 
lxxxiii.  The  Action  of  Public  Opinion  . 
lxxxiv.  The  Tyranny  of  the  Majority  . 
lxxxy.  The  Fatalism  of  the  Multitude  . 
lxxxyi.  Wherein  Public  Opinion  Fails  . 
lxxxvii.  Wherein  Public  Opinion  Succeeds 


PART  V  —  Illustrations  and  Reflections 

lxxxviii.  The  Tammany  Ring  in  New  York  City 
lxxxix.  The  Philadelphia  Gas  Ring  . 
xc.  Kearneyism  in  California  . 
xci.  The  Home  of  the  Nation  . 
xcii.  The  Latest  Phase  of  Immigration 
xciii.  The  South  since  the  War  . 
xciv.  Present  and  Future  of  the  Negro 
xcv.  Further  Reflections  on  the  Negro  Problem 
xcvi.  Foreign  Policy  and  Territorial  Extension 
xcvii.  The  New  Transmarine  Dominions 
xcviii.  Laissez  Faire  ........ 

xcix.  Woman  Suffrage  ....... 

c.  The  Supposed  Faults  of  Democracy 
ci.  The  True  Faults  of  American  Democracy 
cii.  The  Strength  of  American  Democracy 
cm.  How  far  American  Experience  is  Available  for 
Europe  ........ 

PART  VI  —  Social  Institutions 

civ.  The  Bar  ........ 

cv.  The  Bench  ........ 

cvi.  Railroads 


PAGE 

267 

274 

285 

297 

311 

321 

338 

347 

357 

366 


379 

406 

426 

449 

469 

491 

512 

540 

565 

576 

587 

600 

613 

630 

642 

655 


665 

679 

690 


CONTENTS  vii 


OIIAP.  PAGE 

evil.  Wall  Street  ........  703 

cvm.  The  Universities  and  Colleges  .  .  .  .  .711 

cix.  Further  Observations  on  the  Universities  .  .  743 

ex.  The  Churches  and  the  Clergy  .....  763 

/ 

cxi.  The  Influence  of  Religion  .....  781 

s 

/  cxii.  The  Position  of  Women  ......  796 

cxiii.  Equality  .........  810 

cxiv.  The  Influence  of  Democracy  on  Thought  .  .  822 

cxv.  Creative  Intellectual  Power  .....  832 

cxvi.  The  Relation  of  the  United  States  to  Europe  .  845 

cxvii.  The  Absence  of  a  Capital  .....  855 

exvm.  American  Oratory  .......  862 

cxix.  The  Pleasantness  of  American  Life  .  .  .  870 

cxx.  The  Uniformity  of  American  Life  ....  878 

cxxi.  The  Temper  of  the  West  .....  891 

cxxii.  The  Future  of  Political  Institutions  .  .  .  902 

cxxiii.  Social  and  Economic  Future  .....  916 


APPENDIX 

INDEX 


935 

941 


PAET  III 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


- 


* 


. 


CHAPTER  LIII 


POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY 

In  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  endeavoured  to  describe 
the  legal  framework  of  American  government  as  it  exists  both 
in  the  nation  and  in  the  States.  Beginning  from  the  Federal 
and  State  Constitutions  we  have  seen  what  sort  of  a  structure 
has  been  erected  upon  them  as  a  foundation,  what  methods  of 
legislation  and  administration  have  been  developed,  what  re¬ 
sults  these  methods  have  produced.  It  is  only  occasionally 
and  incidentally  that  we  have  had  to  consider  the  influence 
upon  political  bodies  and  methods  of  those  extra-legal  group¬ 
ings  of  men  called  political  parties.  But  the  spirit  and  force  of 
party  has  in  America  been  as  essential  to  the  action  of  the  ma¬ 
chinery  of  government  as  steam  is  to  a  locomotive  engine ;  or, 
vary  the  simile,  party  association  and  organization  are  to  the 
organs  of  government  almost  what  the  motor  nerves  are  to  the 
muscles,  sinews,  and  bones  of  the  human  body.  They  transmit 
the  motive  power,  they  determine  the  directions  in  which  the 
organs  act.  A  description  of  them  is  therefore  a  necessary 
complement  to  an  account  of  the  Constitution  and  government ; 
for  it  is  into  the  hands  of  the  parties  that  the  working  of  the 
government  has  fallen.  Their  ingenuity,  stimulated  by  inces¬ 
sant  rivalry,  has  turned  many  provisions  of  the  Constitution 
to  unforeseen  uses,  and  given  to  the  legal  institutions  of  the  coun¬ 
try  no  small  part  of  their  present  colour. 

To  describe  the  party  system  is,  however,  much  harder  than 
it  has  been  to  describe  those  legal  institutions.  Hitherto  we 
have  been  on  comparatively  firm  ground,  for  we  have  had 
definite  data  to  rely  upon,  and  the  facts  set  forth  have  been 
mostly  patent  facts  which  can  be  established  from  books  and 
documents.  But  now  we  come  to  phenomena  for  a  knowledge 
of  which  one  must  trust  to  a  variety  of  flying  and  floating  sources, 
to  newspaper  paragraphs,  to  the  conversation  of  American 
acquaintances,  to  impressions  formed  on  the  spot  from  seeing 

3 


4 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


incidents  and  hearing  stories  and  anecdotes,  the  authority  for 
which,  though  it  seemed  sufficient  at  the  time,  cannot  always 
be  remembered.  Nor  have  I  the  advantage  of  being  able  to 
cite  any  previous  treatise  on  the  subject ; 1  for  though  the  books 
and  articles  dealing  with  the  public  life  of  the  United  States 
may  be  counted  by  hundreds,  I  know  of  no  author  who  has  set 
himself  to  describe  impartially  the  actual  daily  working  of  that 
part  of  the  vast  and  intricate  political  machine  which  lies  outside 
the  Constitution,  nor,  what  is  more  important  still,  the  influences 
which  sway  the  men  by  whom  this  machine  has  been  constructed 
and  is  daily  manipulated.  The  task,  .however,  cannot  be  de¬ 
clined  ;  for  it  is  that  very  part  of  my  undertaking  which,  even 
though  imperfectly  performed,  may  be  most  serviceable  to  the 
student  of  modern  politics.  A  philosopher  in  Germany,  who 
had  mastered  all  the  treatises  on  the  British  Constitution, 
perused  every  statute  of  recent  years,  and  even  followed  through 
the  newspapers  the  debates  in  Parliament,  would  know  far  less 
about  the  government  and  politics  of  England  than  he  might 
learn  by  spending  a  month  there  conversing  with  practical 
politicians,  and  watching  the  daily  changes  of  sentiment  during 
a  parliamentary  crisis  or  a  general  election. 

So,  too,  in  the  United  States,  the  actual  working  of  party 
government  is  not  only  full  of  interest  and  instruction,  but  is 
so  unlike  what  a  student  of  the  Federal  Constitution  could  have 
expected  or  foreseen,  that  it  is  the  thing  of  all  others  which 
any  one  writing  about  America  ought  to  try  to  portray.  In 
the  knowledge  of  a  stranger  there  must,  of  course,  be  serious 
gaps.  But  since  no  native  American  has  yet  essayed  the  task 
of  describing  the  party  system  of  his  country,  it  is  better  that 
a  stranger  should  address  himself  to  it,  than  that  the  inquiring 
European  should  have  no  means  of  satisfying  his  curiosity. 
And  a  native  American  writer,  even  if  he  steered  clear  of  par¬ 
tisanship,  which  I  think  he  might,  for  in  no  country  does  one 
find  a  larger  number  of  philosophically  judicial  observers  of 
politics,  would  suffer  from  his  own  familiarity  with  many  of 
those  very  things  which  a  stranger  finds  perplexing.  Thus 
European  and  even  American  readers  may  find  in  the  sort  of 

1  Since  the  first  edition  of  this  book  was  published,  many  works  have  ap¬ 
peared  dealing  with  the  subject,  some  of  great  merit.  Among  them  are  M. 
Ostrogorski’s  Political  Parties  and  their  Organization ;  Professor  Morse’s  History 
of  Political  Parties  in  the  U.  S.;  Professor  Jesse  Macy’s  Party  Organization  and 
Machinery ;  Professor  Henry  Jones  Ford’s  Rise  and  Growth  of  American  Politics. 


chap,  liii  POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY  5 


perspective  which  a  stranger  gets  of  transatlantic  phenomena, 
some  compensation  for  his  necessarily  inferior  knowledge  of 
details. 

In  America  the  great  moving  forces  are  the  parties.  The 
government  counts  for  less  than  in  Europe,  the  parties  count 
for  more ;  and  the  fewer  have  become  their  principles  and  the 
fainter  their  interest  in  those  principles,  the  more  perfect  has 
become  their  organization.  The  less  of  nature  the  more  of 
art ;  the  less  spontaneity  the  more  mechanism.  But  before  I 
attempt  to  describe  this  organization,  something  must  be  said 
of  the  doctrines  which  the  parties  respectively  profess,  and  the 
explanation  of  the  doctrines  involves  a  few  preliminary  words 
upon  the  history  of  party  in  America. 

Although  the  early  colonists  carried  with  them  across  the 
sea  some  of  the  habits  of  English  political  life,  and  others  may 
have  been  subsequently  imitated  from  the  old  country,  the  parties 
of  the  United  States  are  pure  home  growths,  developed  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  nation.  The  English  reader  who  attempts, 
as  Englishmen  are  apt  to  do,  to  identify  the  great  American 
parties  with  his  own  familiar  Whigs  and  Tories,  or  even  to  dis¬ 
cover  a  general  similarity  between  them,  had  better  give  up 
the  attempt,  for  it  will  lead  him  hopelessly  astray.  Here  and 
there  we  find  points  of  analogy  rather  than  of  resemblance,  but 
the  moment  we  try  to  follow  out  the  analogy  it  breaks  down,  so 
different  are  the  issues  on  which  English  and  American  politics 
have  turned. 

In  the  United  States,  the  history  of  party  begins  with  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1787  at  Philadelphia.  In  its  de¬ 
bates  and  discussions  on  the  drafting  of  the  Constitution  there 
were  revealed  two  opposite  tendencies,  which  soon  afterwards 
appeared  on  a  larger  scale  in  the  State  Conventions,  to  which 
the  new  instrument  was  submitted  for  acceptance.  These  were 
the  centrifugal  and  centripetal  tendencies  —  a  tendency  to  main¬ 
tain  both  the  freedom  of  the  individual  citizen  and  the  indepen¬ 
dence  in  legislation,  in  administration,  in  jurisdiction,  indeed 
in  everything  except  foreign  policy  and  national  defence,  of  the 
several  States ;  an  opposite  tendency  to  subordinate  the  States 
to  the  nation  and  vest  large  powers  in  the  central  Federal  au¬ 
thority. 

The  charge  against  the  Constitution  that  it  endangered  State 
rights  evoked  so  much  alarm  that  some  States  were  induced 


6 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


to  ratify  only  by  the  promise  that  certain  amendments  should 
be  added,  which  were  accordingly  accepted  in  the  course  of  the 
next  three  years.  When  the  machinery  had  been  set  in  motion 
by  the  choice  of  George  Washington  as  President,  and  with  him 
of  a  Senate  and  a  House  of  Representatives,  the  tendencies  which 
had  opposed  or  supported  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  reap¬ 
peared  not  only  in  Congress  but  in  the  President’s  cabinet,  where 
Alexander  Hamilton,  secretary  of  the  treasury,  counselled  a  line 
of  action  which  assumed  and  required  the  exercise  of  large  powers 
by  the  Federal  government,  while  Jefferson,  the  secretary  of  state, 
desired  to  practically  restrict  its  action  to  foreign  affairs.  The 
advocates  of  a  central  national  authority  had  begun  to  receive 
„  the  name  of  Federalists,  and  to  act  pretty  constantly  together, 
when  an  event  happened  which,  while  it  tightened  their  union, 
finally  consolidated  their  opponents  also  into  a  party.  This  was 
the  creation  of  the  French  Republic  and  its  declaration  of  war 
against  England.  The  Federalists,  who  were  shocked  by  the 
excesses  of  the  Terror  of  1793,  counselled  neutrality,  and  were 
more  than  ever  inclined  to  value  the  principle  of  authority, 
and  to  allow  the  Federal  power  a  wide  sphere  of  action.  The 
party  of  Jefferson,  who  had  now  retired  from  the  Administration, 
were  pervaded  by  sympathy  with  French  ideas,  were  hostile 
to  England  whose  attitude  continued  to  be  discourteous,  and 
sought  to  restrict  the  interference  of  the  central  government  with 
the  States,  and  to  allow  the  fullest  play  to  the  sentiment  of  State 
independence,  of  local  independence,  of  personal  independence, 
z  This  party  took  the  name  of  Republicans  or  Democratic  Repub¬ 
licans,  and  they  are  the  predecessors  of  the  present  Demo¬ 
crats.  Both  parties  were,  of  course,  attached  to  Republican 
government  —  that  is  to  say,  were  alike  hostile  to  a  monarchy. 
But  the  Jeffersonians  had  more  faith  in  the  masses  and  in  leaving 
things  alone,  together  with  less  respect  for  authority,  so  that  in 
a  sort  of  general  way  one  may  say  that  while  one  party  claimed 
to  be  the  apostles  of  Liberty,  the  other  represented  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  Order. 

These  tendencies  found  occasions  for  combating  one  another, 
not  only  in  foreign  policy  and  in  current  legislation,  but  also 
in  the  construction  and  application  of  the  Constitution.  Like 
all  documents,  and  especially  documents  which  have  been 
formed  by  a  series  of  compromises  between  opposite  views,  it 
was  and  is  susceptible  of  various  interpretations,  which  the 


chap,  liii  POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY  7 


acuteness  of  both  sets  of  partisans  was  busy  in  discovering  and 
expounding.  While  the  piercing  intellect  of  Hamilton  developed 
all  those  of  its  provisions  which  invested  the  Federal  Congress 
and  President  with  far-reaching  powers,  and  sought  to  build 
up  a  system  of  institutions  which  should  give  to  these  provisions 
their  full  effect,  Jefferson  and  his  coadjutors  appealed  to  the 
sentiment  of  individualism,  strong  in  the  masses  of  the  people, 
and,  without  venturing  to  propose  alterations  in  the  text  of  the 
Constitution,  protested  against  all  extensions  of  its  letter,  and 
against  all  the  assumptions  of  Federal  authority  which  such  ex¬ 
tensions  could  be  made  to  justify.  Thus  two  parties  grew  up 
with  tenets,  leaders,  impulses,  sympathies,  and  hatreds,  hatreds 
which  soon  became  so  bitter  as  not  to  spare  the  noble  and  digni¬ 
fied  figure  of  Washington  himself,  whom  the  angry  Republicans 
assailed  with  invectives  the  more  unbecoming  because  his  official 
position  forbade  him  to  reply.1 

At  first  the  Federalists  had  the  best  of  it,  for  the  reaction 
against  the  weakness  of  the  old  Confederation  which  the  Union 
had  superseded  disposed  sensible  men  to  tolerate  a  strong  central 
power.  The  President,  though  not  a  member  of  either  party, 
was,  by  force  of  circumstances,  as  well  as  owing  to  the  influence 
of  Hamilton,  practically  with  the  Federalists.  But  during  the 
presidency  of  John  Adams,  who  succeeded  Washington,  they 
committed  grave  errors.  When  the  presidential  election  of  1800 
arrived,  it  was  seen  that  the  logical  and  oratorical  force  of  Hamil¬ 
ton’s  appeals  to  the  reason  of  the  nation  told  far  less  than  the  skill 
and  energy  with  which  Jefferson  played  on  their  feelings  and  prej¬ 
udices.  The  Republicans  triumphed  in  the  choice  of  their  chief, 
who  retained  power  for  eight  years  (he  was  re-elected  in  1804),  to 
be  peaceably  succeeded  by  his  friend  Madison  for  another  eight 
years  (elected  in  1808,  re-elected  in  1812),  and  his  disciple  Mon¬ 
roe  for  eight  years  more  (elected  in  1816,  re-elected  in  1820). 
Their  long-continued  tenure  of  office  was  due  not  so  much  to  their 
own  merits,  for  neither  Jefferson  nor  Madison  conducted  foreign 
affairs  with  success,  as  to  the  collapse  of  their  antagonists. 
The  Federalists  never  recovered  from  the  blow  given  in  the 
election  of  1800.  They  lost  Hamilton  by  death  in  1804.  No 
other  leader  of  equal  gifts  appeared,  and  the  party,  which  had 
shown  little  judgment  in  the  critical  years  1810-14,  finally 

1  In  mockery  of  the  title  he  had  won  from  public  gratitude  a  few  years  be¬ 
fore,  he  was  commonly  called  by  them  “The  stepfather  of  his  country.” 


8 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


disappears  from  sight  after  the  second  peace  with  England 
in  1815. 

One  cannot  note  the  disappearance  of  this  brilliant  figure, 
to  Europeans  the  most  interesting  in  the  earlier  history  of  the 
Republic,  without  the  remark  that  his  countrymen  seem  to 
have  never,  either  in  his  lifetime  or  afterwards,  duly  recog¬ 
nized  his  splendid  gifts.  Washington  is,  indeed,  a  far  more 
perfect  character.  Washington  stands  alone  and  unapproach¬ 
able,  like  a  snow-peak  rising  above  its  fellows  into  the  clear 
air  of  morning,  with  a  dignity,  constancy,  and  purity  which 
have  made  him  the  ideal  type  of  civic  virtue  to  succeeding  gener¬ 
ations.  No  greater  benefit  could  have  befallen  the  Republic 
than  to  have  such  a  type  set  from  the  first  before  the  eye  and 
mind  of  the  people.  But  Hamilton,  of  a  virtue  not  so  flawless, 
touches  us  more  nearly,  not  only  by  the  romance  of  his  early  life 
and  his  tragic  death,  but  by  a  certain  ardour  and  impulsiveness, 
and  even  tenderness  of  soul,  joined  to  a  courage  equal  to  that  of 
Washington  himself.  Equally  apt  for  war  and  for  civil  govern¬ 
ment,  with  a  profundity  and  amplitude  of  view  rare  in  practical 
soldiers  or  statesmen,  he  stands  in  the  front  rank  of  a  generation 
never  surpassed  in  history,  a  generation  which  includes  Burke 
and  Fox  and  Pitt  and  Grattan,  Stein  and  Hardenberg  and  Wil¬ 
liam  von  Humboldt,  Nelson,  Wellington  and  Napoleon.  Talley¬ 
rand,  who  seems  to  have  felt  for  him  something  as  near  affection 
as  that  cold  heart  could  feel,  said,  after  knowing  all  the  famous 
men  of  the  time,  that  only  Fox  and  Napoleon  were  Hamilton’s 
equals,  and  that  he  had  divined  Europe,  having  never  seen  it. 

This  period  (1788-1824)  may  be  said  to  constitute  the  first 
act  in  the  drama  of  American  party  history.  The  people,  accus¬ 
tomed  hitherto  to  care  only  for  their  several  commonwealths, 
learn  to  value  and  to  Work  their  new  national  institutions.  They 
become  familiar  with  the  Constitution  itself,  as  partners  get  to 
know,  when  disputes  arise  among  them,  the  provisions  of  the 
partnership  deed  under  which  their  business  has  to  be  carried  on. 
It  is  found  that  the  existence  of  a  central  Federal  power  does  not 
annihilate  the  States,  so  the  apprehensions  on  that  score  are 
allayed.  It  is  also  discovered  that  there  are  unforeseen  direc¬ 
tions,  such  for  instance  as  questions  relating  to  banking  and 
currency  and  internal  communications,  through  which  the 
Federal  power  can  strengthen  its  hold  on  the  nation.  Differ¬ 
ences  of  view  and  feeling  give  rise  to  parties,  yet  parties  are 


chap,  liii  POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY  9  ■ 


formed  by  no  means  solely  on  the  basis  of  general  principles, 
but  owe  much  to  the  influence  of  prominent  personalities,  of 
transient  issues,  of  local  interests  or  prejudices.  The  small 
farmers  and  the  Southern  men  generally  follow  the  Republi¬ 
can  standard  borne  aloft  by  the  great  State  of  Virginia, 
while  the  strength  of  the  Federalists  lies  in  New  England  and 
the  middle  States,  led  sometimes  by  Massachusetts,  sometimes 
by  Pennsylvania.  The  commercial  interests  were  with  the 
Federalists,  as  was  also  the  staid  solid  Puritanism  of  all  classes, 
headed  by  the  clergy.  Some  one  indeed  has  described  the 
struggle  from  1796  to  1808  as  one  between  Jefferson,  who 
was  an  avowed  free-thinker,  and  the  New  England  ministers  ; 
and  no  doubt  the  ministers  of  religion  did  in  the  Puritan  States 
exert  a  political  influence  approaching  that  of  the  Presbyterian 
clergy  in  Scotland  during  the  seventeenth  century.  Jefferson’s 
importance  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  became  the  representative 
not  merely  of  democracy,  but  of  local  democracy,  of  the  notion 
that  government  is  hardly  wanted  at  all,  that  the  people  are 
sure  to  go  right  if  they  are  left  alone,  that  he  who  resists  authority 
is  prima  facie  justified  in  doing  so,  because  authority  is  prima 
facie  tyrannical,  that  a  country  where  each  local  body  in  its  own 
local  area  looks  after  the  objects  of  common  concern,  raising 
and  administering  any  such  funds  as  are  needed,  and  is  inter¬ 
fered  with  as  little  as  possible  by  any  external  power,  comes 
nearest  to  the  ideal  of  a  truly  free  people.  Some  intervention 
on  the  part  of  the  State  there  must  be,  for  the  State 
makes  the  law  and  appoints  the  judges  of  appeal ;  but  the 
less  one  has  to  do  with  the  State,  and  a  fortiori  the  less  one 
has  to  do  with  the  still  less  popular  and  more  encroaching 
Federal  authority,  so  much  the  better.  Jefferson  impressed  this 
view  on  his  countrymen  with  so  much  force  and  such  personal 
faith  that  he  became  a  sort  of  patron  saint  of  freedom  in  the 
eyes  of  the  next  generation,  who  used  to  name  their  children 
after  him,1  and  to  give  dinners  and  deliver  high-flown  speeches 
on  his  birthday,  a  festival  only  second  in  importance  to  the  im¬ 
mortal  Fourth  of  July.  He  had  borrowed  from  the  Revolution¬ 
ists  of  France  even  their  theatrical  ostentation  of  simplicity. 


1  It  is  related  of  a  New  England  clergyman  that  when,  being  about  to  bap¬ 
tize  a  child,  he  asked  the  father  the  child’s  name,  and  the  father  replied,  “Thomas 
Jefferson,”  he  answered  in  a  loud  voice,  “No  such  unchristian  name:  John 
Adams,  I  baptize  thee,”  with  the  other  sacramental  words  of  the  rite. 


10 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


He  rejected  the  ceremonial  with  which  Washington  had  sus¬ 
tained  the  chief  magistracy  of  the  nation,  declaring  that  to  him 
there  was  no  majesty  but  that  of  the  people. 

As  New  England  was,  by  its  system  of  local  self-government 
through  the  town  meeting,  as  well  as  by  the  absence  of  slavery, 
in  some  respects  the  most  democratic  part  of  the  United  States, 
it  may  seem  surprising  that  it  should  have  been  a  stronghold 
of  the  Federalists.  The  reason  is  to  be  found  partly  in  its 
Puritanism,  which  revolted  at  the  deism  or  atheism  of  the  French 
revolutionists,  partly  in  the  interests  of  its  shipowners  and 
merchants,  who  desired  above  all  things  a  central  government 
which,  while  strong  enough  to  make  and  carry  out  treaties  with 
England  and  so  secure  the  development  of  American  commerce, 
should  be  able  also  to  reform  the  currency  of  the  country  and 
institute  a  national  banking  system.  Industrial  as  well  as  ter¬ 
ritorial  interests  were  already  beginning  to  influence  politics. 
That  the  mercantile  and  manufacturing  classes,  with  all  the  ad¬ 
vantages  given  them  by  their  wealth,  their  intelligence,  and  their 
habits  of  co-operation,  should  have  been  vanquished  by  the 
agricultural  masses,  may  be  ascribed  partly  to  the  fact  that  the 
democratic  impulse  of  the  War  of  Independence  was  strong  among 
the  citizens  who  had  grown  to  manhood  between  1780  and  1800, 
partly  to  the  tactical  errors  of  the  Federalist  leaders,  but  largely 
also  to  the  skill  which  Jefferson  showed  in  organizing  the  hitherto 
undisciplined  battalions  of  Republican  voters.  Thus  early  in 
American  history  was  the  secret  revealed,  which  Europe  is 
only  now  discovering,  that  in  free  countries  with  an  extended 
suffrage,  numbers  without  organization  are  helpless  and  with  it 
omnipotent. 

I  have  ventured  to  dwell  on  this  first  period,  because  being  the 
first  it  shows  the  origin  of  tendencies  which  were  to  govern  the 
subsequent  course  of  party  strife.  But  as  I  am  not  writing  a 
history  of  the  United  States  I  pass  by  the  particular  issues  over 
which  the  two  parties  wrangled,  most  of  them  long  since  extinct. 
One  remark  is  however  needed  as  to  the  view  which  each  took 
of  the  Constitution.  Although  the  Federalists  were  in  general 
the  advocates  of  a  loose  and  liberal  construction  of  the  funda¬ 
mental  instrument,  because  such  a  construction  opened  a  wider 
sphere  to  Federal  power,  they  were  ready,  whenever  their  local 
interests  stood  in  the  way,  to  resist  Congress  and  the  Executive, 
alleging  that  the  latter  were  overstepping  their  jurisdiction.  In 


chap,  liii  POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY  11 


1814  several  of  the  New  England  States,  where  the  opposition 
to  the  war  then  being  waged  with  England  was  strongest,  sent 
delegates  to  a  convention  at  Hartford,  which,  while  discussing  the 
best  means  for  putting  an  end  to  the  war  and  restricting  the 
powers  of  Congress  in  commercial  legislation,  was  suspected  of 
meditating  a  secession  of  the  trading  States  from  the  Union. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Republicans  did  not  hesitate  to  stretch 
to  their  utmost,  when  they  were  themselves  in  power,  all  the 
authority  which  the  Constitution  could  be  construed  to  allow 
to  the  Executive  and  the  Federal  government  generally.  The 
boldest  step  which  a  president  has  ever  taken,  the  purchase 
from  Napoleon  of  the  vast  territories  of  France  west  of  the 
Mississippi  which  went  by  the  name  of  Louisiana,  was  taken 
by  Jefferson  without  the  authority  of  Congress.  Congress  sub¬ 
sequently  gave  its  sanction.  But  Jefferson  and  many  of  his 
friends  held  that  under  the  Constitution  even  Congress  had  not 
the  power  to  acquire  new  territories  to  be  formed  into  States. 
They  were  therefore  in  the  dilemma  of  either  violating  the  Con¬ 
stitution  or  losing  a  golden  opportunity  of  securing  the  Republic 
against  the  growth  on  its  western  frontier  of  a  powerful  and 
possibly  hostile  foreign  State.  Some  of  them  tried  to  refute  their 
former  arguments  against  a  lax  construction  of  the  Constitution, 
but  many  others  avowed  the  dangerous  doctrine  that  if  Louisi¬ 
ana  could  be  brought  in  only  by  breaking  down  the  walls  of  the 
Constitution,  broken  they  must  be.1 

The  disappearance  of  the  Federal  party  between  1815  and 
1820  left  the  Republicans  masters  of  the  field.  But  in  the 
United  States  if  old  parties  vanish,  nature  quickly  produces  new 
ones.  Sectional  divisions  soon  arose  among  the  men  who  joined 
in  electing  Monroe  in  1820,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  personal 
hostility  of  Henry  Clay  and  Andrew  Jackson  (chosen  Presi¬ 
dent  in  1828),  two  great  parties  were  again  formed  (about  1830) 
which  some  few  years  later  absorbed  the  minor  groups.  One 
of  these  two  parties  carried  on,  under  the  name  of  Democrats, 
the  dogmas  and  traditions  of  the  Jeffersonian  Republicans.  It 
was  the  defender  of  State  rights  and  of  a  restrictive  construc- 

1  It  is  now  generally  held  that  the  Constitution  does  permit  the  Federal 
government  to  acquire  the  new  territory,  and  Congress  to  form  States  out  of 
it.  Many  of  the  Federalist  leaders  warmly  opposed  the  purchase,  but  the  far- 
seeing  patriotism  of  Hamilton  defended  it. 

See  upon  this  subject  the  so-called  Insular  Cases,  1900-1901,  182  U.  S.  Re¬ 
ports,  pp.  222,  244,  and  540,  and  183  U.  S.  Reports,  p.  151. 


12 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


tion  of  the  Constitution  ;  it  leant  mainly  on  the  South  and  the 
-  farming  classes  generally,  and  it  was  therefore  inclined  to  free 
trade.  The  other  section,  which  called  itself  at  first  the  National 
Republican,  ultimately  the  Whig  party,  represented  many  of  the 
views  of  the  former  Federalists,  such  as  their  advocacy  of  a 
tariff  for  the  protection  of  manufactures,  and  of  the  expenditure 
of  public  money  on  internal  improvements.  It  was  willing  to 
increase  the  army  and  navy,  and  like  the  Federalists  found  its 
chief,  though  by  no  means  its  sole,  support  in  the  commercial  and 
manufacturing  parts  of  the  country,  that  is  to  say,  in  New 
England  and  the  middle  States.  Meantime  a  new  question 
far  more  exciting,  far  more  menacing,  had  arisen.  In  1819, 
when  Missouri  applied  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a  State, 
^  a  sharp  contest  broke  out  in  Congress  as  to  whether  slavery 
should  be  permitted  within  her  limits,  nearly  all  the  Northern 
members  voting  against  slavery,  nearly  all  the  Southern  members . 
for  it.  The  struggle  might  have  threatened  the  stability  of  the 
Union  but  for  the  compromise  adopted  next  year,  which,  while 
admitting  slavery  in  Missouri,  forbade  it  for  the  future  north  of 
lat.  36°  30'.  The  danger  seemed  to  have  passed,  but  in  its  very 
suddenness  there  had  been  something  terrible.  Jefferson,  then 
over  seventy,  said  that  it  startled  him  “like  a  fire-bell  in  the 
night.”  After  1840  things  grew  more  serious,  for  whereas  up 
till  that  time  new  States  had  been  admitted  substantially 
in  pairs,  a  slave  State  balancing  a  free  State,  it  began  to  be  clear 
that  this  must  shortly  cease,  since  the  remaining  territory  out  of 
which  new  States  could  be  formed  lay  north  of  the  line  36°  30'. 
As  every  State  held  two  seats  in  the  Senate,  the  then  existing 
balance  in  that  chamber  between  slave  States  and  free  States, 
would  evidently  soon  be  overset  by  the  admission  of  a  larger 
number  of  the  latter.  The  apprehension  of  this  event,  with 
its  probable  result  of  legislation  unfriendly  to  slavery,  stimu¬ 
lated  the  South  to  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  the  war  with 
Mexico  which  led  to  further  annexations,  and  made  them  in¬ 
creasingly  sensitive  to  the  growth,  slow  as  that  growth  was, 
of  Abolitionist  opinions  at  the  North.  The  question  of  the 
extension  of  slavery  west  of  the  Missouri  river  had  become 
by  1850  the  vital  and  absorbing  question  for  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  as  in  that  year  California,  having  organized 
herself  without  slavery,  was  knocking  at  the  doors  of  Congress 
for  admission  as  a  State,  it  had  become  an  urgent  question  which 


chap,  liii  POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY  13 


evoked  the  hottest  passions,  and  the  victors  in  which  would  be 
victors  all  along  the  line.  But  neither  of  the  two  great  parties 
ventured  to  commit  itself  either  way.  The  Southern  Democrats 
hesitated  to  break  with  those  Democrats  of  the  Northern  States 
who  sought  to  restrict  slavery.  The  Whigs  of  the  North,  fearing 
to  alienate  their  Southern  allies  by  any  decided  action  against 
the  growing  pretensions  of  the  slave-holders,  temporized  and 
suggested  compromises  which  practically  served  the  cause  of 
slavery.  Anxious  to  save  at  all  hazards  the  Union  as  it  had  hith¬ 
erto  stood,  they  did  not  perceive  that  changes  of  circumstances 
and  feeling  were  making  this  effort  a  hopeless  one,  and  that  in 
trying  to  keep  their  party  together  they  were  losing  hold  of  the 
people,  and  alienating  from  themselves  the  men  who  cared  for 
principle  in  politics.  That  this  was  so  presently  appeared.  The 
Democratic  party  had  by  1852  passed  almost  completely  under 
the  control  of  the  slave-holders,  and  was  adopting  the  dogma 
that  Congress  enjoyed  under  the  Constitution  no  power  to  pro¬ 
hibit  slavery  in  the  territories.  This  dogma  obviously  over¬ 
threw  as  unconstitutional  the  Missouri  compromise  of  1820. 
The  Whig  leaders  discredited  themselves  by  Henry  Clay’s  com¬ 
promise  scheme  of  1850,  which,  while  admitting  California  as 
a  free  State,  appeased  the  South  by  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 
They  received  a  crushing  defeat  at  the  presidential  election  of 
1852  ;  and  what  remained  of  their  party  finally  broke  in  pieces 
in  1854  over  the  bill  for  organizing  Kansas  as  a  territory  in  which 
the  question  of  slaves  or  no  slaves  should  be  left  to  the  people, 
a  bill  which  expressly  repealed  the  Missouri  compromise.  Sin¬ 
gularly  enough,  the  two  great  orators  of  the  party,  Henry  Clay 
and  Daniel  Webster,  both  died  in  1852,  wearied  with  strife  and 
disappointed  in  their  ambition  of  reaching  the  presidential  chair. 
Together  with  Calhoun,  who  passed  away  two  years  earlier, 
they  are  the  ornaments  of  their  generation,  not  indeed  rising  to 
the  stature  of  Washington  or  Hamilton,  but  more  remarkable 
than  any,  save  one,  among  the  statesmen  who  followed  them. 
With  them  ends  the  second  period  in  the  annals  of  American 
parties,  which,  extending  from  about  1820  to  1856,  includes  the 
rise  and  fall  of  the  Whig  party.  Most  of  the  controversies  which 
filled  it  have  become  matter  for  history  only.  But  three  large 
results,  besides  the  general  democratization  of  politics,  stand  out. 
One  is  the  detachment  of  the  United  States  from  the  affairs  of 
the  Old  World.  Another  is  the  growth  of  a  sense  of  national  life, 


14 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


especially  in  the  Northern  and  Western  States,  along  with  the 
growth  at  the  same  time  of  a  secessionist  spirit  among  the 
slave-holders.  And  the  third  is  the  development  of  the  complex 
machinery  of  party  organization,  with  the  adoption  of  the 
principle  on  which  that  machinery  so  largely  rests,  that  public 
office  is  to  be  enjoyed  only  by  the  adherents  of  the  President  for 
the  time  being. 

The  Whig  party  having  begun  to  fall  to  pieces,  the  Democrats 
seemed  to  be  for  the  moment,  as  they  had  been  once  before,  left 
in  possession  of  the  field.  But  this  time  a  new  antagonist  was 
swift  to  appear.  The  growing  boldness  of  the  slave-owners  had 
already  alarmed  the  Northern  people  when  they  were  startled 
by  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  pronounced  early  in  1857  in 
the  case  of  the  slave  Dred  Scott,  which  laid  down  the  doctrine 
that  Congress  had  no  power  to  forbid  slavery  anywhere,  and  that 
a  slave-holder  might  carry  his  slaves  with  him  whither  he  pleased, 
seeing  that  they  were  mere  objects  of  property,  whose  posses¬ 
sion  the  Constitution  guaranteed.1  This  completed  the  for¬ 
mation  out  of  the  wrecks  of  the  Whigs  and  Know-nothings, 
or  “American  party,”  together  with  the  Free  Soilers  and 
“Liberty”  party,  of  a  new  party,  which  in  1856  had  run  Fremont 
as  its  presidential  candidate  and  taken  the  name  of  Republican. 
At  the  same  time  an  apple  of  discord  was  thrown  among  the  • 
Democrats.  In  1860  the  latter  could  not  agree  upon  a  candidate 
for  President.  The  Southern  wing  pledged  themselves  to  one 
man,  the  Northern  wing  to  another  ;  a  body  of  hesitating  and 
semi-detached  politicians  put  forward  a  third.  Thus  the  Repub¬ 
licans  through  the  divisions  of  their  opponents  triumphed  in  the 
election  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  presently  followed  by  the  secession 
of  eleven  slave  States. 

The  Republican  party,  which  had  started  by  proclaiming  the 
right  of  Congress  to  restrict  slavery  and  had  subsequently  de¬ 
nounced  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  was  of  course  throughout  the 
Civil  War  the  defender  of  the  Union  and  the  assertor  of  Federal 
authority,  stretched,  as  was  unavoidable,  to  lengths  previously 
unheard  of.  When  the  war  was  over,  there  came  the  difficult 
task  of  reconstructing  the  now  reconquered  slave  States,  and  of 
securing  the  position  in  them  of  the  lately  liberated  negroes. 
The  outrages  perpetrated  on  the  latter,  and  on  white  settlers  in 

1  This  broad  doctrine  was  not  necessary  for  the  decision  of  the  case,  but 
delivered  as  an  obiter  dictum  by  the  majority  of  the  court. 


chap,  liii  POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY  15 


some  parts  of  the  South,  required  further  exertions  of  Federal 
authority,  and  made  the  question  of  the  limit  of  that  authority 
still  a  practical  one,  for  the  old  Democratic  party,  almost 
silenced  during  the  war,  had  now  reappeared  in  full  force  as 
the  advocate  of  State  rights,  and  the  watchful  critic  of  any  undue 
stretches  of  Federal  authority.  It  was  deemed  necessary  to 
negative  the  Dred  Scott  decision  and  set  at  rest  all  questions 
relating  to  slavery  and  to  the  political  equality  of  the  races  by 
the  adoption  of  three  important  amendments  to  the  Constitution. 
The  troubles  of  the  South  slowly  settled  down  as  the  South¬ 
ern  whites  regained  possession  of  the  State  governments  and 
the  Northern  troops  began  to  be  withdrawn.  In  the  presi¬ 
dential  election  of  1876  the  war  question  and  negro  question 
had  become  dead  issues,  for  it  was  plain  that  a  large  and 
increasing  number  of  the  voters  were  no  longer,  despite  the 
appeals  of  the  Republican  leaders,  seriously  concerned  about 
them. 

This  election  marks  the  close  of  the  third  period,  which  em¬ 
braces  the  rise  and  overwhelming  predominance  of  the  Republi¬ 
can  party.  Formed  to  resist  the  extension  of  slavery,  led  on  to 
destroy  it,  compelled  by  circumstances  to  expand  the  central 
authority  in  a  way  unthought  of  before,  that  party  had  now 
worked  out  its  programme  and  fulfilled  its  original  mission. 
The  old  aims  were  accomplished,  but  new  ones  had  not  yet  been 
substituted,  for  though  new  problems  had  appeared,  the  party 
was  not  prepared  with  solutions.  Similarly  the  Democratic 
party  had  discharged  its  mission  in  defending  the  rights  of  the 
reconstructed  States,  and  criticising  excesses  of  executive  power  ; 
similarly  it  too  had  refused  to  grapple  either  with  the  fresh  ques¬ 
tions  which  had  begun  to  arise  since  the  war,  or  with  those  older 
questions  which  had  now  reappeared  above  the  subsiding  flood 
of  war  days.  The  old  parties  still  stood  as  organizations,  and 
still  claimed  to  be  the  exponents  of  principles.  Their  respective 
principles  had,  however,  little  direct  application  to  the  questions 
which  confronted  and  divided  the  nation.  A  new  era  was  open¬ 
ing  which  called  either  for  the  evolution  of  new  parties,  or  for  the 
transformation  of  the  old  ones  by  the  adoption  of  tenets  and 
the  advocacy  of  views  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  time.  But  this 
fourth  period,  which  began  with  1876,  has  not  yet  seen  such  a 
transformation,  and  we  shall  therefore  find,  when  we  come  to 
examine  the  existing  state  of  parties,  that  there  is  an  unreality  and 


16 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


lack  of  vital  force  in  both  Republicans  and  Democrats,  powerful 
as  their  organizations  are. 

The  foregoing  sketch,  given  only  for  the  sake  of  explaining 
the  present  condition  of  parties,  suggests  some  observations 
on  the  foundations  of  party  in  America. 

If  we  look  over  Europe,  we  shall  find  that  the  grounds  on  which 
parties  have  been  built  and  contests  waged  since  the  beginning 
of  free  governments  have  been  in  substance  but  few.  In  the 
hostility  of  rich  and  poor,  or  of  capital  and  labour,  in  the  fears  of 
the  Haves  and  the  desires  of  the  Have-nots,  we  perceive  the 
most  frequent  ground,  though  it  is  often  disguised  as  a  dispute 
about  the  extension  of  the  suffrage  or  some  other  civic  right. 
Questions  relating  to  the  tenure  of  land  have  played  a  large  part ; 
so  have  questions  of  religion  ;  so  too  have  animosities  or  jealous¬ 
ies  of  race;  and  of  course  the -form  of  government,  whether  it 
shall  be  a  monarchy  or  a  republic,  has  sometimes  been  in  dispute. 
None  of  these  grounds  of  quarrel  substantially  affected  American 
parties  during  the  three  periods  we  have  been  examining.  No 
one  has  ever  advocated  monarchy,  or  a  restricted  suffrage,  or  a 
unified  instead  of  a  Federal  republic.  Nor  down  to  1876  was 
there  ever  any  party  which  could  promise  more  to  the  poor  than 
its  opponents.  In  1852  the  Know-nothing  party  came  forward 
as  the  organ  of  native  American  opinion  against  recent  immi¬ 
grants,  then  still  chiefly  the  Irish  (though  German  immigration 
had  begun  to  swell  from  1849  onwards),  and  the  not  unnatural 
tendency  to  resent  the  power  of  foreign-born  voters  has  some¬ 
times  since  appeared  in  various  parts  of  the  country.  But  as  this 
‘  American’  party,  for  a  time  powerful  by  the  absorption  of  many 
of  the  Whigs,  failed  to  face  the  problem  of  slavery,  and  roused 
jealousy  by  its  secret  organization,  it  soon  passed  away,  though 
it  deserves  to  be  remembered  as  a  force  disintegrating  the  then 
existing  parties.  The  complete  equality  of  all  sects,  with  the 
perfect  neutrality  of  the  government  in  religious  matters,  has 
fortunately  kept  religious  passion  outside  the  sphere  of  politics. 
The  only  exceptions  to  be  noted  are  the  occasionally  recurring 
(though  latterly  less  vehement)  outbreaks  of  hostility  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  Nor  would  these  outbreaks  have 
attained  political  importance  but  for  the  strength  added  to  them 
by  the  feeling  of  the  native  against  the  foreigner.  They  have 
been  most  serious  at  times  when  and  in  places  where  there  has 
been  an  influx  of  immigrants  from  Europe  large  enough  to  seem 


chap,  liii  POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY  17 


to  threaten  the  dominance  of  American  ideas  and  the  permanence 
of  American  institutions. 

Have  the  American  parties  then  been  formed  only  upon  nar¬ 
row  and  local  bases,  have  they  contended  for  transient  objects, 
and  can  no  deeper  historical  meaning,  no  longer  historical  con¬ 
tinuity,  be  claimed  for  them  ? 

Two  permanent  oppositions  may,  I  think,  be  discerned  running 
through  the  history  of  the  parties,  sometimes  openly  recognized, 
sometimes  concealed  by  the  urgency  of  a  transitory  question. 
One  of  these  is  the  opposition  between  a  centralized  or  unitary 
and  a  federalized  government.  In  every  country  there  are  centrif¬ 
ugal  and  centripetal  forces  at  work,  the  one  or  the  other  of  which 
is  for  the  moment  the  stronger.  There  has  seldom  been  a  coun¬ 
try  in  which  something  might  not  have  been  gained,  in  the  way 
of  good  administration  and  defensive  strength,  by  a  greater 
concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  central  government, 
enabling  it  to  do  things  which  local  bodies,  or  a  more  restricted 
central  government,  could  not  do  equally  cheaply  or  well. 
Against  this  gain  there  is  always  to  be  set  the  danger  that  such 
concentration  may  weaken  the  vitality  of  local  communities 
and  authorities,  and  may  enable  the  central  power  to  stunt  their 
development.  Sometimes  needs  of  the  former  kind*  are  more 
urgent,  or  the  sentiment  of  the  people  tends  to  magnify  them  ; 
sometimes  again  the  centrifugal  forces  obtain  the  upper  hand. 
English  history  shows  several  such  alternations.  But  in  America 
the  Federal  form  of  government  has  made  this  permanent  and 
natural  opposition  specially  conspicuous.  The  salient  feature 
of  the  Constitution  is  the  effort  it  makes  to  establish  an  equipoise 
between  the  force  which  would  carry  the  planet  States  off  into 
space  and  the  force  which  would  draw  them  into  the. sun  of  the 
National  government.  There  have  always  therefore  been  minds 
inclined  to  take  sides  upon  this  fundamental  question,  and  a  party 
has  always  had  something  definite  and  weighty  to  appeal  to  when 
it  claims  to  represent  either  the  autonomy  of  communities  on  the 
one  hand,  or  the  majesty  and  beneficent  activity  of  the  National 
government  on  the  other.  The  former  has  been  the  watchword 
of  the  Democratic  party.  The  latter  was  seldom  distinctly 
avowed,  but  was  generally  in  fact  represented  by  the  Federalists 
of  the  first  period,  the  Whigs  of  the  second,  the  Republicans  of 
the  third. 

The  other  opposition,  though  it  goes  deeper  and  is  more  per- 


18 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


vasive,  has  been  less  clearly  marked  in  America,  and  less  con¬ 
sciously  admitted  by  the  Americans  themselves.  It  is  the  op¬ 
position  between  the  tendency  which  makes  some  men  prize 
the  freedom  of  the  individual  as  the  first  of  social  goods,  and  that 
which  disposes  others  to  insist  on  checking  and  regulating  his 
impulses.  The  opposition  of  these  two  tendencies,  the  love  of 
liberty  and  the  love  of  order,  is  permanent  and  necessary,  because 
it  springs  from  differences  in  the  intellect  and  feelings  of  men 
which  one  finds  in  all  countries  and  at  all  epochs.  There  are 
always  persons  who  are  struck  by  the  weakness  of  mankind, 
by  their  folly,  their  passion,  their  selfishness  ;  and  these  persons, 
distrusting  the  action  of  average  human  beings,  will  always  wish 
to  see  them  guided  by  wise  heads  and  restrained  by  strong  hands. 
Such  guidance  seems  the  best  means  of  progress,  such  restraint 
the  only  means  of  security.  Those  on  the  other  hand  who  think 
better  of  human  nature,  and  have  more  hope  in  their  own  tempers, 
hold  the  impulses  of  the  average  man  to  be  generally  towards 
justice  and  peace.  They  have  faith  in  the  power  of  reason  to 
conquer  ignorance,  and  of  generosity  to  overbear  selfishness. 
They  are  therefore  disposed  to  leave  the  individual  alone,  and  to 
entrust  the  masses  with  power.  Every  sensible  man  feels  in 
himself  th&  struggle  between  these  two  tendencies,  and  is  on  his 
guard  not  to  yield  wholly  to  either,  because  the  one  degenerates 
into  tyranny,  the  other  into  an  anarchy  out  of  which  tyranny  will 
eventually  spring.  The  wisest  statesman  is  he  who  best  holds 
the  balance  between  them. 

Each  of  these  tendencies  found  among  the  fathers  of  the 
American  Republic  a  brilliant  and  characteristic  representative. 
Hamilton,  who  had  a  low  opinion  of  mankind,  but  a  gift  and  a 
passion  for  large  constructive  statesmanship,  went  so  far  in  his 
advocacy  of  a  strong  government  as  to  be  suspected  of  wishing 
to  establish  a  monarchy  after  the  British  pattern.  He  has  left 
on  record  his  opinion  that  the  free  constitution  of  England,- 
which  he  admired  in  spite  of  the  faults  he  clearly  saw,  could  not 
be  worked  without  its  corruptions.1  Jefferson  carried  further 
than  any  other  person  set  in  an  equally  responsible  place  has 
ever  done,  his  faith  that  government  is  either  needless  or  an 
evil,  and  that  with  enough  liberty,  everything  will  go  well.  An 
insurrection  every  few  years,  he  said,  must  be  looked  for,  and 

1  David  Hume  had  made  the  same  remark,  natural  at  a  time  when  the  power 
of  Parliament  was  little  checked  by  responsibility  to  the  people. 


chap,  liii  POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND  THEIR  HISTORY  19 


even  desired,  to  keep  government  in  order.  The  Jeffersonian 
tendency  long  remained,  like  a  leaven,  in  the  Democratic  party, 
though  in  applying  Jeffersonian  doctrines  the  slave-holders 
stopped  when  they  came  to  a  black  skin.  Among  the  Federalists, 
and  their  successors  the  Whigs,  and  the  more  recent  Republicans, 
there  has  never  been  wanting  a  full  faith  in  the  power  of  freedom. 
The  Republicans  gave  an  amazing  proof  of  it  when  they  bestowed 
the  suffrage  on  the  negroes.  N either  they  nor  any  American  party 
has  ever  professed  itself  the  champion  of  authority  and  order. 
That  would  be  a  damaging  profession.  Nevertheless,  it  is  rather 
towards  what  I  may  perhaps  venture  to  call  the  Federalist-Whig- 
Republican  party  than  towards  the  Democrats  that  those  who 
have  valued  the  principle  of  authority  have  been  generally 
drawn.  It  is  for  that  party  that  the  Puritan  spirit,  once  power¬ 
ful  in  America,  felt  the  greater  affinity,  for  this  spirit,  having 
realized  the  sinfulness  of  human  nature,  is  inclined  to  train  and 
control  the  natural  man  by  laws  and  force. 

The  tendency  that  makes  for  a  strong  government  being  akin 
to  that  which  makes  for  a  central  government,  the  Federalist- 
Whig-Republican  party,  which  has,  through  its  long  history, 
and  under  its  varying  forms  and  names,  been  the  advocate  of 
the  national  principle,  found  itself  for  this  reason  also  led,  more 
frequently  than  the  Democrats,  to  exalt  the  rights  and  powers  of 
government.  It  might  be  thought  that  the  same  cause  would 
have  made  the  Republican  party  take  sides  in  that  profound 
opposition  which  we  perceive  to-day  in  all  civilized  peoples, 
between  the  tendency  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  legislation  and 
State  action,  and  the  doctrine  of  laissez  faire.  So  far,  however, 
this  has  not  happened.  There  may  seem  to  be  more  in  the 
character  and  temper  of  the  Republicans  than  of  the  Democrats 
that  leans  towards  State  interference.  But  when  the  question 
arises  in  a  concrete  instance  neither  party  is  much  more  likely 
than  the  other  to  oppose  such  interference.  Federal  control  has 
been  more  frequently  and  further  extended  through  legislation 
passed  by  Republican  Congresses.  But  that  has  happened  largely 
because  the  Republicans  have,  since  the  Civil  War,  possessed  ma¬ 
jorities  much  more  often  than  have  the  Democrats,  so  that  when 
the  need  for  legislation  arose,  it  fell  to  the  former  to  meet  that 
need.  Neither  party  has  thought  out  the  subject  in  its  general 
bearings  ;  neither  has  shown  any  more  definiteness  of  policy  re¬ 
garding  it  than  the  Tories  and  the  Liberals  have  done  in  England. 


20 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


American  students  of  history  may  think  that  I  have  pressed 
the  antithesis  of  liberty  and  authority,  as  well  as  that  of  centrif¬ 
ugal  and  centripetal  tendencies,  somewhat  too  far  in  making 
one  party  a  representative  of  each  through  the  first  century  of 
the  Republic.  I  do  not  deny  that  at  particular  moments  the 
party  which  was  usually  disposed  towards  a  strong  government 
resisted  and  decried  authority,  while  the  party  which  specially 
professed  itself  the  advocate  of  liberty  sought  to  make  authority 
more  stringent.  Such  deviations  are  however  compatible  with 
the  general  tendencies  I  have  described.  And  no  one  who  has 
gained  even  a  slight  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  United 
States  will  fall  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  the  words  Order 
and  Authority  mean  there  what  they  have  meant  in  the  mon¬ 
archies  of  Continental  Europe. 


CHAPTER  LIV 


THE  PARTIES  OF  TO-DAY 

There  are  now  two  great  and  several  minor  parties  in  the 
United  States.  The  great  parties  are  the  Republicans  and  the 
Democrats.  What  are  their  principles,  their  distinctive  tenets, 
their  tendencies  ?  Which  of  them  is  for  tariff  reform,  for  the 
further  extension  of  civil  service  reform,  for  a  spirited  foreign 
policy,  for  the  regulation  of  railroads  and  telegraphs  by  legis¬ 
lation,  for  changes  in  the  currency,  for  any  other  of  the  twenty 
issues  which  one  hears  discussed  in  the  country  as  seriously  in¬ 
volving  its  welfare  ? 

This  is  what  a  European  is  always  asking  of  intelligent 
Republicans  and  intelligent  Democrats.  He  is  always  asking 
because  he  never  gets  an  answer.  The  replies  leave  him  in  deeper 
perplexity.  After  some  months  the  truth  begins  to  dawn  upon 
him.  Neither  party  has,  as  a  party,  anything  definite  to  say 
on  these  issues  ;  neither  party  has  any  clean-cut  principles,  any 
distinctive  tenets.  Both  have  traditions.  Both  claim  to  have 
tendencies.  Both  have  certainly  war  cries,  organizations,  inter¬ 
ests,  enlisted  in  their  support.  But  those  interests  are  in  the 
main  the  interests  of  getting  or  keeping  the  patronage  of  the 
government.  Tenets  and  policies,  points  of  political  doctrine 
and  points  of  political  practice,  have  all  but  vanished.  They 
have  not  been  thrown  away,  but  have  been  stripped  away  by 
Time  and  the  progress  of  events,  fulfilling  some  policies,  blot¬ 
ting  out  others.  All  has  been  lost,  except  office  or  the  hope 
of  it. 

The  phenomenon  may  be  illustrated  from  the  case  of  England, 
where  party  government  has  existed  longer  and  in  a  more  fully 
developed  form  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  Old  World.1  The 

1  English  parties  are  however  not  very  ancient ;  they  date  only  from  the 
struggle  of  the  Stuart  kings  with  the  Puritan  and  popular  party  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  did  not  take  regular  shape  as  Whigs  and  Tories  till  the  reign 
of  Charles  II. 


21 


22 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


essence  of  the  English  parties  has  lain  in  the  existence’  of  two 
sets  of  views  and  tendencies  which  divide  the  nation  into  two 
sections,  the  party,  let  us  say,  though  these  general  terms  are 
not  very  safe,  and  have  been  less  applicable  in  recent  years  than 
they  were  down  to  1874,  of  movement  and  the  party  of  standing 
still,  the  party  of  liberty  and  the  party  of  order.  Each  section 
believes  in  its  own  views,  and  is  influenced  by  its  peculiar  ten¬ 
dencies,  recollections,  mental  associations,  to  deal  in  its  own 
peculiar  way  with  every  new  question  as  it  comes  up.  The 
particular  dogmas  may  change  :  doctrines  once  held  by  Whigs 
alone  may  now  be  held  by  Tories  also  ;  doctrines  which  Whigs 
would  have  rejected  seventy  years  ago  may  now  be  part  of  the 
orthodox  programme  of  the  Liberal  party.  But  the  tendencies 
have  been  permanent  and  have  always  so  worked  upon  the 
various  fresh  questions  and  problems  which  have  presented 
themselves  during  the  last  two  centuries,  that  each  party  has 
had  not  only  a  brilliant  concrete  life  in  its  famous  leaders  and 
zealous  members,  but  also  an  intellectual  and  moral  life  in  its 
principles.  These  principles  have  meant  something  to  those 
who  held  them,  so  that  when  a  fresh  question  arose  it  was 
usually  possible  to  predict  how  each  party,  how  even  the  aver¬ 
age  members  of  each  party,  would  regard  and  wish  to  deal  with 
it.  Thus,  even  when  the  leaders  have  been  least  worthy  and 
their  aims  least  pure,  an  English  party  has  felt  itself  ennobled 
and  inspirited  by  the  sense  that  it  had  great  objects  to  fight 
for,  a  history  and  traditions  which  imposed  on  it  the  duty  of 
battling  for  its  distinctive  principles.  It  is  because  issues  have 
never  been  lacking  which  brought  these  respective  principles 
into  operation,  forcing  the  one  party  to  maintain  the  cause  of 
order  and  existing  institutions,  the  other  that  of  freedom  and 
what  was  deemed  progress,  that  the  two  English  parties  have 
not  degenerated  into  mere  factions.  Their  struggles  for  office 
have  been  redeemed  from  selfishness  by  the  feeling  that  office 
was  a  means  of  giving  practical  effect  to  their  doctrines. 

But  suppose  that  in  Britain  all  the  questions  which  divide 
Tories  from  Liberals  were  to  be  suddenly  settled  and  done  with. 
Britain  would  be  in  a  difficulty.  Her  free  government  has  so 
long  been  worked  by  the  action  and  reaction  of  the  ministeri¬ 
alists  and  the  opposition  that  there  would  probably  continue  to 
be  two  parties.  But  they  would  not  be  really,  in  the  true  old 
sense  of  the  terms,  Tories  and  Liberals ;  they  would  be  merely 


CHAP.  LIV 


THE  PARTIES  OF  TO-DAY 


23 


Ins  and  Outs.  Their  combats  would  be  waged  hardly  even  in 
name  for  principles,  but  only  for  place.  The  government  of 
the  country,  with  the  honour,  power,  and  emoluments  attached 
to  it,  would  still  remain  as  a  prize  to  be  contended  for.  The 
followers  would  still  rally  to  the  leaders  ;  and  friendship  would 
still  bind  the  members  together  into  organized  bodies  ;  while 
dislike  and  suspicion  would  still  arouse  them  against  their  former 
adversaries.  Thus  not  only  the  leaders,  -who  would  have  some¬ 
thing  tangible  to  gain,  but  even  others,  who  had  only  their  feel¬ 
ings  to  gratify,  would  continue  to  form  political  clubs,  register 
voters,  deliver  party  harangues,  contest  elections,  just  as  they 
do  now.  The  difference  would  be  that  each  faction  would  no 
longer  have  broad  principles  —  I  will  not  say  to  invoke,  for  such 
principles  would  probably  continue  to  be  invoked  as  hereto¬ 
fore  —  but  to  insist  on  applying  as  distinctively  its  principles 
to  the  actual  needs  of  the  state.  Hence  quiet  or  fastidious  men 
would  not  join  in  party  struggles  ;  while  those  who  did  join 
would  no  longer  be  stimulated  by  the  sense  that  they  were  con¬ 
tending  for  something  ideal.  Loyalty  to  a  leader  whom  it  was 
sought  to  make  prime  minister  would  be  a  poor  substitute  for 
loyalty  to  a  faith.  If  there  were  no  conspicuous  leader,  attach¬ 
ment  to  the  party  would  degenerate  either  into  mere  hatred 
of  antagonists  or  into  a  struggle  over  places  and  salaries.  And 
almost  the  same  phenomena  would  be  seen  if,  although  the  old 
issues  had  not  been  really  determined,  both  the  parties  should 
have  so  far  abandoned  their  former  positions  that  these  issues 
did  not  divide  them,  so  that  each  professed  principles  which 
were,  even  if  different  in  formal  statement,  practicably  indis¬ 
tinguishable  in  their  application. 

This,  which  conceivably  may  happen  in  England  under  her 
new  political  conditions,  is  what  has  happened  with  the  American 
parties.  The  chief  practical  issues  which  once  divided  them  have 
been  settled.  Some  others  have  not  been  settled,  but  as  regards 
these,  one  or  other  party  has  so  departed  from  its  former  attitude 
that  we  cannot  now  speak  of  any  conflict  of  principles. 

When  life  leaves  an  organic  body  it  becomes  useless,  fetid, 
pestiferous  :  it  is  fit  to  be  cast  out  or  buried  from  sight.  What 
life  is  to  an  organism,  principles  are  to  a  party.  When  they 
which  are  its  soul  have  vanished,  its  body  ought  to  dissolve, 
and  the  elements  that  formed  it  be  regrouped  in  some  new  organ¬ 
ism  : 


24 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


“  The  times  have  been 

That  when  the  brains  were  out  the  man  would  die.” 

But  a  party  does  not  always  thus  die.  It  may  hold  together 
long  after  its  moral  life  is  extinct.  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines  warred 
in  Italy  for  nearly  two  centuries  after  the  Emperor  had  ceased 
to  threaten  the  Pope,  or  the  Pope  to  befriend  the  cities  of  Lom¬ 
bardy.  Parties  go  on  contending  because  their  members  have 
formed  habits  of  joint  action,  and  have  contracted  hatreds  and 
prejudices,  and  also  because  the  leaders  find  their  advantage  in 
using  these  habits  and  playing  on  these  prejudices.  The  Amer¬ 
ican  parties  now  continue  to  exist,  because  they  have  existed. 
The  mill  has  been  constructed,  and  its  machinery  goes  on  turning, 
even  when  there  is  no  grist  to  grind.  But  this  is  not  wholly  the 
fault  of  the  men  ;  for  the  system  of  government  requires  and 
implies  parties,  just  as  that  of  England  does.  These  systems 
are  made  to  be  worked,  and  always  have  been  worked,  by  a 
majority ;  a  majority  must  be  cohesive,  gathered  into  a  united 
and  organized  body  :  such  a  body  is  a  Party. 

When  an  ordinary  Northern  Democrat  was  asked,  say  about 
1880,  to  characterize  the  two  parties,  he  used  to  say  that  the 
Republicans  were  corrupt  and  incapable,  and  would  cite  in¬ 
stances  in  which  persons  prominent  in  that  party,  or  intimate 
friends  of  its  leaders,  had  been  concerned  in  frauds  on  the  gov¬ 
ernment  or  in  disgraceful  lobbying  transactions  in  Congress. 
Now  he  is  more  likely  to  allege  that  the  Republican  party  is  the 
party  of  the  rich,  influenced  by  the  great  corporations,  whereas 
the  Democrats  are  the  true  friends  of  the  people.  When  you 
press  him  for  some  distinctive  principles  separating  his  own 
party  from  theirs,  he  may  perhaps  refer  to  Jefferson,  and  say 
that  the  Democrats  are  the  protectors  of  State  rights  and  of 
local  independence,  and  the  Republicans  hostile  to  both.  If 
you  go  on  to  inquire  what  bearing  this  doctrine  of  State  rights 
has  on  any  presently  debated  issue,  he  may  admit  that,  for  the 
moment,  it  has  none,  but  will  insist  that  should  any  issue  in¬ 
volving  the  rights  of  the  States  arise,  his  party  will  be,  as  always, 
the  guardian  of  American  freedom. 

This  is  really  all  that  can  be  predicated  about  the  Democratic 
party.  If  a  question  involving  the  rights  of  a  State  against 
the  Federal  authority  were  to  emerge,  its  instinct  would  lead  it  to 
array  itself  on  the  side  of  the  State  rather  than  of  the  central 
government,  supposing  that  it  had  no  direct  motive  to  do  the 


CHAP.  LIV 


THE  PARTIES  OF  TO-DAY 


25 


opposite.  Seeing  that  at  no  point  of  time,  since  the  outbreak 
of  the  war,  except  in  the  Fifty-third  Congress  (1893-95),  has  it 
possessed  a  majority  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  as  well  as  the 
President  in  power,  its  devotion  to  this  principle  has  been  but 
slightly  tested,  and  might  not  resist  the  temptation  of  any 
interest  the  other  way.  However,  this  is  matter  of  speculation, 
for  at  present  the  States  fear  no  serious  infringement  of  their 
rights.  So  conversely  of  the  Republicans.  Their  traditions 
ought  to  dispose  them  to  support  Federal  power  against  the 
States,  but  their  action  in  a  concrete  case  would  probably  depend 
on  whether  their  party  was  at  the  time  in  condition  to  use  that 
power  for  its  own  purposes.  If  they  were  in  a  minority  in  Con¬ 
gress,  they  would  be  little  inclined  to- strengthen  Congress  against 
the  States.  The  simplest  way  of  proving  or  illustrating  this 
will  be  to  run  quickly  through  the  questions  of  present  practical 
interest. 

One  of  those  which  most  interests  the  people,  though  of  course 
not  all  the  people,  is  the  regulation  or  extinction  of  the  liquor 
traffic.  On  this  neither  party  has  committed  or  will  commit 
itself.  The  traditional  dogmas  of  neither  cover  it,  though  the 
Northern  Democrats  have  been  rather  more  disposed  to  leave 
men  to  themselves  than  the  Republicans,  and  rather  less  ame¬ 
nable  to  the  influence  of  ethical  sentiment.  Practically  for  both 
parties  the  point  of  consequence  is  what  they  can  gain  or  lose. 
Each  has  clearly  something  to  lose.  The  drinking  part  of  the 
population  is  chiefly  foreign.  Now  the  Irish  have  been  mainly 
Democrats,  so  the  Democratic  party  in  the  North  has  often 
feared  to  offend  them.  The  Germans  have  been  mainly  Repub¬ 
lican,  so  the  Republicans  are  in  some  districts  equally  bound 
over  to  caution.1  It  is  true  that  though  the  parties,  as  parties, 
have  been,  in  almost  all  States,  neutral  or  divided,  Temper¬ 
ance  men  are,  in  the  North  and  West,2  generally  Republicans, 
whiskey-men  and  saloon-keepers  generally  Democrats.  The 
Republicans  therefore  more  frequently  attempt  to  conciliate 
the  anti-liquor  party  by  flattering  phrases.  They  suffer  by  the 


1  Race  counts  for  much  less  in  politics  than  it  did  in  the  last  century. 

2  The  Southern  negroes  have  usually  voted  for  the  Republicans,  but  were 
frequently  opposed  to  restrictions  on  the  sale  of  liquor.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  better  class  of  Southern  whites,  who  are  of  course  Democrats,  are  largely 
Temperance  men,  and  many  States  have  now  either  prohibited  the  sale  of 
liquor  or  have  adopted  a  local  option  system,  under  which  each  county  decides 
whether  it  will  be  “wet”  or  “dry”  (i.e.  permit  or  forbid  the  sale  of  intoxicants). 


26 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


starting  of  a  Prohibitionist  candidate,  since  he  draws  more  voting 
strength  away  from  them  than  he  does  from  the  Democrats. 

Free  Trade  v.  Protection  was  another  burning  question,  and 
more  or  less  so  ever  since  the  early  days  of  the  Union.  The  old 
controversy  as  to  the  constitutional  right  of  Congress  to  impose 
a  tariff,  for  any  purpose  but  that  of  raising  revenue,  has  been 
laid  to  rest,  for  whether  the  people  in  1788  meant  or  did  not 
mean  to  confer  such  a  power,  it  has  been  exerted  for  so  many 
years,  and  on  so  superb  a  scale,  that  no  one  now  doubts  its  legal¬ 
ity.  Before  the  war  the  Democrats  were  advocates  of  a  tariff 
for  revenue  only,  i.e.  of  Free  Trade.  A  few  of  them  still  hold 
that  doctrine  in  its  fulness,  but  as  the  majority,  though  they 
have  frequently  declared  themselves  to  favour  a  reduction  of  the 
present  system  of  import  duties,  have  not  been  clear  upon  the 
general  principle,  the  party  trumpet  has  given  an  uncertain 
sound.  Moreover,  Pennsylvania  is  Protectionist  on  account  of 
its  iron  industries ;  several  Southern  States  have  leanings  that 
way  for  the  same  reason,  or  because  they  desire  high  import 
duties  on  their  own  products,  on  sugar  for  instance,  or  on  timber. 
Unwilling  to  alienate  the  Democrats  of  such  districts,  the  party 
has  generally  sought  to  remain  unpledged,  or,  at  least,  in  winking 
with  one  eye  to  the  men  of  the  North-west  and  South-east  who 
desired  to  reduce  the  tariff,  it  was  tempted  to  wink  with  the  other 
to  the  iron  men  of  Pittsburg  and  the  sugar  men  of  the  Far  South. 
Thus,  it  may  be  said  that  whatever  its  formal  declarations,  the 
Democratic  party  is  practically  divided  upon  the  tariff  issue. 
It  does  not,  any  more  than  do  the  Republicans,  avow  pure  Free 
Trade  principles,  and  though  the  Republicans  have  been  hereto¬ 
fore  the  high  tariff  party,  many  among  them  have  latterly  shown 
themselves  quite  as  desirous  of  seeing  reductions  made  in  the 
present  rates  as  are  the  “revisionist”  section  of  the  Democrats.1 

Civil  service  reform  long  received  the  lip  service  of  both  par¬ 
ties,  a  lip  service  expressed  by  both  with  equal  warmth,  and  by 
the  average  professional  politicians  of  both  with  equal  insincerity. 
Such  reforms  as  have  been  effected  in  the  mode  of  filling  up 
places,  were  either  forced  on  the  parties  by  public  opinion,  rather 
than  carried  through  by  either,  or  else  were  due  to  the  enlight¬ 
ened  views  of  individual  Presidents.  None  of  the  changes  made 

1  The  protective  tariff  has  struck  its  roots  so  deep  and  rallied  so  many  inter¬ 
ests  to  its  support  that  in  the  presidential  elections  of  1904  and  1908  the  general 
issue  of  “tariff  for  revenue  only’’  was  not  raised  at  all,  though  there  was  some 
talk  among  Republicans  and  more  among  Democrats  of  tariff  revision. 


CHAP.  LIV 


THE  PARTIES  OF  TO-DAY 


27 


—  and  they  are  among  the  most  beneficial  of  recent  changes  — 
raised  an  issue  between  the  parties.  The  best  men  in  both 
parties  have  supported  the  Civil  Service  Commission  and  would 
extend  the  scheme  still  further ;  the  worst  men  in  both  would 
gladly  get  rid  of  it. 

The  regulation  by  Federal  authority  of  railroads  carrying 
on  commerce  between  the  States  has  attracted  great  attention 
for  many  years.  Neither  party  has  had  anything  distinctive  to 
say  upon  it  in  the  way  either  of  advocacy  or  of  condemnation. 
Both  have  asserted  that  it  is  the  duty  of  railways  to  serve  the 
people,  and  not  to  tyrannize  over  or  defraud  them,  so  the  Inter- 
State  Commerce  Act  passed  in  1887  with  this  view  cannot  be 
called  a  party  measure.  The  discussion  of  the  subject  con¬ 
tinues,  and  while  some  have  urged  that  it  is  impossible  effectively 
to  regulate  inter-state  railroad  traffic  without  regulating  all 
railroad  traffic,  a  few  have  gone  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  the  Na¬ 
tional  government  ought  to  acquire  all  the  railroads  of  the  coun¬ 
try.  But  neither  party  is  committed  to  a  particular  line  of 
policy.  So  also  both  profess  themselves  eager  to  restrain  the 
abuse  of  their  powers  by  corporations,  and  to  put  an  end  to 
monopolies. 

Finances  have  on  the  whole  been  well  managed,  and  debt  paid 
off  with  surprising  speed.  But  there  have  been,  and  are  still, 
serious  problems  raised  by  the  condition  of  the  currency.  In 
1896  the  great  majority  of  the  Democratic  party  pledged  itself 
to  the  free  coinage  of  silver ;  but  a  section  important  by  its 
social  and  intellectual  influence  seceded  and  ran  a  candidate  of  its 
own.  The  schism  has  been  healed  by  the  dropping  of  the  free 
silver  issue,  but  the  reunited  party  has  no  distinctive  currency 
policy.  Neither  has  the  Republican  party,  though  it  also  ad¬ 
mits  that  some  legislation  on  the  subject  is  much  needed. 

So  too  as  regards  the  question  of  the  extension  and  govern¬ 
ment  of  territories  outside  the  North  American  Continent.  The 
Democratic  party  did  not  approve  the  acquisition  of  the  Philip¬ 
pines,  but  there  cannot  be  said  to  be  to-day  any  controversy 
between  it  and  the  Republicans  over  the  policy  to  be  followed 
there  and  in  Puerto  Rico. 

It  is  the  same  as  regards  questions  belonging  to  the  sphere 
of  State  politics,  such  as  woman  suffrage,  or  ballot  reform,  or 
child  labour,  or  an  eight-hour  law,  or  convict  labour.  Neither 
party  has  any  distinctive  attitude  on  these  matters ;  neither  is 


28 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


more  likely,  or  less  likely,  than  the  other  to  pass  a  measure  dealing 
with  them.  It  is  the  same  with  regard  to  the  general  doctrine 
of  laissez  f  aire  as  opposed  to  governmental  interference.  Neither 
Republicans  nor  Democrats  can  be  said  to  be  friends  or  foes  of 
State  interference  :  each  will  advocate  it  when  there  seems  a 
practically  useful  object  to  be  secured,  or  when  the  popular 
voice  seems  to  call  for  it.  It  is  the  same  with  foreign  policy. 
Both  parties  are  practically  agreed  not  only  as  to  the  general 
principles  which  ought  to  rule  the  conduct  of  the  country,  but  as 
to  the  application  of  these  principles.  Though  the  Democrats 
have  expressed  themselves  as  less  favourable  to  the  retention  of 
the  Philippines  than  have  the  Republicans,  that  question  is 
admitted  to  be  one  for  the  future,  not  for  the  present.  The 
party  which  opposes  the  President  may  at  any  given  moment  seek 
to  damage  him  by  defeating  some  particular  proposal  he  has 
made,  but  this  it  will  do  as  a  piece  of  temporary  strategy,  not 
in  pursuance  of  any  settled  doctrine. 

Yet  one  cannot  say  that  there  is  to-day  no  difference  between 
the  two  great  parties.  There  is  a  difference  of  spirit  or  senti¬ 
ment  perceptible  even  by  a  stranger  when,  after  having  mixed 
for  some  time  with  members  of  the  one  he  begins  to  mix  with  those 
of  the  other,  and  doubtless  more  patent  to  a  native  American. 
It  resembles  (though  it  is  less  marked  than)  the  difference  of 
tone  and  temper  between  Tories  and  Liberals  in  England.  The 
intellectual  view  of  a  Democrat  of  the  better  sort  has  been  not 
quite  the  same  as  that  of  his  Republican  compeer.  Each  of 
course  thinks  meanly  of  the  other ;  but  while  the  Democrat 
has  generally  deemed  the  Republican  “dangerous’/  (i.e.  likely 
to  undermine  the  Constitution),  the  Republican  was  more  apt 
to  think  the  Democrat  (at  least  in  the  North)  low  toned  or 
reckless.  So  in  England  your  Liberal  used  to  fasten  on  stupidity 
as  the  characteristic  fault  of  the  Tory,  while  the  Tory  suspected 
the  morals  and  religion  more  than  he  despised  the  intelligence 
of  the  Radical.  But  these  statements,  generally  true  of  Demo¬ 
crats  and  Republicans  from  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  till 
near  the  end  of  the  century,  have  latterly  been  less  applicable. 
There  is  still  a  contrast  between  the  larger  and  more  radical 
wing  of  the  Democratic  party  and  the  older  school  of  Republi¬ 
cans,  but  the  conservative  section  of  the  Democrats  differ  very 
little  from  the  conservative  Republicans  ;  and  there  are  radical 
Republicans  whose  views  are  shared  by  plenty  of  Democrats. 


CHAP.  LIV 


THE  PARTIES  OF  TO-DAY 


29 


This  approximation  seems  to  indicate  that  the  time  for  a  recon¬ 
struction  of  parties  is  approaching  ;  but  party  organizations  are 
strong  things,  and  often  interfere  with  the  course  of  natural 
evolution. 

It  cannot  be  charged  on  the  American  parties  that  they  have 
drawn  towards  one  another  by  forsaking  their  old  principles. 
It  is  time  that  has  changed  the  circumstances  of  the  country, 
and  made  those  old  principles  inapplicable.  An  eminent  jour¬ 
nalist  remarked  to  me  in  1908  that  the  two  great  parties  were 
like  two  bottles.  Each  bore  a  label  denoting  the  kind  of  liquor 
it  contained,  but  each  was  empty.  This  at  any  rate  may  be  said, 
that  the  parties  may  seem  to  have  erred  rather  by  having  clung 
too  long  to  out-worn  issues,  and  by  neglecting  to  discover  and 
work  out  new  principles  capable  of  solving  the  problems  which 
now  perplex  the  country.  In  a  country  so  full  of  change  and 
movement  as  America  new  questions  are  always  coming  up,  and 
must  be  answered.  New  troubles  surround  a  government, 
and  a  way  must  be  found  to  escape  from  them ;  new  diseases 
attack  the  nation,  and  have  to  be  cured.  The  duty  of  a  great 
party  is  to  face  these,  to  find  answers  and  remedies,  applying  to 
the  facts  of  the  hour  the  doctrines  it  has  lived  by,  so  far  as  they 
are  still  applicable,  and  when  they  have  ceased  to  be  applicable, 
thinking  out  new  doctrines  conformable  to  the  main  principles 
and  tendencies  which  it  represents.  This  is  a  work  to  be  accom¬ 
plished  by  its  ruling  minds,  while  the  habit  of  party  loyalty  to 
the  leaders  powerfully  serves  to  diffuse  through  the  mass  of 
followers  the  conclusions  of  the  leaders  and  the  reasonings  they 
have  employed. 

“But,”  the  European  reader  may  ask,  “is  it  not  the  inter¬ 
est  as  well  as  the  duty  of  a  party  thus  to  adapt  itself  to  new  con¬ 
ditions?  Does  it  not,  in  failing  to  do  so,  condemn  itself  to 
sterility  and  impotence,  ultimately,  indeed,  to  supersession  by 
some  new  party  which  the  needs  of  the  time  have  created?” 

This  is  what  usually  happens  in  Europe.  Probably  it  will 
happen  in  the  long  run  in  America  also,  unless  the  parties  adapt 
themselves  to  the  new  issues,  just  as  the  Whig  party  fell  in  1852- 
57  because  it  failed  to  face  the  problem  of  slavery.  That  it 
happens  more  slowly  may  be  ascribed  partly  to  the  completeness 
and  strength  of  the  party  organizations,  which  make  the  enthu¬ 
siasm  generated  by  ideas  less  necessary,  partly  to  the  growing 
prominence  of  ‘  social  ’  and  ‘  labour  ’  as  well  as  economic  questions, 


30 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


on  which  both  parties  are  equally  eager  to  conciliate  the  masses, 
and  equally  unwilling  to  proclaim  definite  views,  partly  to  the 
fact  that  several  questions  on  which  the  two  great  parties 
still  hesitate  to  take  sides  are  not  presently  vital  to  the  well¬ 
being  of  the  country.  Something  is  also  due  to  the  smaller 
influence  in  America  than  in  Europe  of  individual  leaders.  Eng¬ 
lish  parties,  which  hesitate  long  over  secondary  questions,  might 
hesitate  longer  than  is  now  their  practice  over  vital  ones  also, 
were  they  not  accustomed  to  look  for  guidance  to  their  chiefs, 
and  to  defer  to  the  opinion  which  the  chiefs  deliver.  And  it  is 
only  by  courage  and  the  capacity  for  initiative  that  the  chiefs 
themselves  retain  their  position. 


CHAPTER  LV 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  PARTIES 

The  less  there  is  in  the  tenets  of  the  Republicans  and  Demo¬ 
crats  to  make  their  character  intelligible  to  a  European  reader, 
so  much  the  more  desirable  is  it  to  convey  some  idea  of  what 
may  be  called  their  social  and  local,  their  racial  and  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  complexions. 

The  Republican  party  was  formed  between  1854  and  1856 
chiefly  out  of  the  wrecks  of  the  Whig  party,  with  the  addition 
of  the  Abolitionists  and  Free  Soilers,  who,  disgusted  at  the 
apparent  subservience  to  the  South  of  the  leading  Northern 
Whigs,  had  for  some  time  previously  acted  es  a  group  by  them¬ 
selves,  though  some  of  them  had  been  apt  to  vcte  for  Whig  can¬ 
didates.  They  had  also  recruits  from  the  Free  Soil  Democrats, 
who  had  severed  themselves  from  the  bulk  of  the  Democratic 
party,  and  some  of  whom  claimed  to  be  true  Jeffersonians  in 
joining  the  party  which  stood  up  against  the  spread  of  slavery.1 
The  Republicans  were  therefore  from  the  first  a  Northern  party, 
more  distinctly  so  than  the  Federalists  had  been  at  the  close  of 
the  preceding  century,  and  much  more  distinctly  so  than  the 
Whigs,  in  whom  there  had  been  a  pretty  strong  Southern  element. 

The  Whig  element  brought  to  the  new  party  solidity,  politi¬ 
cal  experience,  and  a  large  number  of  wealthy  and  influential 
adherents.  The  Abolitionist  element  gave  it  force  and  enthu¬ 
siasm,  qualities  invaluable  for  the  crisis  which  came  in  1861 
with  the  secession  of  all  save  four  of  the  slave-holding  States. 
During  the  war,  it  drew  to  itself  nearly  all  the  earnestness,  patriot¬ 
ism,  religious  and  moral  fervour,  which  the  North  and  West 
contained.  It  is  still,  in  those  regions,  the  party  in  whose  ranks 
respectable,  steady,  pious,  well-conducted  men  are  to  be  looked 

1  The  name  Republican  was  given  to  the  new  party  not  without  the  hope 
of  thereby  making  it  easier  for  these  old  school  Democrats  to  join  it,  for  in 
Jefferson’s  day  his  party  had  been  called  Republican. 

31 


32 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


for.  If  you  find  yourself  dining  with  one  of  “the  best  people” 
in  any  New  England  city,  or  in  Philadelphia,  or  in  Cincinnati, 
Cleveland,  Chicago,  or  Minneapolis,  you  assume  that  the  guest 
sitting  next  you  is  a  Republican,  almost  as  confidently  as  in 
English  county  society  you  would  assume  your  neighbour  to  be 
a  Tory  ;  that  is  to  say,  you  may  sometimes  be  wrong,  but  in  four 
cases  out  of  five  you  will  be  right.  In  New  York  the  presump¬ 
tion  is  weaker,  though  even  there  you  will  be  right  three  times  out 
of  five.  One  may  say  that  all  over  the  North,  the  merchants, 
manufacturers,  and  professional  men  of  the  smaller  perhaps 
even  more  than  of  the  larger  towns,  tend  to  be  Republicans.  So 
too  are  the  farmers,  particularly  in  the  upper  part  of  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi  valley,  although  there,  as  well  as  on  the  Pacific  coast,  the 
growth  of  what  is  called  “ radicalism”  has  occasionally  strength¬ 
ened  the  Democratic  vote.  The  working  class  in  the  cities  is 
divided,  but  the  more  solid  part  of  it,  the  church-goers  and  total 
abstainers,  are  generally  Republicans,  while  some  are  inclined 
to  socialism.  A  number,  still  considerable,  though  of  course 
rapidly  diminishing,  are  soldiers  of  the  Civil  War  ;  and  these 
naturally  rally  to  the  old  flag.  When  turning  southwards  one 
reaches  the  borders  of  the  old  slave  States,  everything  is  changed. 
In  Baltimore  the  best  people  are  so  generally  Democrats  that 
when  you  meet  a  Republican  in  society  you  ask  whether  he  is  not 
an  immigrant  from  New  England.  This  is  less  markedly  the 
case  in  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  but  in  Virginia,  or  the  Carolinas, 
or  the  Gulf  States,  very  few  men  of  good  standing  belong  to  the 
Republican  party,  which  consists  of  the  lately  enfranchised  ne¬ 
groes,  of  a  certain  number  of  native  whites,  seldom  well  regarded, 
who  organized  and  used  the  now  insignificant  negro  vote,  and  who 
in  the  years  that  followed  the  war  were  making  a  good  thing  for 
themselves  out  of  it ;  of  a  number  of  Federal  officials  (a  number 
very  small  when  the  Democrats  are  in  power),  who  have  been 
put  into  Federal  places  by  their  friends  at  Washington,  on  the 
understanding  that  they  are  to  work  for  the  party,  and  of  a  few 
stray  people,  perhaps  settlers  from  the  North  who  have  not  yet 
renounced  their  old  affiliations.  It  is  not  easy  for  an  educated 
man  to  remain  a  Republican  in  the  South,  not  only  because  the 
people  he  meets  in  society  are  Democrats,  but  because  the 
Republican  party  managers  are  apt  to  be  black  sheep. 

In  such  Middle  States  as  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  to  which 
one  may  for  this  purpose  add  Ohio  and  Indiana,  and  on  the  Paci- 


CHAP.  LV 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  PARTIES 


33 


fic  slope,  the  parties  are  nearly  balanced,  and  if  one  regards  State 
as  well  as  national  elections,  the  majority  of  votes  is  seen  to  sway 
now  this  way  now  that,  as  the  circumstances  of  the  hour,  or  local 
causes,  or  the  merits  of  individual  candidates,  may  affect  the 
popular  mind.  Pennsylvania  is  now,  as  she  has  been  since 
1860,  a  Republican  State,  owing  to  her  interest  in  a  pro¬ 
tective  tariff.  New  York,  whose  legislature  is  now  generally  Re¬ 
publican,  is  in  presidential  elections  still  to  be  deemed  doubtful. 
In  all  these  States,  the  better  sort  of  people  have  been  mostly 
Republicans.  It  is  in  that  party  you  look  to  find  the  greater 
number  of  the  philanthropists,  the  men  of  culture,  the  financial 
magnates  and  other  persons  of  substance  who  desire  to  see  things 
go  on  quietly,  with  no  shocks  given  to  business  confidence  by 
rash  legislation.  These  are  great  elements  of  strength.  They 
were  gained  for  the  Republican  party  by  its  earlier  history,  which 
drew  into  it  in  the  days  of  the  war  those  patriotic  and  earnest 
young  men  who  were  afterwards  the  leading  elderly  men  in  their 
respective  neighbourhoods.  Against  them  there  was  for  a  time 
(1884-96)  to  be  set  the  tendency  of  a  section  of  the  Republican 
party,  a  section  small  in  numbers  but  including  some  men  of 
character  and  intelligence,  to  break  away,  or,  as  it  is  called,  “  bolt” 
from  the  party  platform  and  “ ticket.”  This  section  explained 
its  conduct  by  declaring  that  the  great  claims  which  the  party 
gained  on  the  confidence  of  the  country  by  its  resistance  to 
slavery  and  its  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war  had  been  for¬ 
feited  by  mal-administration  since  the  war  ended,  and  by  the 
scandals  which  had  gathered  round  some  of  its  conspicuous 
figures.  If  intelligence  and  cultivation  dispose  their  possessors 
to  desert  at  a  critical  moment,  the  party  would  have  been  stronger 
without  this  element,  for,  as  everybody  knows,  a  good  party 
man  is  he  who  stands  by  his  friends  when  they  are  wrong.  That 
group  was  mostly  reabsorbed  into  the  Republican  ranks.  But 
somewhat  later  another  tendency  to  division  appeared  in  the 
disposition  of  some  Republicans,  especially  in  the  North-west, 
to  go  faster  and  further,  especially  in  economic  legislation,  than 
the  moneyed  men  wished  to  follow.  No  open  schism  has  so  far 
resulted,  but  the  antagonism  of  tendency  is  manifest. 

The  Democratic  party  has  suffered  in  the  North  and  West 
from  exactly  the  opposite  causes  to  the  Republican.  It  was  long 
discredited  by  its  sympathy  with  the  South,  and  by  the  oppo¬ 
sition  of  a  considerable  section  within  it  (the  so-called  Copper- 


D 


34 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


heads)  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  This  shadow  hung  heavy 
over  it  till  the  complete  pacification  of  the  South  and  growing 
prominence  of  new  questions  began  to  call  men’s  minds  away 
from  the  war  years.  From  1869  to  1885  it  profited  from  being 
in  opposition.  Saved  from  the  opportunity  of  abusing  patron¬ 
age,  or  becoming  entangled  in  administration  jobs,  it  was  able 
to  criticize  freely  the  blunders  or  vices  of  its  opponents.  It  may 
however  be  doubted  whether  its  party  managers  were,  take  them 
all  in  all,  either  wiser  or  purer  than  those  whom  they  criticized, 
nor  did  they  seem  to  inspire  any  deeper  trust  in  the  minds  of 
impartial  citizens.  When,  as  several  times  happened,  the  Dem¬ 
ocrats  obtained  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
their  legislation  was  not  higher  in  aim  or  more  judicious  in  the 
choice  of  means  than  that  which  Republican  congresses  have  pro¬ 
duced.  Hence  the  tendency  to  fall  away  from  the  Republican 
ranks  of  1872-96  enured  to  the  benefit  of  the  Democrats  less 
than  might  have  been  expected.  In  1896  the  emergence  of  the 
Free  Silver  question  as  a  burning  issue  produced  a  serious  breach 
in  the  party,  the  consequences  of  which,  though  it  was  to  outward 
appearance  healed  in  the  presidential  nomination  of  1904  have 
not  wholly  disappeared.  The  Democratic  party  includes  not 
only  nearly  all  the  talent,  education,  and  wealth  of  the  South, 
together  with  the  great  bulk  of  the  Southern  farmers  and  poorer 
whites,  but  also  a  respectable  minority  of  good  men  in  the 
Middle  States  and  the  North-west,  and  a  slightly  smaller 
minority  in  New  England.1 

In  these  last-mentioned  districts  its  strength  lies  chiefly  in 
the  cities,  a  curious  contrast  to  those  earlier  days  when  Jefferson 
was  supported  by  the  farmers  and  Hamilton  by  the  townsfolk.2 
But  the  large  cities  have  now  a  population  unlike  anything 
that  existed  in  those  distant  days,  a  vast  ignorant  fluctuat¬ 
ing  mass  of  people,  many  of  them  recently  admitted  to  citizen¬ 
ship,  who  have  little  reason  for  belonging  to  one  party  rather 
than  another,  but  are  attracted  some  by  the  name  of  the  Dem¬ 
ocratic  party,  some  by  the  fact  that  it  is  not  the  party  of  the 


1  In  the  presidential  elections  of  1904  and  again  in  1908  two  Southern  States 
were  carried  by  the  Republicans. 

2  Jefferson  regarded  agriculture  as  so  much  the  best  occupation  for  citizens 
that  he  was  alarmed  by  the  rumour  that  the  codfish  of  the  North-eastern  coasts 
were  coming  down  to  the  shores  of  Virginia  and  Carolina,  lest  the  people  of 
those  States  should  “  be  tempted  to  catch  them,  and  commerce,  of  which  we 
have  already  too  much,  receive  an  accession.” 


CHAP.  LV 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  PARTIES 


35 


well-to-do,  some  by  leaders  belonging  to  their  own  races  who  have 
risen  to  influence  in  its  ranks.  The  adhesion  of  this  mob  gives 
the  party  a  slight  flavour  of  rowdyism,  as  its  old  associations  used 
to  give  it,  to  a  Puritan  palate,  a  slight  flavour  of  irreligion. 
Not  so  long  ago,  a  New  England  deacon — the  deacon  is  in  Amer¬ 
ica  the  type  of  solid  respectability — would  have  found  it  as  hard 
to  vote  for  a  Democratic  candidate  as  an  English  archdeacon  to 
vote  for  a  Yorkshire  Radical.  But  these  old  feelings  are  wearing 
away.  A  new  generation  of  voters  has  arisen  which  never  saw 
slavery,  and  cares  little  about  Jefferson  for  good  or  for  evil. 
This  generation  takes  parties  as  it  finds  them.  Even  among  the 
older  voters  there  has  been  a  change  within  recent  years.  Many 
of  the  best  Republicans,  who  remembered  the  Democrats  as  the 
party  of  which  a  strong  section  sympathized  with  the  slaveholders 
before  the  war,  and  disapproved  of  the  war  while  it  was  being 
waged,  looked  with  horror  on  the  advent  to  power  in  1885  of  a 
Democratic  president.  The  country,  however,  was  not  ruined 
by  Mr.  Cleveland,  either  then  or  in  his  second  term,  but  went 
on  much  as  before,  its  elements  of  good  and  evil  mixed  and 
contending,  just  as  under  Republican  administrations.  The 
alarm  which  the  moneyed  classes  felt  in  1896  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  old  controversies,  and  the  association  with  the  Dem¬ 
ocratic  party  of  the  States  where  slavery  prevailed  no  longer 
creates  any  real  prejudice  against  it  in  Northern  minds. 

Race  differences  have  played  a  considerable  part  in  the 
composition  of  the  parties,  but  it  is  a  diminishing  part,  be¬ 
cause  in  the  second  and  still  more  in  the  third  generation  a  citizen 
is  an  American  first  and  foremost  and  loses  quickly  the  race  con¬ 
sciousness  which  his  father  or  grandfather  had.  Besides  the  native 
Americans,  there  were  till  about  1890  men  of  five  nationalities 
in  the  United  States — British,  Irish,  Germans,  Scandinavians, 
French  Canadians.1  Of  these,  however,  the  English  and  Scotch 
lose  their  identity  almost  immediately,  being  absorbed  into  the 
general  mass  of  native  citizens.  Though  very  numerous,  they 

1  There  have  entered  since  1890  large  masses  of  Poles,  Czechs,  Italians, 
Russian  Jews,  Slovaks  and  other  Slavs  from  the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy, 
Magyars,  Roumans,  Greeks,  Syrians,  and  Armenians  (as  to  all  of  which  see 
Chapter  XCII)  ;  but  though  these  newer  elements  have  increased  rapidly  of 
late  years,  no  one  of  them  can  be  said  to  have  affected  the  composition  of  the 
parties  over  the  country  at  large.  In  New  York  City  the  Jews  (of  whom  there 
are  about  400,000  adult  males)  were  at  first  mostly  Democrats,  and  the  Italians 
mostly  Republicans.  These  new  immigrants  are  most  numerous  in  the  great 
cities  and  in  the  mining  regions. 


36 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


have  hitherto  counted  for  nothing  politically,  because  they  have 
either  been  indifferent  to  political  struggles  or  have  voted  from 
the  same  motives  as  an  average  American.  They  have  to  some 
slight  extent  remained  British  subjects,  not  caring  for  the  suf¬ 
frage,  and  those  who  have  adopted  the  United  States  as  their 
country  have  seldom  exerted  their  voting  power  as  a  united 
body. 

Far  otherwise  with  the  Irish.  They  have  retained  their  na¬ 
tional  spirit  and  disposition  to  act  together  into  the  second,  rarely 
however  into  the  third,  generation  ;  they  are  a  factor  potent 
in  Federal  and  still  more  potent  in  city  politics.  Now  the 
Irish  were  for  a  good  while  nearly  all  Democrats.  The  exodus 
from  Ireland,  which  had  been  considerable  as  far  back  as  1842, 
swelled  in  1847  (the  year  after  the  famine)  to  vast  proportions  ; 
and  was  from  the  first  a  source  of  help  to  the  Democratic  party, 
probably  because  the  latter  was  less  Protestant  in  sentiment  than 
the  Whig  party,  and  was  already  dominant  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  where  the  Irish  first  became  a  power  in  politics.  The 
aversion  to  the  negro  which  they  soon  developed,  made  them, 
when  the  Republican  party  arose,  its  natural  enemies,  for  the 
Republicans  were,  both  during  and  after  the  war,  the  negro’s  pa¬ 
trons.  Before  the  war  ended  the  Irish  vote  had  come  to  form  a 
large  part  of  the  Democratic  strength,  and  Irishmen  were  promi¬ 
nent  among  the  politicians  of  that  party :  hence  newcomers 
from  Ireland  have  generally  enlisted  under  its  banner.  Of  late 
years,  however,  there  have  been  plenty  of  Irishmen,  and  indeed 
of  Irish  leaders  and  bosses,  among  the  Republicans  of  the  great 
cities  ;  and  statesmen  of  that  party  have  sought  often  to  “pla¬ 
cate”  and  attract  the  Irish  vote  in  ways  too  familiar  to  need 
description. 

The  German  immigration,  excluding  of  course  the  early  Ger¬ 
man  settlements  in  Pennysylvania,  began  rather  later  than  the 
Irish  ;  and  as  there  was  some  jealousy  between  the  two  races, 
the  fact  that  the  Irish  were  already  Democrats  when  the  Ger¬ 
mans  arrived,  was  one  reason  why  the  latter  were  more  inclined 
to  enrol  themselves  as  Republicans,  while  another  was  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  German  exiles  of  1849  were  naturally 
hostile  to  slavery.  The  Germans  usually  became  farmers  in  the 
Middle  and  Western  States,  where,  finding  the  native  farmers 
mainly  Republicans,  they  imitated  the  politics  of  their  neigh¬ 
bours.  That  there  are  many  German  Democrats  in  the  great 


CHAP.  LV 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  PARTIES 


37 


cities  may  be  ascribed  to  the  less  friendly  attitude  of  the  Repub¬ 
licans  to  the  liquor  traffic,  for  the  German  colonist  is  faithful  to 
the  beer  of  his  fatherland,  and,  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Germans,  to  the  tacit  alliance  which  subsisted  in  many  districts 
between  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  Democrats.  The  Germans 
are  a  cohesive  race,  keeping  up  national  sentiment  by  festivals, 
gymnastic  societies,  processions,  and  national  songs,  but  as 
they  take  much  less  keenly  to  politics,  and  are  not  kept  together 
by  priests,  their  cohesion  is  more  short-lived  than  that  of  the 
Irish.  The  American-born  son  of  a  German  is  already  completely 
an  American  in  feeling  as  well  as  in  practical  aptitude.  The 
German  vote  over  the  whole  Union  may  be  roughly  estimated  as 
five-ninths  Republican,  four-ninths  Democratic.  But  it  is  even 
more  true  of  the  Germans  than  of  the  Irish  that  in  the  twentieth 
century  they  have  been  ceasing  to  constitute  a  “solid  vote” 
in  the  older  sense  of  the  term,  and  before  1930  politicians  may 
have  left  off  thinking  of  either  race  as  a  distinct  voting  entity. 

The  Scandinavians  —  Swedes  and  Norwegians,  with  a  few 
Danes  and  a  handful  of  Icelanders — form  a  large  element  among 
the  farmers  of  the  Upper  Mississippi  States,  particularly  Wis¬ 
consin,  Minnesota,  and  the  Dakotas.  So  far  as  can  be  judged 
from  the  short  experience  the  country  has  of  them,  for  their  im¬ 
migration  did  not  begin  to  swell  till  after  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  they  Americanize  even  more  readily  than 
their  Teutonic  cousins  from  the  southern  side  of  the  Baltic. 
However,  both  Swedes  and  Norwegians  are  still  so  far  clannish 
that  in  these  States  both  parties  find  it  worth  while  to  run  for 
office  now  and  then  a  candidate  of  one  or  other,  or  candidates 
of  both,  of  these  nationalities,  in  order  to  catch  the  votes  of  his 
or  their  compatriots.1  Nine-tenths  of  them  were  Republicans, 
until  the  rise  of  the  so-called  “People’s  Party,”  which  for  the 
time  detached  a  good  many  ;  and  some  of  these  have  passed  into 
the  Democratic  ranks.  Like  the  Germans,  they  came  knowing 
nothing  of  American  politics,  but  the  watchful  energy  of  the 
native  party-workers  enlisted  them  under  a  party  banner  as 
soon  as  they  were  admitted  to  civic  rights.  They  make  perhaps 

1  There  has  been  some  slight  jealousy  between  Swedes  and  Norwegians,  so 
that  where  they  are  equally  strong  it  is  not  safe  to  put  forward  a  candidate  of 
either  race  without  placing  on  the  same  ticket  a  candidate  of  the  other  also. 
But  where  the  population  of  either  race  is  too  small  to  support  a  church  or  a 
social  institution  of  its  own,  they  fraternize  for  this  purpose,  feeling  themselves 
much  nearer  to  one  another  than  they  are  to  any  other  element. 


38 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


the  best  material  for  sober  and  industrious  agriculturists  that 
America  receives,  being  even  readier  than  the  Germans  to  face 
hardship,  and  more  content  to  dispense  with  alcholic  drinks. 

The  French  Canadians  are  numerous  in  New  England,  and 
in  one  or  two  other  Northern  States,  yet  scarcely  numerous 
enough  to  tell  upon  politics,  especially  as  they  frequently  re¬ 
main  British  subjects.  Their  religion  disposes  those  who  be¬ 
come  citizens  to  side  with  the  Democratic  party,  but  they 
can  hardly  be  said  to  constitute  what  is  called  “a  vote,”  and 
occasionally  “go  Republican.” 

In  the  northern  half  of  the  country,  the  negroes  are  not  gener¬ 
ally  an  important  element,  but  their  vote  in  New  York,  Ohio,  and 
Indiana  is  large  enough  to  be  worth  having  whenever  the  State 
is  doubtful.  Gratitude  for  the  favour  shown  to  their  race  has 
kept  them  mostly  Republicans.  They  are  seldom  admitted  to  a 
leading  place  in  party  organizations,  but  it  is  found  expedient 
in  presidential  contests  to  organize  a  “coloured  club”  to  work 
for  the  candidate  among  the  coloured  population  of  a  town.  In 
States  like  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  where  there  are 
plenty  of  white  Republicans,  they  have  voted  steadily  Republi¬ 
can,  unless  paid  to  abstain.  In  the  further  South,  their  mere 
numbers  would  have  enabled  them,  were  they  equal  to  the  whites 
in  intelligence,  wealth,  and  organization,  not  merely  to  carry 
congressional  seats,  but  even  in  some  States  to  determine  a  presi¬ 
dential  election.  But  in  these  three  respects  they  are  unspeak¬ 
ably  inferior.  At  first,  under  the  leadership  of  some  white 
adventurers,  mostly  of  the  “carpet-bagger”  class,  they  went 
almost  solid  for  the  Republican  party ;  and  occasionally,  even 
after  the  withdrawal  of  Federal  troops,  they  turned  the 
balance  in  its  favour.  Presently,  however,  the  Democrats 
gained  the  upper  hand  ;  and  most  of  the  negroes,  losing  faith 
in  their  former  bosses,  and  discouraged  by  finding  themselves 
unfit  to  cope  with  a  superior  race,  either  ceased  to  vote  or  found 
themselves  prevented  by  the  whites  from  doing  so.  Latterly 
the  seven  Southern  States  have  so  altered  their  constitutions 
as  to  exclude  nine-tenths  of  the  negroes  from  the  suffrage.1 

Religion  comes  very  little  into  American  party  except  when, 
as  sometimes  has  happened,  the  advance  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  and  the  idea  that  she  exerts  her  influence  to  secure 


1  See  further  as  to  the  negroes,  Chapters  XCIV  and  XCV. 


CHAP.  LV 


COMPOSITION  OF  THE  PARTIES 


39 


benefits  for  herself,  causes  an  outburst  of  Protestant  feeling.1 
Roman  Catholics  are  usually  Democrats,  because,  except  in 
Maryland,  which  is  Democratic  anyhow,  they  are  mainly  Irish.2 
Congregationalists  and  Unitarians,  being  presumably  sprung 
from  New  England,  are  apt  to  be  Republicans.  Presbyterians, 
Methodists,  Baptists,  Episcopalians,  have  no  special  party  affini¬ 
ties.  They  are  mostly  Republicans  in  the  North,  Democrats 
in  the  South.  The  Mormons  fight  for  their  own  hand,  and  in 
Utah,  Idaho,  and  Arizona  have  been  wont  to  cast  their  votes, 
under  the  direction  of  their  hierarchy,  for  the  local  party  which 
promised  to  interfere  least  with  them.  Lately  in  Idaho  a  party 
found  it  worth  while  to  run  a  Mormon  candidate. 

The  distribution  of  parties  is  to  some  extent  geographical. 
While  the  South  casts  a  solid  Democratic  vote,  and  the  strength 
of  the  Republicans  has  lain  in  the  North-east  and  North-west, 
the  intermediate  posit  on  of  the  Middle  States  corresponds 
to  their  divided  political  tendencies.  The  reason  is  that  in 
America  colonization  has  gone  on  along  parallels  of  latitude. 
The  tendencies  of  New  England  reappear  in  Northern  Ohio, 
Northern  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  giving  the 
Republicans  a  general  predominance  in  this  vast  and  swiftly 
growing  Western  population,  which  it  takes  the  whole  weight 
of  the  solid  South  to  balance.  This  geographical  opposition 
does  not,  however,  betoken  a  danger  of  political  severance. 
The  material  interests  of  the  agriculturists  of  the  North-west  are 
not  different  from  those  of'  the  South  :  free  trade,  for  instance, 
or  a  low  tariff  will  make  as  much  and  no  more  difference  to  the 
wheat-grower  of  Illinois  as  to  the  cotton-grower  of  Texas,  to  the 
iron-workers  of  Tennessee  as  to  the  iron-workers  of  Pennsylvania. 
And  the  existence  of  an  active  Democratic  party  in  the  North 
prevents  the  victory  of  either  geographical  section  from  being 
felt  as  a  defeat  by  the  other. 

This  is  an  important  security  against  disruption.  And  a 
similar  security  against  the  risk  of  ivil  strife  or  revolution  is 
to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  parties  are  not  based  on  or  sensibly 
affected  by  differences  either  of  wealth  or  of  social  position. 
Their  cleavage  is  not  horizontal  according  to  social  strata,  but 
vertical.  This  would  be  less  true  if  it  were  stated  either  of  the 

1  In  1904  and  1908,  however,  it  was  believed  that  the  bulk  of  the  Roman 
Catholics,  at  any  rate  in  New  York,  supported  the  Republican  candidates. 

2  As  recently  in  the  formation  of  the  American  Protective  Association,  which 
became  for  a  time  a  political  factor  in  parts  of  the  North-west. 


40 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


Northern  States  separately,  or  of  the  Southern  States  separately  : 
it  is  true  of  the  Union  taken  as  a  whole.  It  might  cease  to  be 
true  if  one  of  the  new  socialist  or  labour  parties  were  to  grow 
till  it  absorbed  or  superseded  either  of  the  existing  parties. 
The  same  feature  has  characterized  English  politics  as  com¬ 
pared  with  those  of  most  European  countries,  and  has  been  a 
main  cause  of  the  stability  of  the  English  government  and  of 
the  good  feeling  between  different  classes  in  the  community.1 

1  Since  1886  the  vast  majority  of  the  rich,  a  proportion  probably  larger 
than  at  any  previous  time,  has  in  England  belonged  to  one  of  the  two  historic 
parties.  But  this  phenomenon  may  not  be  permanent. 


CHAPTER  LVI 


FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  PARTIES 

Besides  the  two  great  parties  which  have  divided  America 
for  thirty  years,  there  are  two  or  three  lesser  organizations  or 
factions  needing  a  word  of  mention.  About  1820-30  there  was 
a  period  when  one  of  the  two  great  parties  having  melted  away, 
the  other  had  become  split  up  into  two  minor  sections.1  Parties 
were  numerous  and  unstable,  new  ones  forming,  and  after  a  short 
career  uniting  with  some  other,  or  vanishing  altogether  from  the 
scene.  This  was  a  phenomenon  peculiar  to  that  time,  and 
ceased  with  the  building  up  about  1832  of  the  Whig  party, 
which  lasted  till  shortly  before  the  Civil  War.  But  Tocqueville, 
who  visited  America  in  1831-32,  took  it  for  the  normal  state 
of  a  democratic  community,  and  founded  upon  it  some  bold 
generalizations.  A  stranger  who  sees  how  few  principles  now 
exist  to  hold  each  of  the  two  great  modern  parties  together 
will  be  rather  surprised  that  they  have  not  shown  more  tendency 
to  split  up  into  minor  groups  and  factions. 

What  constitutes  a  party  ?  In  America  there  is  a  simple  test. 
Any  section  of  men  who  nominate  candidates  of  their  own  for  the 
presidency  and  vice-presidency  of  the  United  States  are  deemed 
a  national  party.  Adopting  this  test  we  shall  find  that  there 
have  lately  been  two  or  three  national  parties  in  addition  to  the 
Republicans  and  Democrats. 

The  first  is  (or  rather  was)  that  of  the  Greenbackers,  who  arose 
soon  after  the  end  of  the  Civil  War.  They  demanded  a  large 
issue  of  greenbacks  (i.e.  paper  money,  so  called  from  the  colour 
of  the  notes  issued  during  the  war),  alleging  that  this  must  benefit 
the  poorer  classes,  who  will  obviously  be  richer  when  there  is 
more  money  in  the  country.  It  may  seem  incredible  that  there 
should  still  be  masses  of  civilized  men  who  believe  that  money  is 

1  The  same  phenomenon  reappeared  at  the  break-up  of  the  Whigs  between 
1852  and  1857,  and  from  a  like  cause. 

41 


42 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


value,  and  that  a  liberal  issue  of  stamped  paper  can  give  the  poor 
more  bread  or  better  clothes.  If  there  were  a  large  class  of  debt¬ 
ors,  and  the  idea  was  to  depreciate  the  currency  and  let  them 
then  pay  their  debts  in  it,  one  could  understand  the  proposal. 
Such  a  depreciation  existed  during  and  immediately  after  the 
Civil  War.  As  wages  and  prices  had  risen  enormously,  people 
were  receiving  more  money  in  wages,  or  for  goods  sold,  than  they 
had  received  previously,  while  they  were  paying  fixed  charges, 
such  as  interest  on  mortgage  debts,  in  a  depreciated  paper  cur¬ 
rency.  Thus  the  small  farmers  were  on  the  whole  gainers,  while 
creditors  and  persons  with  fixed  incomes  were  losers.  It  is  true 
that  both  farmers  and  working  men  were  also  paying  more  for 
whatever  they  needed,  food,  clothes,  and  lodging ;  still  they 
seemed  to  have  felt  more  benefit  in  receiving  larger  sums  than 
they  felt  hardship  in  paying  out  larger  sums.  Those  who  called 
for  a  great  increase  of  paper  money  did  not  profess  to  wish  to 
depreciate  the  currency :  nor  were  they  to  any  great  extent 
supported  by  a  debtor  class  to  which  a  depreciated  currency 
would  be  welcome,  as  a  debased  coinage  served  the  momentary 
occasions  of  mediaeval  kings.  But  the  recollections  of  the  war 
time  with  its  abundant  employment  and  high  wages  clung  to 
many  people,  and  were  coupled  with  a  confused  notion  that  the 
more  money  there  is  in  circulation  so  much  the  more  of  it  will 
everybody  have,  so  much  the  better  off  will  he  be,  so  much  the 
more  employment  will  capital  find  for  labour,  and  so  much  the 
more  copious  will  be  the  fertilizing  stream  of  wages  diffused 
among  the  poor.1 

The  Greenback  party,  which  at  first  called  itself  Indepen¬ 
dent,  held  a  national  Nominating  Convention  in  1876,  at  which 
nineteen  States  were  represented,  and  nominated  candidates 
for  president  and  vice-president,  issuing  an  emphatic  but  un¬ 
grammatical  denunciation  of  the  financial  policy  of  the  Re¬ 
publican  and  Democratic  parties.  They  again  put  forward 
candidates  in  1880  and  1884,  but  made  a  poor  show  in  the  vot¬ 
ing  and  presently  melted  away,  some  of  those  who  had  supported 
it  presently  going  to  recruit  the  Populist  party. 

The  various  Labour  or  Socialist  parties  are  composed,  not  of 

1  The  matter  is  further  complicated  by  the  fact  that  the  national  bank-notes 
issued  by  the  national  banks  are  guaranteed  by  government  bonds  deposited 
with  the  U.  S.  treasury,  bonds  on  which  the  national  Government  pays  interest. 
The  Greenbackers  desired  to  substitute  greenbacks,  or  so-called  “fiat  money,” 
for  these  bank-notes  as  a  circulating  medium. 


CHAP.  LVI 


FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  PARTIES 


43 


agriculturists  like  the  Greenbackers,  but  chiefly  of  working 
men  in  cities  and  mining  districts,  including  many  of  the 
recent  immigrants.  It  is  not  easy  to  describe  the  precise 
tenets  of  a  Labour  party,  for  it  includes  persons  of  very 
various  views,  some  who  would  be  called  in  Europe  pro¬ 
nounced  Collectivists,  others  who  wish  to  restrain  the  action 
of  railway  and  telegraph  companies  and  other  so-called  “mo¬ 
nopolists,”  and  of  course  many  who,  while  dissatisfied  with 
existing  economic  conditions,  and  desiring  to  see  the  working 
classes  receive  a  larger  share  of  the  good  things  of  the  world, 
are  not  prepared  to  say  in  what  way  these  conditions  can  be 
mended  and  this  result  attained.  Speaking  generally,  the  re¬ 
forms  advocated  by  the  leaders  of  the  Labour  party  have  in¬ 
cluded  the  “nationalization  of  the  land,”  the  imposition  of  a 
progressive  income  tax,1  the  taking  over  of  railroads  and  tele¬ 
graphs  by  the  National  government,  the  prevention  of  the  im¬ 
migration  of  Chinese  and  of  any  other  foreign  labourers  who  may 
come  under  contract,  the  restriction  of  all  so-called  monopolies, 
the  forfeiture  of  railroad  land  grants,  the  increase  of  the  currency, 
the  free  issue  of  inconvertible  paper  and,  above  all,  the  statutory 
restriction  of  hours  of  labour.  But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
all  the  leaders,  much  less  all  the  followers,  adopt  all  these  tenets  ; 
nor  has  it  been  always  easy  to  say  who  are  to  be  deemed  its 
leaders.  It  shows  a  tendency  to  split  up  into  factions.  Its 
strength  has  lain  in  the  trade  unions  of  the  operative  class,  and 
for  a  time  in  the  enormous  organization  or  league  of  trade  unions 
that  was  known  as  the  Knights  of  Labour :  and  it  is  therefore 
warmly  interested  in  the  administration  of  the  various  State  laws 
which  affect  strikes  and  the  practice  of  boycotting  by  which 
strikes  often  seek  to  prevail.  It  has  much  support  from  the 
recent  immigrants  who  fill  the  great  cities,  especially  the  social- 
istically  inclined  sections  of  the  Germans,  Jews,  Poles,  Czechs 
and  other  Austro-Hungarian  Slavs. 

The  Labour  party  did  not  run  a  presidential  candidate  till 
1888,  and  was  then  divided,  so  that  its  strength  could  not  be 
well  estimated.  But  it  has  been  wont  to  put  forward  candidates 

1  This  was  demanded  by  the  Greenback  national  convention  in  its  platforms 
of  1880  and  1884,  and  by  the  Farmers’  Alliance  in  1890  ;  but  less  than  might  be 
expected  has  been  heard  of  it  in  America.  Its  adoption  in  the  Canton  of  Vaud 
in  Switzerland  caused  some  of  the  wealthier  inhabitants  to  quit  the  canton,  and 
in  Zurich  after  it  has  been  raised  to  a  pretty  high  figure  people  found  that  any 
further  rise  would  be  deleterious,  so  the  increase  stopped. 


44 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


in  State  and  city  elections  when  it  saw  a  chance.  It  ran  Mr. 
Henry  George  for  Mayor  of  New  York  City  in  1886,  and  obtained 
the  unexpected  success  of  polling  67,000  votes  against  90,000 
given  to  the  regular  Democratic,  and  60,000  to  the  regular  Repub¬ 
lican  candidate  ; 1  but  this  success  was  not  sustained  in  the  con¬ 
test  for  the  Secretaryship  of  the  State  of  New  York  in  1887, 
when  a  vote  of  only  37,000  was  cast  by  the  Labour  party  in  the 
city.  In  1892  one  section,  calling  itself  the  Socialist  Labour 
Party,  ran  a  presidential  candidate,  but  obtained  only  21,164 
votes,  17,956  of  which  came  from  New  York,  the  rest  from  Penn¬ 
sylvania,  New  Jersey,  Massachusetts,  and  Connecticut.  In  1900 
the  party  which  has  since  called  itself  Socialist  was  founded. 
Both  these  parties  sometimes  put  forward  candidates  in  State 
or  city  elections.  The  Socialists  are  a  somewhat  incalculable 
force  in  State  and  city  politics,  seldom  strong  enough  to  carry 
their  own  candidates,  but  sometimes  able  to  defeat  one  of  the 
regular  parties  by  drawing  aWay  a  part  of  its  voters,  or  to  extort 
a  share  of  the  offices  for  some  of  their  nominees.  It  is  only  in 
some  States,  chiefly  Northern  States,  that  candidates  of  this 
complexion  appear  at  all. 

The  Prohibitionists,  or  opponents  of  the  sale  of  intoxicating 
liquors,  have  since  1872  regularly  held  a  national  convention 
for  the  nomination  of  a  presidential  candidate,  and  put  out  a 
ticket,  i.e.  nominated  candidates  for  president  and  vice-president. 
The  action  of  this  part}r  has  been  most  frequent  in  the  State 
legislatures,  because  the  whole  question  of  permitting,  restrict¬ 
ing,  or  abolishing  the  sale  of  intoxicants  is  a  matter  for  the  States 
and  not  for  Congress.  However,  the  Federal  government  raises 
a  large  revenue  by  its  high  import  duty  on  wines,  spirits,  and 
malt  liquors,  and  also  levies  an  internal  excise.  As  this  revenue 
was  for  some  years  before  1890  no  longer  needed  for  the  expenses 
of  the  National  government,  it  was  proposed  to  distribute  it 
among  the  States,  or  apply  it  to  some  new  and  useful  purpose, 
or  to  reduce  both  customs  duties  and  the  excise.  The  fear  of  the 
first  or  second  of  these  courses,  which  would  give  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  intoxicants  a  new  lease  of  life,  or  of  the  third,  which 
would  greatly  increase  their  consumption,  was  among  the  causes 
which  induced  the  Prohibitionists  to  enter  the  arena  of  national 
politics  ;  and  they  further  justified  their  conduct  in  doing  so  by 

1  In  1874  when  a  Labour  candidate  was  first  run  for  the  New  York  mayoralty 
he  obtained  only  between  3000  and  4000  votes. 


chap.  Lvi  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  PARTIES 


45 


proposing  to  amend  the  Federal  Constitution  for  the  purposes 
of  prohibition,  and  to  stop  the  sale  of  intoxicants  in  the  Terri¬ 
tories  and  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  which  are  under  the 
direct  control  of  Congress.1  Their  running  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency  has  been  more  a  demonstration  than  anything  else,  as 
they  cast  a  comparatively  weak  vote,  many  even  of  those  who 
sympathize  with  them  preferring  to  support  one  or  other  of  the 
great  parties  rather  than  throw  away  a  vote  in  the  abstract 
assertion  of  a  principle.  One  ought  indeed  to  distinguish  between 
the  Prohibitionists  proper,  who  wish  to  stop  the  sale  of  intoxicants 
altogether,  and  the  Temperance  men,  who  are  very  numerous 
among  Republicans  in  the  North  and  Democrats  in  the  South, 
and  who,  while  ready  to  vote  for  Local  Option  and  a  High 
Licence  Law,  disapprove  the  attempt  to  impose  absolute  prohibi¬ 
tion  by  general  legislation.2  The  number  of  persons  who  are  both 
thorough-going  Prohibitionists  and  pure  Prohibitionists,  that  is 
to  say,  who  are  not  also  Republicans  or  Democrats,  is  small, 
far  too  small,  even  when  reinforced  by  a  section  of  the  “Tem¬ 
perance  men,”  and  by  discontented  Republicans  or  Democrats 

1  The  Prohibitionist  platform  of  1892,  issued  by  their  national  convention, 
contained  the  following  passage  :  — 

“The  liquor  traffic  is  a  foe  to  civilization,  the  arch  enemy  of  popular  govern¬ 
ment,  and  a  public  nuisance.  It  is  the  citadel  of  the  forces  that  corrupt  politics, 
promote  poverty  and  crime,  degrade  the  nation’s  home  life,  thwart  the  will  of 
the  people,  and  deliver  our  country  into  the  hands  of  rapacious  class  interests. 
All  laws  that  under  the  guise  of  regulation  legalize  and  protect  this  traffic,  or 
make  the  government  share  in  its  ill-gotten  gains,  are  ‘vicious  in  principle  and 
powerless  as  a  remedy.’  We  declare  anew  for  the  entire  suppression  of  the 
manufacture,  sale,  importation,  exportation,  and  transportation  of  alcoholic 
liquors  as  a  beverage  by  Federal  and  State  legislation,  and  the  full  powers  of 
the  government  should  be  exerted  to  secure  this  result.”  In  1908  their  conven¬ 
tion  declared  one  of  its  principles  to  be  “the  submission  by  congress  to  the 
several  States  of  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  prohibiting  the  manufacture, 
sale,  importation,  exportation,  or  transportation  of  alcoholic  liquors  for  beverage 
purposes.” 

One  might  have  expected  the  Prohibitionists  to  advocate  the  repeal  of  the 
protective  tariff  on  manufactured  goods  so  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  main¬ 
tain  customs  duties  and  an  excise  on  intoxicants  for  the  purposes  of  the  Na¬ 
tional  government.  But  this  would  imply  that  these  beverages  might  still  be 
consumed,  which  is  just  what  the  more  ardent  spirits  in  the  temperance  party 
refuse  to  contemplate.  In  1892  they  said:  “Tariff  should  be  levied  only  as  a 
defence  against  foreign  governments  which  lay  tariff  upon  or  bar  out  our  prod¬ 
ucts  from  their  markets,  revenue  being  incidental.” 

2  Many  State  legislatures  have  “placated”  the  Temperance  men  by  enacting 
that  “the  hygienics  of  alcohol  and  its  action  upon  the  human  body”  shall  be 
a  regular  subject  of  instruction  in  the  public  schools.  Whether  this  instruction 
does  more  good  or  harm  is  a  controverted  point,  as  to  which  see  the  report  for 
1890  of  the  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education. 


46 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


who  may  dislike  the  “  regular  ”  candidates  of  their  party,  to  give 
the  Prohibition  ticket  a  chance  of  success  in  any  State.  The 
importance  of  the  ticket  used  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  in  a  doubtful 
State  it  might  draw  away  enough  votes  from  one  of  the  “ regular  ” 
candidates  to  leave  him  in  a  minority.  Mr.  Blaine  probably 
suffered  in  this  way  in  the  election  of  1884,  most  of  the  votes  cast 
for  the  Prohibitionist  candidate  having  come  from  quondam 
Republicans.  On  the  other  hand,  a  case  may  be  imagined  in 
which  the  existence  of  an  outlet  or  safety-valve,  such  as  a  Pro¬ 
hibitionist  ticket,  would  prevent  the  “bolters”  from  one  party 
from  taking  the  more  dangerous  course  of  voting  for  the  candidate 
of  the  opposite  party.  Latterly  the  party  vote  has  been  too 
small  to  make  much  difference. 

The  strength  of  the  Prohibitionist  party  lay  in  the  religious 
and  moral  earnestness  which  animates  it  and  made  it  for  many 
purposes  the  successor  and  representative  of  the  Abolitionists  of 
forty  years  ago.  Clergymen  were  prominent  in  its  conventions, 
and  women  took  an  active  part  in  its  work.  Partly  from  its 
traditions  and  temper,  partly  because  it  believes  that  women 
would  be  on  its  side  in  elec  cions,  it  advocates  the  extension  to 
them  of  the  electoral  franchise.  But  it  has  latterly  lost  much 
of  its  political  importance,  though  temperance  has  advanced 
both  in  the  diffusion  of  its  principles  and  in  practice. 

A  spirit  of  discontent  with  the  old  parties,  and  vague  wish 
to  better  by  legislation  the  condition  of  the  agriculturists, 
caused  the  growth  of  what  was  called  at  first  the  Farmers’ 
Alliance  Party,  and  thereafter  the  People’s  Party,  or  “Populists.” 
In  1889  and  1890  it  rose  suddenly  to  importance  in  the  West 
and  South,  and  secured  some  seats  from  Western  States  in  the 
Fifty-second  and  succeeding  Congresses.  Its  platform  agreed 
in  several  points  with  those  of  the  Greenbackers  and  Labour  men, 
but  instead  of  seeking  to  “nationalize”  the  land,  it  desired  to 
reduce  the  taxation  on  real  estate  and  to  secure  (among  other 
benefits)  loans  from  the  public  treasury  to  farmers  at  low  rates 
of  interest.  It  ran  a  candidate  at  the  presidential  election  of 
1892  (carrying  four  States  and  obtaining  one  electoral  vote  in 
each  of  two  others),  but  has  since  then  so  much  declined,  that 
in  1908  only  29,108  votes  were  cast  for  the  candidate  whom  it 
nominated.  Although  the  economic  and  social  conditions  of 
agricultural  life  in  America  are  likely  from  time  to  time  to  pro¬ 
duce  similar  outbreaks  of  dissatisfaction,  with  impatient  cries 


chap,  lvi  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  PARTIES 


47 


for  unpractical  remedies,  the  tendency  has  of  recent  years  been 
towards  the  formation  of  parties  professing  views  of  a  more  or 
less  Collectivist  type.  In  1900,  1904,  and  1908  a  party  calling 
itself  Socialist  and  another  calling  itself  Socialist  Labour  ran 
candidates  for  the  presidency ;  and  in  1908  there  also  appeared 
an  “  Independence  Party,”  which  denounced  the  Republican  and 
Democratic  parties  alike.  Of  these  minor  new  parties  the  largest 
vote  was  in  1908  cast  by  the  Socialist,  420,464.  In  1904  its  vote 
had  been  402,321. 

The  advocates  of  Woman’s  Suffrage  cannot  be  reckoned  a 
national  party,  because  the  question  is  one  for  the  States,  and 
because  women  have  no  vote  in  presidential  elections  (save 
in  Wyoming,  Idaho,  Utah,  and  Colorado).  In  1884  a  woman 
was  nominated,  but  did  not  go  to  the  poll.1 

Though  the  group  which  went  by  the  name  of  Mugwumps  has 
disappeared,  it  had  a  temporary  significance  which  entitles  it  to 
the  meed  of  a  melodious  tear.2  At  the  presidential  election  of 
1884  a  section  of  the  Republican  party,  more  important  by  the 
intelligence  and  social  position  of  the  men  who  composed  it 
than  by  its  voting  power,  “bolted”  (to  use  the  technical  term) 
from  their  party,  and  refused  to  support  Mr.  Blaine.  Some 
simply  abstained,  some,  obeying  the  impulse  to  vote  which  is 
strong  in  good  citizens  in  America,  voted  for  Mr.  St.  John,  the 
Prohibitionist  candidate,  though  well  aware  that  this  was  prac¬ 
tically  the  same  thing  as  abstention.  The  majority,  however, 
voted  against  their  party  for  Mr.  Cleveland,  the  Democratic 
candidate ;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  the  transference  of  their 
vote  which  turned  the  balance  in  New  York  State,  and  thereby 
determined  the  issue  of  the  whole  election  in  Mr.  Cleveland’s 
favour.  They  were  therefore  not  to  be  reckoned  as  a  national 
party,  according  to  the  American  use  of  the  term,  because  they 
did  not  run  a  ticket  of  their  own,  but  supported  a  candidate 
started  by  one  of  the  regular  parties.  The  only  organization 
they  formed  consisted  of  committees  which  held  meetings  and 
distributed  literature  during  the  election,  but  dissolved  when 
it  was  over.  They  maintained  no  permanent  party  machinery ; 

1  See  further  as  to  woman’s  suffrage,  Chapter  XCIX. 

2  The  name  is  said  to  be  formed  from  an  Indian  word  denoting  a  chief  or 
aged  wise  man,  and  wras  applied  by  the  “straight-out”  Republicans  to  their 
bolting  brethren  as  a  term  of  ridicule.  It  was  then  taken  up  by  the  latter  as  a 
term  of  compliment ;  though  the  description  they  used  formally  in  1884  was 
that  of  “Independent  Republicans.” 


48 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


and  did  not  act  as  a  distinct  section,  even  for  the  purposes  of 
agitation,  at  subsequent  presidential  elections.  Some  of  them 
have  since  been  absorbed  (especially  in  New  England  and  New 
York)  into  the  Democratic  party,  others  have  returned  to  their 
old  affiliations.  They  were  not  so  much  a  section  as  a  Ten¬ 
dency,  persons  in  whom  a  growing  disposition  to  a  detached  in¬ 
dependence  was  for  the  time  embodied.  The  tendency  is  now 
chiefly  conspicuous  in  municipal  politics,  where  it  has  given 
birth  to  Good  Government  Clubs  and  other  civic  associations 
intended  to  purify  the  administration  of  cities. 

The  Mugwumps  bore  no  resemblance  to  any  British  party. 
The  tendency  which  called  them  into  being  is  discernible 
chiefly  in  New  England  and  in  the  cities  of  the  Eastern  States 
generally,  but  it  affects  some  few  persons  scattered  here  and 
there  all  over  the  North  and  West  as  far  as  California.  In  the 
South  (save  in  such  border  cities  as  St.  Louis  and  Louisville) 
there  were  none,  because  the  Southern  men  who  would,  had 
they  lived  in  the  North,  have  taken  to  Mugwumpism,  were  in  the 
South  Democrats.  There  did  not  in  1884  seem  to  be  in  the 
Democratic  party,  either  in  North  or  South,  as  much  material 
for  a  secession  similar  to  that  of  the  “bolters”  of  that  year  as 
was  then  shown  to  exist  among  the  Republicans.  In  1893,  how¬ 
ever,  an  enormous  “swing-over”  in  New  York  State  of  votes 
usually  Democratic  to  the  Republican  side,  provoked  by  the 
nomination  of  a  man  deemed  tainted  to  an  important  judicial 
office,  showed  that  the  Mugwump  element  or  tendency  was  to 
be  reckoned  with,  at  least  in  the  North-eastern  States,  by  both 
parties  alike,  and  in  1896  (as  already  remarked)  many  of  the 
richer  and  more  influential  gold  Democrats  “  bolted  ”  the  party 
ticket  and  ran  a  presidential  ticket  of  their  own. 

The  reader  must  be  reminded  of  one  capital  difference  between 
the  Republican  and  Democratic  parties  and  the  minor  ones  which 
have  just  been  mentioned.  The  two  former  are  absolutely  co¬ 
extensive  with  the  Union.  They  exist  in  every  State,  and  in 
every  corner  of  every  State.  They  have  existed  even  in  the 
Territories,  though  the  inhabitants  of  Territories  have  no  vote 
in  Federal  elections.  But  the  four  minor  parties  that  held 
Conventions  in  the  elections  of  1900,  1902,  and  1908,  did  not 
attempt  to  maintain '  organizations  all  over  the  Union.1  The 

1  In  1908  the  Socialist  party  was  the  only  minor  party  for  which  votes  were  cast 
in  every  State  (except  Vermont).  The  Prohibitionists  obtained  votes  in  39  States, 
the  Populists  in  16,  the  Independence  party  in  41,  the  Socialist  Labour  in  15. 


chap,  lvi  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  PARTIES 


49 


Populists  though  for  the  moment  strong  in  the  West,  had  no  im¬ 
portance  in  the  Atlantic  States.  Where  these  minor  parties  are 
strong,  or  where  some  question  has  arisen  which  keenly  interests 
them,  they  may  run  their  man  for  State  governor  or  city  mayor, 
or  may  put  out  a  ticket  for  State  senators  or  Assembly  men  : 
or  they  may  take  the  often  more  profitable  course  of  fusing  for  the 
nonce  with  one  of  the  regular  parties,  giving  it  their  vote  in  re¬ 
turn  for  having  the  party  nominations  to  one  or  more  of  the 
elective  offices  assigned  to  their  own  nominee.1  This  helps  to 
keep  a  minor  party  going,  and  gives  to  its  vote  a  practical  result 
otherwise  unattainable. 

Is  there  not  then,  some  European  may  ask,  a  Free  Trade 
party?  Not  in  the  American  sense  of  the  word  “ party.”  The 
Democratic  party  used  to  stand  for  a  “ tariff  for  revenue  only,” 
and  there  are  still  more  advocates  of  a  low  rate  of  duties  in  that 
party  than  among  their  opponents.  But  there  is  no  political 
organization  which  devotes  itself  to  the  advocacy  of  free  trade 
by  the  usual  party  methods,  much  less  does  any  one  think  of 
starting  candidates  either  for  the  presidency  or  for  Congress 
upon  a  pure  anti-protectionist  platform. 

Why,  considering  the  reluctant  hesitancy  which  the  old  parties 
have  been  apt  to  show  in  taking  up  a  clear  and  distinctive  at¬ 
titude  upon  new  questions,  and  formulating  definite  proposals 
regarding  them,  and  considering  also  that  in  the  immense  area 
of  the  United  States,  with  its  endless  variety  of  economic  interests 
and  social  conditions,  we  might  expect  local  diversities  of  aim 
and  view  which  would  here  and  there  crystallize,  and  so  give 
rise  to  many  local  parties  —  why  are  not  the  parties  far  more 
numerous  ?  Why,  too,  are  the  parties  so  persistent  ?  In  this 
changeful  country  one  would  look  for  frequent  changes  in  tenets 
and  methods. 

One  reason  is,  that  there  is  at  present  a  strong  feeling  in 
America  against  any  sentiment  or  organization  which  relies  on 
or  appeals  to  one  particular  region  of  the  country.  Such  local¬ 
ism  or  sectionalism  is  hateful,  because,  recalling  the  disunionist 


1  The  Labour  men  and  latterly  the  Socialists  did  this  pretty  frequently, 
the  Prohibitionists  scarcely  ever.  In  1892  the  so-called  “Populists”  and  the 
Democrats  “fused”  in  six  states,  the  latter  voting  for  the  Presidential  candi¬ 
date  of  the  former,  with  the  result  that  the  People’s  Party  carried  four  of  these 
States.  In  Louisiana  a  somewhat  similar  arrangement  was  made  between  the 
Populists  and  the  Republicans ;  but  the  Democrats  carried  the  State  notwith¬ 
standing. 

E 


50 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


spirit  of  the  South  which  led  to  the  war,  it  seems  anti-national 
and  unpatriotic.  By  the  mere  fact  of  its  springing  from  a  local 
root,  and  urging  a  local  interest,  a  party  would  set  the  rest  of 
the  country  against  it.  As  a  separately  organized  faction  seek¬ 
ing  to  capture  the  Federal  government,  it  could  not  succeed 
against  the  national  parties,  because  the  Union  as  a  whole  is  so 
vast  that  it  would  be  outvoted  by  one  or  other  of  them.  But 
if  it  is  content  to  remain  a  mere  opinion  or  demand,  not  attacking 
either  national  party,  but  willing  to  bestow  the  votes  it  can 
control  on  whichever  will  meet  its  wishes,  it  is  powerful,  because 
the  two  great  parties  will  bid  against  one  another  for  its  support 
by  flatteries  and  concessions.  For  instance,  the  question  which 
has  interested  the  masses  on  the  Pacific  coast  is  that  of  excluding 
Chinese  immigrants,  and  latterly  Japanese  also,  because  they 
compete  for  work  with  the  whites  and  bring  down  wages.  Now 
if  the  “ anti-Mongolians”  of  California,  Washington,  and  Ore¬ 
gon  were  to  create  a  national  party,  based  on  this  particular 
issue,  they  would  be  insignificant,  for  they  would  have  little 
support  over  five-sixths  of  the  Union.  But  by  showing  that  the 
attitude  of  the  two  great  parties  on  this  issue  will  determine 
their  own  attitude  towards  these  parties,  they  control  both,  for 
as  each  desires  to  secure  the  vote  of  California,  Washington, 
and  Oregon,  each  vies  with  the  other  in  promising  and  voting 
for  anti-Asiatic  legislation.  The  position  of  the  Irish  extremists 
was  similar,  except  of  course  that  they  were  a  racial  and  not  a 
geographical  “  section.”  Their  power,  which  Congress  some¬ 
times  used  to  recognize  in  a  way  scarcely  compatible  with  its 
dignity  or  with  international  courtesy,  lay  in  the  fact  that  as  the 
Republicans  and  Democrats  were  nearly  balanced,  the  congres¬ 
sional  leaders  of  both  desired  to  “ placate”  this  faction,  for  which 
neither  had  a  sincere  affection.  An  Irish  party,  or  a  German 
party,  or  a  Roman  Catholic  party,  which  should  run  its  candi¬ 
dates  on  a  sectional  platform,  would  stand  self-condemned  in 
American  eyes  as  not  being  genuinely  American.  But  so  long 
as  it  is  content  to  seek  control  over  parties  and  candidates,  it 
might  exert  an  influence  out  of  proportion  to  its  numbers,  and 
checked  only  by  the  fear  that  if  it  demanded  too  much,  native 
Americans  might  rebel,  as  they  did  in  the  famous  Know-nothing 
or  “American”  party  of  1853-58.  The  same  fate  would  befall 
a  party  based  upon  some  trade  interest,  such  as  protection  to 
a  particular  sort  of  manufactures,  or  the  stimulation  of  cattle- 


chap,  lvi  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  PARTIES 


51 


breeding  as  against  sheep.  Such  a  party  might  succeed  for  a 
time  in  a  State,  and  might  dictate  its  terms  to  one  or  both  of  the 
national  parties ;  but  when  it  attempted  to  be  a  national  party 
it  would  become  ridiculous  and  fall. 

A  second  cause  of  the  phenomenon  which  I  am  endeavouring 
to  explain  may  be  found  in  the  enormous  trouble  and  expense 
required  to  found  a  new  national  party.  To  influence  the  votes, 
even  to  reach  the  ears,  of  a  population  of  ninety  millions  of 
people,  is  an  undertaking  to  be  entered  on  only  when  some 
really  great  cause  fires  the  national  imagination,  disposes  the 
people  to  listen,  persuades  the  wealthy  to  spend  freely  of  their 
substance.  It  took  six  years  of  intense  work  to  build  up  the 
Republican  party,  which  might  not  even  then  have  triumphed 
in  the  election  of  1860,  but  for  the  split  in  the  ranks  of  its  op¬ 
ponents.  The  attempt  made  in  1872  to  form  a  new  independent 
party  out  of  the  discontented  Republicans  and  the  Democrats 
failed  lamentably.  The  Independent  Republicans  of  1884  did 
not  venture  to  start  a  programme  or  candidate  of  their  own, 
but  were  prudently  satisfied  with  helping  the  Democratic  can¬ 
didate,  whom  they  deemed  more  likely  than  the  Republican 
nominee  to  give  effect  to  the  doctrine  of  civil  service  reform 
which  they  were  advocating. 

The  case  of  these  Independents,  or  Mugwumps,  is  an  illustra¬ 
tive  one.  For  many  years  past  there  had  been  complaints  that 
the  two  old  parties  were  failing  to  deal  with  issues  that  had 
grown  to  be  of  capital  importance,  such  as  the  tariff,  the  cur¬ 
rency,  the  improvement  of  methods  of  business  in  Congress,  the 
purification  of  the  civil  service  and  extinction  of  the  so-called 
Spoils  system.  These  complaints,  however,  came  not  from  the 
men  prominent  as  practical  statesmen  or  politicians  in  the  par¬ 
ties,  but  from  outsiders,  and  largely  from  the  men  of  intellectual 
cultivation  and  comparatively  high  social  standing.  Very  few 
of  such  men  took  an  active  part  in  “politics,”  however  in¬ 
terested  they  might  be  in  public  affairs.  They  were  amateurs 
as  regards  the  practical  work  of  “running”  ward  meetings  and 
conventions,  of  framing  “tickets,”  and  bringing  up  voters  to 
the  poll,  in  fact  of  working  as  well  as  organizing  that  vast  and 
complicated  machinery  which  an  American  party  needs.  Be¬ 
sides,  it  is  a  costly  machinery,  and  they  did  not  see  where  to 
find  the  money.  Hence  they  recoiled  from  the  effort,  and  aimed 
at  creating  a  sentiment  which  might  take  concrete  form  in  a  ^ote, 


52 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


given  for  whichever  of  the  parties  seemed  at  any  particular  time 
most  likely  to  adopt,  even  if  insincerely,  the  principles,  and 
push  forward,  even  if  reluctantly,  the  measures  which  the  In¬ 
dependents  advocate. 

Why,  however,  does  it  so  seldom  happen  that  the  profes¬ 
sional  politicians,  who  “know  the  ropes,”  and  know  where  to 
get  the  necessary  funds,  seek  to  wreck  a  party  in  order  to  found 
a  new  one  more  to  their  mind?  Because  they  are  pretty  well 
satisfied  with  the  sphere  which  existing  parties  give  them,  and 
comprehend  from  their  practical  experience  how  hazardous 
such  an  experiment  would  be. 

These  considerations  may  help  to  explain  the  remarkable 
cohesion  of  parties  in  America,  and  the  strength  of  party  loyalty, 
a  phenomenon  more  natural  in  Europe,  where  momentous  issues 
inflame  men’s  passions,  and  where  the  bulk  of  the  adherents 
are  ignorant  men,  caught  by  watchwords  and  readily  attracted 
to  a  leader,  than  in  a  republic  where  no  party  has  any  benefit, 
to  promise  to  the  people  which  it  may  not  as  well  get  from  the 
other,  and  where  the  native  voter  is  a  keen-witted  man,  with 
little  reverence  for  the  authority  of  any  individual.  There  is 
however  another  reason  flowing  from  the  character  of  the 
American  people.  They  are  extremely  fond  of  associating 
themselves,  and  prone  to  cling  to  any  organization  they  have 
once  joined.  They  are  sensitive  to  any  charge  of  disloyalty. 
They  are  gregarious,  each  man  more  disposed  to  go  with  the 
multitude  and  do  as  they  do  than  to  take  a  line  of  his  own,1 
and  they  enjoy  “campaigning”  for  its  own  sake.  These  are 
characteristics  which  themselves  require  to  be  accounted  for, 
but  the  discussion  of  them  belongs  to  later  chapters.  A  Eu¬ 
ropean  is  surprised  to  see  prominent  politicians  supporting, 
sometimes  effusively,  a  candidate  of  their  own  party  whom 
they  are  known  to  dislike,  merely  because  he  is  the  party  can¬ 
didate.  There  is  a  sort  of  military  discipline  about  party 
life  which  has  its  good  as  well  as  its  bad  side,  for  if  it  some¬ 
times  checks  the  expression  of  honest  disapproval,  it  also  re¬ 
strains  jealousy,  abashes  self-seeking,  prevents  recrimination. 

Each  of  the  American  parties  has  usually  been  less  under  the 
control  of  one  or  two  conspicuous  leaders  than  are  British 


1  That  is  to  say,  they  respect  the  authority  of  the  mass,  to  which  they  them¬ 
selves  belong,  though  seldom  that  of  individual  leaders.  See  post,  Chapter 
LXXXV.,  “The  Fatalism  of  the  Multitude.” 


chap,  lvi  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  PARTIES 


53 


parties.  So  far  as  this  is  due  to  the  absence  of  men  whose  power 
over  the  people  rests  on  the  possession  of  brilliant  oratorical  or 
administrative  gifts,  it  is  a  part  of  the  question  why  there  are 
not  more  such  men  in  American  public  life,  why  there  are  fewer 
striking  figures  than  in  the  days  of  Jefferson  and  Hamilton,  of 
Webster  and  Calhoun.  It  is  however  also  due  to  the  pecul¬ 
iarities  of  the  Constitution.  The  want  of  concentration  of 
power  in  the  legal  government  is  reflected  in  the  structure  of 
the  party  system.  The  separation  of  the  legislative  from  the 
executive  department  lowers  the  importance  of  leadership  in 
parties,  as  it  weakens  both  these  departments.  The  President, 
who  is  presumably  among  the  leading  men,  does  not  always  find 
it  possible  to  direct  the  policy  of  his  party,  still  less  speak  for  it 
in  public,  because  he  represents  the  whole  nation.  His  ministers 
cannot  speak  to  the  people  through  Congress.  In  neither  House 
of  Congress  is  there  necessarily  any  person  recognized  as  the 
leader  on  either  side.  As  neither  House  has  the  power  over 
legislation  and  administration  possessed  by  such  an  assembly 
as  the  French  or  Italian  Chamber,  or  the  English  House  of 
Commons,  speeches  delivered  or  strategy  displayed  in  it  do  not 
tell  upon  the  country  with  equal  force  and  directness.  There 
remains  the  stump,  and  it  is  more  by  the  stump  than  in  any 
other  way  that  an  American  statesman  speaks  to  the  people. 
But  what  distances  to  be  traversed,  what  fatigues  to  be  encoun¬ 
tered,  before  he  can  be  a  living  and  attractive  personality  to  the 
electing  masses  !  An  English  statesman  leaves  London  at  two 
o’clock,  and  speaks  in  Birmingham,  or  Leeds,  or  Manchester,  the 
same  evening.  In  a  few  years,  every  great  town  knows  him  like 
its  own  mayor,  while  the  active  local  politicians  who  frequently 
run  up  from  their  homes  to  London  hear  him  from  the  galleries 
of  the  House  of  Commons,,  wait  on  him  in  deputations,  are  in¬ 
vited  to  the  receptions  which  his  wife  gives  during  the  season. 
Even  railways  and  telegraphs  cannot  make  America  a  compact 
country  in  the  same  sense  that  Britain  is. 

From  the  Civil  War  till  the  end  of  last  century,  neither  Re¬ 
publicans  nor  Democrats  leaned  on  and  followed  any  one  man 
as  Air.  Gladstone  and  Lord  Beaconsfield,  as  before  them  Lords 
Derby,  John  Russell,  and  Palmerston,  as  still  earlier  Sir  Robert 
Peel  and  Lord  Alelbourne,  were  followed  in  England.  No  one 
since  Air.  Seward  exercised  even  so  much  authority  as  Air. 
Bright  did  when  out  of  office,  or  as  Gambetta  did  in  France,  or 


54 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


Mr.  Parnell  in  Ireland,  over  the  sections  of  opinion  which  each 
of  these  eminent  men  represented. 

How  then  are  the  parties  led  in  Congress  and  the  country? 
Who  directs  their  policy?  Who  selects  their  candidates  for 
the  most  important  posts  ?  These  are  questions  which  cannot 
be  adequately  answered  till  the  nature  of  the  party  machinery 
has  been  described.  For  the  moment  I  must  be  content  to  sug¬ 
gest  the  following  as  provisional  answers  :  — 

The  chief  thing  is  the  selection  of  candidates.  This  is  done 
in  party  meetings  called  conventions.  When  a  party  has  a 
policy,  it  is  settled  in  a  convention  and  declared  in  a  docu¬ 
ment  called  a  platform.  When  it  has  no  policy,  the  platform 
is  issued  none  the  less.  Party  tactics  in  Congress  are  decided 
on  by  meetings  of  the  party  in  each  House  of  Congress  called 
caucuses.  Leaders  have  of  course  much  to  do  with  all  three 
processes.  But  they  often  efface  themselves  out  of  respect  to 
the  sentiment  of  equality,  and  because  power  concealed  excites 
less  envy. 

How  do  the  parties  affect  social  life?  At  present  not  very 
much,  at  least  in  the  Northern  and  Middle  States,  because  it  is 
a  comparatively  slack  time  in  politics.  Your  dining  acquaint¬ 
ances,  even  your  intimate  friends,  are  not  necessarily  of  the 
same  way  of  voting  as  yourself,  and  though  of  course  political 
views  tend  to  become  hereditary,  there  is  nothing  to  surprise 
any  one  in  finding  sons  belonging  to  different  parties  from  their 
fathers.  Social  boycotting  on  political  grounds,  such  as  largely 
prevails  in  rural  England,  is  unknown.  In  the  South,  where 
the  recollections  of  the  great  struggle  were  kept  alive  by  the 
presence  of  a  negro  voting  power  which  had  to  be  controlled, 
things  have  been  different  :  and  they  were  different  in  the 
North  till  the  passions  of  civil  strife  had  abated. 

So  far,  I  have  spoken  of  the  parties  only  as  national  organiza¬ 
tions,  struggling  for  and  acting  on  or  through  the  Federal  gov¬ 
ernment.  But  it  has  already  been  observed  (Chap.  XL VI.) 
that  they  exist  also  as  State  and  city  organizations,  contend¬ 
ing  for  the  places  which  States  and  cities  have  to  give,  seeking 
to  control  State  legislatures  and  municipal  councils.  Every 
circumscription  of  State  and  local  government,  from  the  State 
of  New  York  with  its  eight  millions  of  inhabitants  down  to 
the  “city”  that  has  just  sprung  up  round  a  railway  junction 
in  the  West,  has  a  regular  Republican  party  organization,  con- 


chap,  lvi  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  PARTIES 


55 


fronted  by  a  similar  Democratic  organization,  each  running  its 
own  ticket  (i.e.  list  of  candidates)  at  every  election,  for  any 
office  pertaining  to  its  own  circumscription,  and  each  federated, 
so  to  speak,  to  the  larger  organizations  above  it,  represented  in 
them  and  working  for  them  in  drilling  and  “energizing”  the 
party  within  the  area  which  is  the  sphere  of  its  action. 

What  have  the  tenets  of  such  national  parties  as  the  Repub¬ 
licans  and  Democrats  to  do  with  the  politics  of  States  and 
cities?  Very  little  with  those  of  States,  because  a  matter  for 
Federal  legislation  is  seldom  also  a  matter  for  State  legislation. 
Still  less  with  those  of  cities  or  counties.  Cities  and  counties 
have  not  strictly  speaking  any  political  questions  to  deal  with ; 
their  business  is  to  pave  and  light,  to  keep  the  streets  clean, 
maintain  an  efficient  police  and  well-barred  prisons,  administer 
the  poor  law  and  charitable  institutions  with  integrity,  judg¬ 
ment,  and  economy.  The  laws  regulating  these  matters  have 
been  already  made  by  the  State,  and  the  city  or  county  authority 
has  nothing  to  do  but  administer  them.  Hence  at  city  and 
county  elections  the  main  objects  ought  to  be  to  choose  honest 
and  careful  men  of  business.  It  need  make  no  difference  to  the 
action  of  a  mayor  or  school  trustee  in  any  concrete  question 
whether  he  holds  Democratic  or  Republican  views. 

However,  the  habit  of  party  welfare  has  been  so  strong  as 
to  draw  all  elections  into  its  vortex ;  nor  would  either  party 
feel  safe  if  it  neglected  the  means  of  rallying  and  drilling  its 
supporters,  which  State  and  local  contests  supply.  There  is 
this  advantage  in  the  system,  that  it  stimulates  the  political 
interest  of  the  people,  which  is  kept  alive  by  this  perpetual 
agitation.  But  the  multiplicity  of  contests  has  the  effect  of 
making  politics  too  absorbing  an  occupation  for  the  ordinary 
citizen  who  has  his  profession  or  business  to  attend  to  ;  while 
the  result  claimed  by  those  who  in  England  defend  the  practice 
of  fighting  municipal  elections  on  party  lines,  viz.  that  good 
men  are  induced  to  stand  for  local  office  for  the  sake  of  their 
party,  is  the  last  result  desired  by  the  politicians,  or  expected 
by  any  one.  It  is  this  constant  labour  which  the  business  of 
politics  involves,  this  ramification  of  party  into  all  the  nooks 
and  corners  of  local  government,  that  has  produced  the  class 
of  professional  politicians,  of  whom  it  is  now  time  to  speak. 


CHAPTER  LVII 


THE  POLITICIANS 


Institutions  are  said  to  form  men,  but  it  is  no  less  true  that 
men  give  to  institutions  their  colour  and  tendency.  It  profits 
little  to  know  the  legal  rules  and  methods  and  observances  of 
government,  unless  one  also  knows  something  of  the  human 
beings  who  tend  and  direct  this  machinery,  and  who,  by  the 
spirit  in  which  they  work  it,  may  render  it  the  potent  instrument 
of  good  or  evil  to  the  people.  These  men  are  the  politicians.1 

What  is  one  to  include  under  this  term?  In  England  it 
usually  denotes  those  who  are  actively  occupied  in  adminis¬ 
tering  or  legislating,  or  discussing  administration  and  legisla¬ 
tion.  That  is  to  say,  it  includes  ministers  of  the  Crown,  mem¬ 
bers  of  Parliament  (though  some  in  the  House  of  Commons 
and  the  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords  care  little  about  politics), 
a  few  leading  journalists,  and  a  small  number  of  miscellaneous 
persons,  writers,  lecturers,  organizers,  agitators,  who  occupy 
themselves  with  trying  to  influence  the  public.  Sometimes 
the  term  is  given  a  wider  sweep,  being  taken  to  include  all 
who  labour  for  their  political  party  in  the  constituencies,  as 
e.g.  the  chairmen  and  secretaries  of  local  party  associations, 
and  the  more  active  committee  men  of  the  same  bodies.  The 
former,  whom  we  may  call  the  Inner  Circle  men,  are  profes¬ 
sional  politicians  in  this  sense,  and  in  this  sense  only,  that 
politics  is  the  main  though  seldom  the  sole  business  of  their 
lives.  But  at  present  extremely  few  of  them  make  anything 
by  it  in  the  way  of  money.  A  handful  hope  to  get  some  post ; 
a  somewhat  larger  number  conceive  that  a  seat  in  Parliament 
may  enable  them  to,  push  their  financial  undertakings  or  make 
them  at  least  more  conspicuous  in  the  commercial  world.  But 
the  gaining  of  a  livelihood  does  not  come  into  the  view  of  the 


1  In  America  (Canada  as  well  as  the  United  States)  people  do  not  say  “poli¬ 
ticians,”  but  “the  politicians,”  because  the  word  indicates  a  class  with  certain 
defined  characteristics. 


56 


CHAP.  LVII 


THE  POLITICIANS 


57 


great  majority  at  all.  The  other  class,  who  may  be  called 
the  Outer  Circle,  are  not  professionals  in  any  sense,  being  pri¬ 
marily  occupied  with  their  own  avocations  ;  and  none  of  them, 
except  in  each  constituency  an  organizing  secretary,  or  regis¬ 
tration  agent,  and  here  and  there  a  paid  lecturer,  makes  any 
profit  out  of  the  work.1  The  phenomena  of  France  and  Italy 
and  Germany  are  generally  similar,  that  is  to  say,  those  who 
devote  their  whole  time  to  politics  are  a  very  small  class,  those 
who  make  a  living  by  it  an  even  smaller  one.2  Of  all  the  countries 
of  Europe,  Greece  is  that  in  which  persons  who  spend  their  life 
in  politics  seem  to  bear  the  largest  proportion  to  the  whole  pop¬ 
ulation  ;  and  in  Greece  the  pursuit  of  politics  is  usually  the 
pursuit  of  place. 

To  see  why  things  are  different  in  the  United  States,  why 
the  Inner  Circle  is  much  larger,  both  absolutely  and  relatively 
to  the  Outer  Circle,  than  in  Europe,  let  us  go  back  a  little  and 
ask  what*  are  the  conditions  which  develop  a  political  class. 
The  point  has  so  important  a  bearing  on  the  characteristics  of 
American  politicians  that  I  do  not  fear  to  dwell  somewhat  fully 
upon  it. 

In  self-governing  communities  of  the  simpler  kind  —  for  one 
may  leave  absolute  monarchies  and  feudal  monarchies  on‘one 
side  —  the  common  affairs  are  everybody’s  business  and  no¬ 
body’s  special  business.  Some  few  men  by  their  personal  quali¬ 
ties  get  a  larger  share  of  authority,  and  are  repeatedly  chosen 
to  be  archons,  or  generals,  or  consuls,  or  burgomasters,  or  lan- 
dammans,  but  even  these  rarely  give  their  whole  time  to  the 
State,  and  make  little  or  nothing  in  money  out  of  it.  This 
was  the  condition  of  the  Greek  republics,  of  early  Rome,3  of 
the  cities  of  mediaeval  Germany  and  Italy,  of  the  cantons  of 
Switzerland  till  very  recent  times. 

1  Of  course  now  and  then  a  man  who  has  worked  hard  for  his  party  is  re¬ 
warded  by  a  place.  Barristers  who  have  spent  their  substance  in  contesting 
seats  have  a  better  chance  of  judgeships,  and  there  are  usually  five  or  six  prac¬ 
tising  counsel  in  the  House  of  Commons  who  are  supposed  to  contemplate 
the  possibility  of  obtaining  legal  office.  But  these  cases  are  so  few  as  to  make 
no  practical  difference. 

2  The  number  of  persons  who  live  off  politics  by  getting  places  or  by  manipu¬ 
lating  finance  is  said  to  have  increased  in  France  of  late  years.  But  it  cannot 
be  very  large  even  now. 

3  The  principal  business  in  life  of  Cincinnatus  was  to  till  his  fields,  and  a 
dictatorship  a  mere  interlude.  When  I  waited  on  the  president  of  the  Republic 
of  Andorra,  one  of  the  oldest  states  in  Europe,  in  1873,  I  found  him  in  a  red 
shirt  with  his  coat  off  wielding  a  flail  on  the  floor  of  his  barn. 


58 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


When  in  a  large  country  public  affairs  become  more  engross¬ 
ing  to  those  who  are  occupied  in  them,  when  the  sphere  of  gov- . 
eminent  widens,  when  administration  is  more  complex  and  more 
closely  interlaced  with  the  industrial  interests  .of  the  community 
and  of  the  world  at  large,  so  that  there  is  more  to  be  known  and 
to  be  considered,  the  business  of  a  nation  falls  into  the  hands  of 
the  men  eminent  by  rank,  wealth,  and  ability,  who  form  a  sort 
of  governing  class,  largely  hereditary.  The  higher  civil  admin¬ 
istration  of  the  state  is  in  their  hands  ;  they  fill  the  chief  council 
or  legislative  chamber  and  conduct  its  debates.  They  have  resi¬ 
dences  in  the  capital,  and  though  they  receive  salaries  when 
actually  filling  an  office,  and  have  opportunities  for  enriching 
themselves,  the  majority  possess  independent  means,  and  pur¬ 
sue  politics  for  the  sake  of  fame,  power,  or  excitement.  Those 
few  who  have  not  independent  means  can  follow  their  business 
or  profession  in  the  capital,  or  can  frequently  visit  the  place 
where  their  business  is  carried  on.  This  was  the  condition  of 
Rome  under  the  later  republic,1  and  of  England  and  France  till 
quite  lately  —  indeed  it  is  largely  the  case  in  England  still  — 
as  well  as  of  Prussia  and  Sweden.2 

Let  us  see  what  are  the  conditions  of  the  United  States. 

There  is  a  relatively  small  leisured  class  of  persons  engaged 
in  no  occupation  and  of  wealth  sufficient  to  leave  them  free  for 
public  affairs.  So  far  as  such  persons  are  to  be  found  in  the 
country,  for  some  are  to  be  sought  abroad,  they  are  to  be  found 
in  a  few  great  cities. 

There  is  no  class  with  a  sort  of  hereditary  prescriptive  right 
to  public  office,  no  great  families  whose  names  are  known  to 
the  people,  and  who,  bound  together  by  class  sympathy  and  ties 
of  relationship,  help  one  another  by  keeping  offices  in  the  hands 
of  their  own  members. 

The  country  is  a  very  large  one,  and  has  its  political  capital 
in  a  city  without  trade,  without  manufactures,  without  profes¬ 
sional  careers.  Even  the  seats  of  State  governments  are  often 


1  Rome  in  the  later  days  of  the  republic  had  practically  become  a  country, 
that  is  to  say,  the  range  of  her  authority  and  the  mass  of  her  public  business 
were  much  greater  than  in  any  of  the  Greek  cities,  even  in  Athens  in  the  days 
of  Pericles.  The  chances  of  making  illicit  gains  were  enormous,  but  confined 
to  a  small  number  of  persons. 

2  Norway,  the  most  democratic  of  the  monarchical  countries  of  Europe,  is 
the  one  which  has  probably  the  smallest  class  of  persons  continuously  occupied 
with  politics. 


CHAP.  LVII 


THE  POLITICIANS 


59 


placed  in  comparatively  small  towns.1  Hence  a  man  cannot 
carry  on  his  gainful  occupation  at  the  same  time  that  he  attends 
to  “Inner  Circle”  politics. 

Members  of  Congress  and  of  State  legislatures  are  invariably 
chosen  from  the  places  where  they  reside.  Hence  a  person 
belonging  to  the  leisured  class  of  a  great  city  cannot  get  into 
the  House  of  Representatives  or  the  legislature  of  his  State 
except  as  member  for  a  district  of  his  own  city. 

The  shortness  of  terms  of  office,  and  the  large  number  of 
offices  filled  by  election,  make  elections  very  frequent.  All 
these  elections,  with  trifling  exceptions,  are  fought  on  party 
lines,  and  the  result  of  a  minor  one  for  some  petty  local  office, 
such  as  county  treasurer,  affects  one  for  a  more  important  post, 
e.g.  that  of  member  of  Congress.  Hence  constant  vigilance, 
constant  exertions  on  the  spot,  are  needed.  The  list  of  voters 
must  be  incessantly  looked  after,  newly-admitted  or  newly- 
settled  citizens  enrolled,  the  active  local  men  frequently  con¬ 
sulted  and  kept  in  good  humour,  meetings  arranged  for,  tickets 
(i.e.  lists  of  candidates)  for  all  vacant  offices  agreed  upon.  One 
election  is  no  sooner  over  than  another  approaches  and  has  to 
be  provided  for,  as  the  English  sporting  man  reckons  his  year 
by  “events,”  and  thinks  of  Newmarket  after  Ascot,  and  of 
Goodwood  after  Newmarket. 

Now  what  do  these  conditions  amount  to  ?  To  this  —  A  great 
deal  of  hard  and  dull  election  and  other  local  political  work  to 
be  done.  Few  men  of  leisure  to  do  it,  and  still  fewer  men  of 
leisure  likely  to  care  for  it.  Nobody  able  to  do  it  in  addition 
to  his  regular  business  or  profession.  Little  motive  for  anybody, 
whether  leisured  or  not,  to  do  the  humbler  and  local  parts  of  it 
(i.e.  so  much  as  concerns  the  minor  elections),  the  parts  which 
bring  neither  fame  nor  power. 

If  the  work  is  to  be  done  at  all,  some  inducement,  other  than 
fame  or  power,  must  clearly  be  found.  Why  not,  some  one  will 
say,  the  sense  of  public  duty?  I  will  speak  of  public  duty 
presently  :  meantime  let  it  suffice  to  remark  that  to  rely  on 
public  duty  as  the  main  motive  power  in  politics  is  to  assume 
a  commonwealth  of  angels.  Men  such  as  we  know  them  must 


1  E.g.  The  seat  of  government  for  Maryland  is  Annapolis,  not  Baltimore ; 
for  Ohio,  Columbus,  not  Cincinnati ;  for  Illinois,  Springfield,  not  Chicago  ;  for 
California,  Sacramento,  not  San  Francisco ;  for  Washington,  Olympia,  not 
Seattle  or  Tacoma;  for  Louisiana,  Baton  Rouge,  not  New  Orleans. 


60 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


have  some  other  inducement.  Even  in  the  Christian  Church 
there  are  other  than  spiritual  motives  to  lead  its  pastors  to 
spiritual  work ;  nor  do  all  poets  write  because  they  seek  to 
express  the  passion  of  their  souls.  In  America  we  discover 
a  palpable  inducement  to  undertake  the  dull  and  toilsome  work 
of  election  politics.  It  is  the  inducement  of  places  in  the  public 
service.  To  make  them  attractive  they  must  be  paid.  They 
are  paid,  nearly  all  of  them,  memberships  of  Congress  1  and 
other  Federal  places,  State  places  (including  memberships  of 
State  legislatures),  city  and  county  places.  Here  then  —  and 
to  some  extent  even  in  humbler  forms,  such  as  the  getting  of 
small  contracts  or  even  employment  as  labourers  —  is  the  in¬ 
ducement,  the  remuneration  for  political  work  performed  in 
the  way  of  organizing  and  electioneering.  Now  add  that  besides 
the  paid  administrative  and  legislative  places  which  a  democ¬ 
racy  bestows  by  election,  judicial  places  are  also  in  most  of  the 
States  elective,  and  held  for  terms  of  years  only ;  and  add 
further,  that  the  holders  of  nearly  all  those  administrative 
places,  Federal,  State,  and  municipal,  which  are  not  held  for  a 
fixed  term,  were,  till  recent  years,  liable  to  be  dismissed,  as  in¬ 
deed  many  still  are  so  liable  and  are  in  practice  dismissed, 
whenever  power  changes  from  one  party  to  another,2  so  that 
those  who  belong  to  the  party  out  of  office  have  a  direct  chance 
of  office  when  their  party  comes  in.  The  inducement  to  under¬ 
take  political  work  we  have  been  searching  for  is  at  once  seen 
to  be  adequate,  and  only  too  adequate.  The  men  needed  for  the 
work  are  certain  to  appear  because  remuneration  is  provided. 
Politics  has  now  become  a  gainful  profession,  like  advocacy,  stock¬ 
broking,  the  dry  goods  trade,  or  the  getting  up  of  companies. 
People  go  into  it  to  live  by  it,  primarily  for  the  sake  of  the 
salaries  attached  to  the  places  they  count  on  getting,  second¬ 
arily  in  view  of  the  opportunities  it  affords  of  making  inci¬ 
dental  and  sometimes  illegitimate  gains.  Every  person  in  a 
high  administrative  post,  whether  Federal,  State,  or  municipal, 
and,  above  all,  every  member  of  Congress,  has  opportunities  of 

1  Though,  as  observed  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  payment  of  members  of 
Congress  does  not  seem  to  have  any  marked  effect  in  lowering  the  type  of 
members.  It  is  the  offices  rather  than  legislative  posts  that  sustain  the  pro¬ 
fessional  class. 

2  The  progress  of  the  civil  service  reform  movement  has  greatly  reduced  the 
number  of  Federal  officers  dismissed  on  a  change  of  administration:  and  a 
similar  reduction  is  going  on  in  some  States  and  cities. 


CHAP.  LVII 


THE  POLITICIANS 


61 


rendering  services  to  wealthy  individuals  and  companies  for 
which  they  are  willing  to  pay  secretly  in  money  or  in  money’s 
worth.  The  better  officials  and  legislators  —  they  are  the  great 
majority,  except  in  large  cities — resist  the  temptation.  The 
worst  succumb  to  it ;  and  the  prospect  of  these  illicit  profits 
renders  a  political  career  distinctly  more  attractive  to  an 
unscrupulous  man. 

We  find  therefore  that  in  America  all  the  conditions  exist  for 
producing  a  class  of  men  specially  devoted  to  political  work  and 
making  a  livelihood  by  it.  It  is  work  much  of  which  cannot 
be  done  in  combination  with  any  other  kind  of  regular  work, 
whether  professional  or  commercial.  Even  if  the  man  who 
unites  wealth  and  leisure  to  high  intellectual  attainments  were 
a  frequent  figure  in  America,  he  would  not  take  to  this  work ; 
he  would  rather  be  a  philanthropist  or  cultivate  arts  and  letters. 
It  is  work  which,  steadily  pursued  by  an  active  man,  offers  an 
income.  Hence  a  large  number  of  persons  are  drawn  into  it, 
and  make  it  the  business  of  their  life ;  and  the  fact  that  they 
are  there  as  professionals  has  tended  to  keep  amateurs  out  of  it. 

There  are,  however,  two  qualifications  which  must  be  added 
to  this  statement  of  the  facts,  and  which  it  is  best  to  add  at  once. 
One  is  that  the  mere  pleasure  of  politics  counts  for  something. 
Many  people  in  America  as  well  as  in  England  undertake  even  the 
commonplace  work  of  local  canvassing  and  organizing  for  the 
sake  of  a  little  excitement,  a  little  of  the  agreeable  sense  of  self- 
importance,  or  from  that  fondness  for  doing  something  in  asso¬ 
ciation  with  others  which  makes  a  man  become  secretary  to  a 
cricket  club  or  treasurer  of  a  fund  raised  by  subscription  for 
some  purpose  he  may  not  really  care  for.  And  the  second 
qualification  is  that  pecuniary  motives  operate  with  less  force 
in  rural  districts  than  in  cities,  because  in  the  former  the  in¬ 
come  obtainable  by  public  office  is  too  small  to  induce  men 
to  work  long  in  the  hope  of  getting  it.  Let  it  therefore  be 
understood  that  what  is  said  in  this  chapter  refers  primarily  to 
cities,  and. of  course  also  to  persons  aiming  at  the  higher  Federal 
and  State  offices  ;  and  that  I  do  not  mean  to  deny  that  there  is 
plenty  of  work  done  by  amateurs  as  well  as  by  professionals. 

Having  thus  seen  what  are  the  causes  which  produce  profes¬ 
sional  politicians,  we  may  return  to  inquire  how  large  this  class 
is,  compared  ’with  the  corresponding  class  in  the  free  countries 
of  Europe,  whom  we  have  called  the  Inner  Circle. 


62 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


In  America  the  Inner  Circle,  that  is  to  say,  the  persons  who 
make  political  work  the  chief  business  of  life,  for  the  time  being, 
includes  :  — 

First.  All  members  of  both  Houses  of  Congress. 

Secondly.  All  Federal  office-holders  except  the  judges,  who 
are  irremovable,  and  the  “  classified  civil  serviced 

Thirdly.  A  large  part  of  the  members  of  State  legislatures. 
How  large  a  part,  it  is  impossible  to  determine,  for  it  varies 
greatly  from  State  to  State.  I  should  guess  that  in  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  California,  Maryland,  and  Louisi¬ 
ana,  half  (or  more)  the  members  were  professional  politicians ; 
in  Connecticut,  Ohio,  Virginia,  Illinois,  Texas,  perhaps  less  than 
half ;  in  Georgia,  Kentucky,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  Oregon,  not  more 
than  one-third ;  in  Massachusetts,  Vermont,  and  some  other 
States,  perhaps  even  less.  But  the  line  between  a  professional 
and  non-professional  politician  is  too  indefinite  to  make  any 
satisfactory  estimate  possible. 

Fourthly.  Nearly  all  State  office-holders,  excluding  all  judges 
in  a  very  few  States,  and  many  of  the  judges  in  the  rest. 

Fifthly.  Nearly  all  holders  of  paid  offices  in  the  greater  and 
in  many  of  the  smaller  cities,  and  many  holders  of  paid  offices 
in  the  counties.  There  are,  however,  great  differences  in  this 
respect  between  different  States,  the  New  England  States  and 
the  newer  States  of  the  North-west,  as  well  as  some  Southern 
States,  choosing  many  of  their  county  officials  from  men  who 
are  not  regularly  employed  on  politics,  although  members  of  the 
dominant  party. 

Sixthly.  A  large  number  of  people  who  hold  no  office  but  want 
to  get  one,  or  perhaps  even  who  desire  work  under  a  munici¬ 
pality.  This  category  includes,  of  course,  many  of  the  “  workers” 
of  the  party  which  does  not  command  the  majority  for  the  time 
being,  in  State  and  municipal  affairs,  and  which  has  not,  through 
the  President,  the  patronage  of  Federal  posts.  It  also  includes 
many  expectants  belonging  to  the  party  for  the  time  being  domi¬ 
nant,  who  are  earning  their  future  places  by  serving  the  party  in 
the  meantime.1 

All  the  above  may  fairly  be  called  professional  or  Inner 
Circle  politicians,  but  of  their  number  I  can  form  no  estimate, 
save  that  it  must  be  counted  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  inasmuch 

1  But,  as  already  observed,  there  are  also  in  the  rural  districts  and  smaller 
towns  many  workers  and  expectants  who  do  not  look  for  places. 


CHAP.  LVII 


THE  POLITICIANS 


63 


as  it  practically  includes  nearly  all  State  and  local  and  most 
Federal  office-holders  as  well  as  most  expectants  of  public  office.1 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  “work”  of  politics  means  in 
America  the  business  of  winning  nominations  (of  which  more 
anon)  and  elections,  and  that  this  work  is  incomparably  heavier 
and  more  complex  than  in  England,  because  :  — 

(1)  The  voters  are  a  larger  proportion  of  the  population ; 
(2)  The  government  is  more  complex  (Federal,  State,  and  local), 
and  the  places  filled  by  election  are  therefore  far  more  numer¬ 
ous  ;  (3)  Elections  come  at  shorter  intervals ;  (4)  The  ma¬ 
chinery  of  nominating  candidates  is  far  more  complete  and 
intricate ;  (5)  The  methods  of  fighting  elections  require  more 
technical  knowledge  and  skill ;  (6)  Ordinary  private  citizens  do 
less  election  work,  seeing  that  they  are  busier  than  in  Eng¬ 
land,  and  the  professionals  exist  to  do  it  for  them. 

I  have  observed  that  there  are  also  plenty  of  men  engaged  in 
some  trade  or  profession  who  interest  themselves  in  politics  and 
work  for  their  party  without  any  definite  hope  of  office  or  other 
pecuniary  aim.  They  correspond  to  what  we  have  called  the 
Outer  Circle  politicians  of  Europe.  It  is  hard  to  draw  a  line 
between  the  two  classes,  because  they  shade  off  into  one  another, 


1  The  Inner  Circle  may  in  England  be  roughly  taken  to  include :  — 


Members  of  the  House  of  Lords,  say  .  80 

Members  of  the  House  of  Commons  . 670 

Editors,  and  chief  writers  on  leading  newspapers,  say  .  300 

Expectant  candidates  for  House  of  Commons,  say  .  .  .  450 

Persons  who  in  each  constituency  devote  most  of  their  time 
to  politics,  e.g.  secretaries  of  political  associations, 
registration  agents,  etc.,  say .  2500 


4000 


Comparatively  few  newspapers  are  primarily  political,  and  in  many  con¬ 
stituencies  (e.g.  Irish  and  Highland  counties)  there  are  very  few  persons  occu¬ 
pied  in  political  work.  I  do  not,  therefore,  think  this  estimate  too  low. 

In  the  United  States  there  are  now  out  of  the  whole  number  of  Federal 
offices  about  100,000  which  may  be  said  to  attract  aspirants  to  endeavour  to 
gain  them  by  political  work.  Allowing  one  expectant  for  each  office  (a  small 
allowance),  and  assuming  the  State  and  local  offices  bestowed  as  the  reward 
for  political  services  to  be  one  and  a  half  times  as  numerous  as  the  above  Federal 
offices  (they  are,  of  course,  more  numerous),  and  allowing  one  expectant 
to  each  such  office,  we  should  have  a  total  of  over  100,000  +  150,000  X  2  = 
500,000,  a  little  less  than  one-third  of  the  total  number  employed  in  railway 
work.  Deducting  from  this  total  those  who,  though  they  work  for  office,  do 
not  make  such  work  their  main  business,  and  those  who  work  with  no 
special  eye  to  office,  we  should  still  have  a  very  large  total,  doubtless  over 
250,000  of  persons  whose  chief  occupation  and  livelihood  lies  in  politics. 


64 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


there  being  many  farmers  or  lawyers  or  saloon-keepers,  for  in¬ 
stance,  who,  while  pursuing  their  regular  calling,  bear  a  hand 
in  politics,  and  look  to  be  some  time  or  other  rewarded  for  doing 
so.  When  this  expectation  becomes  a  considerable  part  of  the 
motive  for  exertion,  such  an  one  may  fairly  be  called  a  profes¬ 
sional,  at  least  for  the  time  being,  for  although  he  has  other 
means  of  livelihood,  he  is  apt  to  be  impregnated  with  the  habits 
and  sentiments  of  the  professional  class. 

The  proportion  between  Outer  Circle  and  Inner  Circle  men 
is  in  the  United  States  a  sort  of  ozonometer  by  which  the  purity 
and  healthiness  of  the  political  atmosphere  may  be  tested. 
Looking  at  the  North  only,  for  it  is  hard  to  obtain  trustworthy 
data  as  to  the  South,  and  excluding  congressmen,  the  proportion 
of  men  who  exert  themselves  in  politics  without  pecuniary 
motive  is  largest  in  New  England,  in  the  country  parts  of  New 
York,  in  Northern  Ohio.,  and  the  North-western  States,  while 
the  professional  politicians  most  abound  in  the  great  cities  — 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Brooklyn,  Boston,  Baltimore,  Buf¬ 
falo,  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  New  Orleans, 
San  Francisco.  This  is  because  these  cities  have  the  largest 
masses  of  ignorant  voters,  and  also  because  their  municipal 
governments,  handling  vast  revenues,  offer  the  largest  facilities 
for  illicit  gains. 

I  shall  presently  return  to  the  Outer  Circle  men.  Meantime 
let  us  examine  the  professionals  somewhat  more  closely ;  and 
begin  with  those  of  the  humbler  type,  whose  eye  is  fixed  on 
a  municipal  or  other  local  office,  and  seldom  ranges  so  high  as 
a  seat  in  Congress. 

As  there  are  weeds  that  follow  human  dwellings,  so  this 
species  thrives  best  in  cities,  and  even  in  the  most  crowded 
parts  of  cities.  It  is  known  to  the  Americans  as  the  “ward 
politician/7  because  the  city  ward  is  the  chief  sphere  of  its 
activity,  and  the  ward  meeting  the  first  scene  of  its  exploits. 
A  statesman  of  this  type  usually  begins  as  a  saloon  or  bar¬ 
keeper,  an  occupation  which  enables  him  to  form  a  large  circle 
of  acquaintances,  especially  among  the  “loafer77  class  who  have 
votes  but  no  reason  for  using  them  one  way  more  than  another, 
and  whose  interest  in  political  issues  is  therefore  as  limited  as 
their  stock  of  political  knowledge.  But  he  may  have  started 
as  a  lawyer  of  the  lowest  kind,  or  lodging-house  keeper,  or  have 
taken  to  politics  after  failure  in  store-keeping.  The  education 


CHAP.  LVII 


THE  POLITICIANS 


65 


of  this  class  is  only  that  of  the  elementary  schools  :  if  they  have 
come  after  boyhood  from  Europe,  it  is  not  even  that.  They 
have  of  course  no  comprehension  of  political  questions  or  zeal 
for  political  principles  ;  politics  mean  to  them  merely  a  scramble 
for  places  or  jobs.  They  are  usually  vulgar,  sometimes  brutal, 
not  so  often  criminal,  or  at  least  the  associates  of  criminals. 
They  it  is  who  move  about  the  populous  quarters  of  the  great 
cities,  form  groups  through  whom  they  can  reach  and  control  the 
ignorant  voter,  pack  meetings  with  their  creatures. 

Their  methods  and  their  triumphs  must  be  reserved  for  a 
later  chapter.  Those  of  them  who  are  Irish,  an  appreciable 
though  a  diminishing  proportion  in  great  cities,  have  seldom 
Irish  patriotism  to  redeem  the  mercenary  quality  of  their  politics. 
They  are  too  strictly  practical  for  that,  being  regardful  of  the 
wrongs  of  Ireland  only  so  far  as  these  furnish  capital  to  be  used 
with  Irish  voters.  Their  most  conspicuous  virtues  are  shrewd¬ 
ness,  a  sort  of  rough  good-fellowship  with  one  another,  and  loy¬ 
alty  to  their  chiefs,  from  whom  they  expect  promotion  in  the 
ranks  of  the  service.  The  plant  thrives  in  the  soil  of  any  party, 
but  its  growth  is  more  vigorous  in  whichever  party  is  for  the  time 
dominant  in  a  given  city. 

English  critics,  taking  their  cue  from  American  pessimists, 
have  often  described  these  men  as  specimens  of  the  whole  class 
of  politicians.  This  is  misleading.  The  men  are  bad  enough 
both  as  an  actual  force  and  as  a  symptom.  But  they  are  con¬ 
fined  to  a  few  great  cities,  those  eleven  or  twelve  I  have  already 
mentioned ;  it  is  their  achievements  there,  and  particularly  in 
New  York,  where  the  mass  of  ignorant  immigrants  is  largest, 
that  have  made  them  famous. 

In  the  smaller  cities,  and  in  the  country  generally,  the  minor- 
politicians  are  mostly  native  Americans,  less  ignorant  and  more 
respectable  than  these  last-mentioned  street  vultures.  The 
bar-keeping  element  is  represented  among  them,  but  the  bulk 
are  petty  lawyers,  officials,  Federal  as  well  as  State  and  county, 
and  people  who  for  want  of  a  better  occupation  have  turned 
office-seekers,  -with  a  fair  sprinkling  of  store-keepers,  farmers, 
and  newspaper  men.  The  great  majority  have  some  regular 
avocation,  so  that  they  are  by  no  means  wholly  professionals. 
Law  is  of  course  the  business  which  best  fits  in  with  politics. 
They  are  only  a  little  below  the  level  of  the  class  to  which  they 
belong,  which  is  what  would  be  called  in  England  the  lower 


66 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


middle,  or  in  France  the  petite  bourgeoisie,  and  they  often  suppose 
themselves  to  be  fighting  for  Republican  or  Democratic  princi¬ 
ples,  even  though  in  fact  concerned  chiefly  with  place  hunting. 
It  is  not  so  much  positive  moral  defects  that  are  to  be  charged  on 
them  as  a  sordid  and  selfish  view  of  politics  and  a  laxity,  some¬ 
times  amounting  to  fraud,  in  the  use  of  electioneering  methods. 

These  two  classes  do  the  local  work  and  dirty  work  of  politics. 
They  are  the  rank  and  file.  Above  them  stand  the  officers  in 
the  political  army,  the  party  managers,  including  the  members 
of  Congress  and  chief  men  in  the  State  legislatures,  and  the 
editors  of  influential  newspapers.  Some  of  these  have  pushed 
their  way  up  from  the  humbler  ranks.  Others  are  men  of  su¬ 
perior  ability  and  education,  often  college  graduates,  lawyers 
who  have  had  practice,  less  frequently  merchants  or  manufac¬ 
turers  who  have  slipped  into  politics  from  business.  There  are 
all  sorts  among  them,  creatures  clean  and  unclean,  as  in  the 
sheet  of  St.  Peter’s  vision,  but  that  one  may  say  of  politicians 
in  all  countries.  What  characterizes  them  as  compared  with 
the  corresponding  class  in  Europe  is  that  their  whole  time  is 
more  frequently  given  to  political  work,  that  most  of  them  draw 
an  income  from  politics  and  the  rest  hope  to  do  so,  that  they 
come  more  largely  from  the  poorer  and  less  cultivated  than 
from  the  higher  ranks  of  society,  and  that  they  include  but  few 
men  who  have  pursued  any  of  those  economical,  social,  or  con¬ 
stitutional  studies  which  form  the  basis  of  politics  and  legisla¬ 
tion,  although  many  are  proficients  in  the  arts  of  popular  oratory, 
of  electioneering,  and  of  party  management. 

They  show  a  high  average  level  of  practical  cleverness  and 
versatility,  and  often  some  legal  knowledge.  They  are  usually 
correct  in  life,  for  intoxication  as  well  as  sexual  immorality 
is  condemned  by  American  more  severely  than  by  European 
opinion,  but  are  often  charged  with  a  low  tone,  with  laxity  in 
pecuniary  matters,  with  a  propensity  to  commit  or  to  excuse 
jobs,  with  a  deficient  sense  of  the  dignity  which  public  office 
confers  and  the  responsibility  it  implies.  I  shall  elsewhere  discuss 
the  validity  of  these  charges,  and  need  only  observe  here  that  even 
if  the  years  since  the  Civil  War  have  furnished  some  grounds 
for  accusing  the  class  as  a  whole,  there  are  many  brilliant  excep¬ 
tions,  many  leading  politicians  whose  honour  is  as  stainless  and 
patriotism  as  pure  as  that  of  the  best  European  statesmen. 
In  this  general  description  I  am  simply  repeating  what  non- 


CHAP.  LVII 


THE  POLITICIANS 


67 


political  Americans  themselves  say.  It  is  possible  that  with  their 
half-humorous  tendency  to  exaggerate  they  dwell  too  much  on 
the  darker  side  of  their  public  life.  My  own  belief  is  that  things 
are  healthier  than  the  newspapers  and  common  talk  lead  a  trav¬ 
eller  to  believe,  and  that  the  blackness  of  the  worst  men  in  the 
large  cities  has  been  allowed  to  darken  the  whole  class  of  politi¬ 
cians  as  the  smoke  from  a  few  factories  will  darken  the  sky  over 
a  whole  town.  However,  the  sentiment  I  have  described  is  no 
doubt  the  general  sentiment.  “  Politician  ’ 7  is  a  term  of  reproach, 
not  merely  among  the  “superfine  philosophers”  of  New  England 
colleges,  but  among  the  better  sort  of  citizens  over  the  whole 
Union.  “How  did  such  a  job  come  to  be  perpetrated?”  I 
remember  once  asking  a  casual  acquaintance  who  had  been  point¬ 
ing  out  some  scandalous  waste  of  public  money.  “Why,  what 
can  you  expect  from  the  politicians  ?  ”  was  the  surprised  answer. 

Assuming  these  faults  to  exist,  to  what  causes  are  they  to  be 
ascribed?  Granted  that  politics  has  to  become  a  gainful  pro¬ 
fession,  may  it  not  still  be  practised  with  as  much  integrity  as 
other  professions?  Do  not  the  higher  qualities  of  intellect, 
the  ripe  fruits  of  experience  and  study,  win  for  a  man  ascendancy 
here  as  in  Europe  ?  Does  not  the  suspicion  of  dishonour  blight 
his  influence  with  a  public  which  is  itself  as  morally  exacting 
as  that  of  any  European  country?  These  are  questions  which 
can  be  better  answered  when  the  methods  of  party  management 
have  been  described,  the  qualities  they  evoke  appreciated,  their 
reaction  on  men’s  character  understood. 

It  remains  to  speak  of  the  non-professional  or  Outer  Circle 
politicians,  those  who  work  for  their  party  without  desiring 
office.  These  men  were  numerous  and  zealous  shortly  before 
and  during  the  Civil  War,  when  the  great  questions  of  the  exclu¬ 
sion  of  slavery  from  the  Territories  and  the  preservation  of  the 
Union  kindled  the  enthusiasm  of  the  noblest  spirits  of  the  North, 
women  as  well  as  men.  No  country  ever  produced  loftier 
types  of  dauntless  courage  and  uncompromising  devotion  to 
principle  than  William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  his  fellow- workers 
in  the  Abolitionist  cause.  Office  came  to  Abraham  Lincoln, 
but  he  would  have  served  his  party  just  as  earnestly  if  there 
had  been  no  office  to  reward  him.1  Nor  was  there  any  want  of 

1  Lincoln  was  never  a  professional  politician,  for  he  continued  to  practise 
as  a  lawyer  till  he  became  President ;  but  he  was  so  useful  to  his  party  that 
for  some  years  before  1860  he  had  been  obliged  to  spend  great  part  of  his  time 
in  political  work,  and  probably  some  would  have  called  him  a  professional. 


68 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


high-souled  patriotism  in  the  South.  The  people  gave  their 
blood  freely,  and  among  the  leaders  there  were  many  who  offered 
up  fine  characters  as  well  as  brilliant  talents  on  an  altar  which  all 
but  themselves  deemed  unhallowed.  When  these  great  issues  were 
finally  settled,  and  the  generation  whose  manhood  they  filled 
began  to  pass  away,  there  was  less  motive  for  ordinary  citizens 
to  trouble  themselves  about  public  affairs.  Hence  the  pro¬ 
fessional  politicians  had  the  field  left  free ;  and  as  they  were 
ready  to  take  the  troublesome  work  of  organizing,  the  ordinary 
citizen  was  contented  to  be  superseded,  and  thought  he  did  enough 
when  he  went  to  the  poll  for  his  party.  Still  there  are  districts 
where  a  good  deal  of  unpaid  and  disinterested  political  work  is 
done.  In  some  parts  of  New  England,  New  York,  and  Ohio, 
for  instance,  citizens  of  position  bestir  themselves  to  rescue  the 
control  of  local  elections  from  the  ward  politicians.  In  the  main, 
however,  the  action  of  the  Outer  Circle  consists  in  voting,  and 
this  the  ordinary  native  citizen  does  more  steadily  and  intelli¬ 
gently  than  anywhere  in  Europe,  unless  perhaps  in  Switzerland. 
Doubtless  much  of  the  work  which  Outer  Circle  politicians  do 
in  Europe  is  in  America  done  by  professionals.  But  that  lively 
interest  in  politics  which  the  English  Outer  Circle  feels,  and  which 
is  not  felt,  save  at  exceptional  moments,  by  the  English  public 
generally,  is  in  America  felt  by  the  bulk  of  the  nation,  that  is  to 
say,  by  the  large  majority  of  native  white  Americans,  and  even 
by  the  better  sort  of  immigrants,  or,  in  other  words,  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Outer  Circle  comes  nearer  to  including  the  whole  nation  than 
does  the  Outer  Circle  of  England.  Thus  the  influence  which 
counterworks  that  of  professionals  is  the  influence  of  public 
opinion  expressing  itself  constantly  through  its  countless  voices 
in  the  press,  and  more  distinctly  at  frequent  intervals  by  the 
ballot-box.  I  say  “ counterworks,”  because,  while  in  Europe 
the  leaders  and  still  more  the  average  legislators  share  and  help 
to  make  public  opinion,  in  the  United  States  the  politician  stands 
rather  outside,  and  regards  public  opinion  as  a  factor  to  be 
reckoned  with,  much  as  the  sailor  regards  the  winds  and  currents 
that  affect  his  course.  His  primary  aim,  unless  he  be  exception¬ 
ally  disinterested,  is  place  and  income-:  and  it  is  in  this  sense 
that  he  may  be  described  as  a  member  of  a  definite  profession. 


CHAPTER  LVIII 


WHY  THE  BEST  MEN  DO  NOT  GO  INTO  POLITICS 

“But,”  some  one  will  say,  who  has  read  the  reasons  just 
assigned  for  the  development  of  a  class  of  professional  politi¬ 
cians,  “you  allow  nothing  for  public  spirit.  It  is  easy  to  show 
why  the  prize  of  numerous  places  should  breed  a  swarm  of  office- 
seekers,  not  so  easy  to  understand  why  the  office-seekers  should 
be  allowed  to  have  this  arena  of  public  life  in  a  vast  country, 
a  free  country,  an  intelligent  country,  all  to  themselves.  There 
ought  to  be  patriotic  citizens  ready  to  plunge  into  the  stream  and 
save  the  boat  from  drifting  towards  the  rapids.  They  would 
surely  have  the  support  of  the  mass  of  the  people  who  must 
desire  honest  and  economical  administration.  If  such  citizens 
stand  aloof,  there  are  but  two  explanations  possible.  Either 
public  life  must  be  so  foul  that  good  men  cannot  enter  it,  or  good 
men  must  be  sadly  wanting  in  patriotism.” 

This  kind  of  observation  is  so  common  in  European  mouths 
as  to  need  an  explicit  answer.  The  answer  is  two-fold. 

In  the  first  place,  the  arena  is  not  wholly  left  to  the  profes¬ 
sionals.  Both  the  Federal  and  the  State  legislatures  contain 
a  fair  proportion  of  upright  and  disinterested  men,  who  enter 
chiefly,  or  largely,  from  a  sense  of  public  duty,  and  whose  pres¬ 
ence  keeps  the  mere  professionals  in  order.  So  does  public 
opinion,  deterring  even  the  bad  men  from  the  tricks  to  which 
they  are  prone,  and  often  driving  them,  when  detected  in  a  seri¬ 
ous  offence,  from  place  and  power. 

However,  this  first  answer  is  not  a  complete  answer,  for  it 
must  be  admitted  that  the  proportion  of  men  of  intellectual 
and  social  eminence  who  enter  public  life  was  during  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century  smaller  in  America  than  it  was  in  each  of  the  free 
countries  of  Europe.  Does  this  fact  indicate  a  want  of  public 
spirit  ? 

It  is  much  to  be  wished  that  in  every  country  public  spirit 
were  the  chief  motive  propelling  men  into  public  life.  But  is 

69 


70 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


it  so  anywhere  now  ?  Has  it  been  so  at  any  time  in  a  nation's 
history?  Let  any  one  in  England,  dropping  for  the  moment 
that  self-righteous  attitude  of  which  Englishmen  are  commonly 
accused  by  foreigners,  ask  himself  how  many  of  those  whom  he 
knows  as  mixing  in  the  public  life  of  his  own  country  have  entered 
it  from  motives  primarily  patriotic,  how  many  have  been  actuated 
by  the  love  of  fame  or  power,  the  hope  of  advancing  their  social 
pretensions  or  their  business  relations.  There  is  nothing  neces¬ 
sarily  wrong  in  such  forms  of  ambition  ;  but  if  we  find  that  they 
count  for  much  in  the  public  life  of  one  country,  and  for  compara¬ 
tively  little  in  the  public  life  of  another,  we  must  expect  to  find 
the  latter  able  to  reckon  among  its  statesmen  fewer  persons  of 
eminent  intelligence  and  energy. 

Now  there  are  several  conditions  present  in  the  United  States, 
conditions  both  constitutional  and  social,  conditions  independent 
either  of  political  morality  or  of  patriotism,  which  make  the 
ablest  citizens  less  disposed  to  enter  political  life  than  they  would 
otherwise  be,  or  than  persons  of  the  same  class  are  in  Europe. 
I  have  already  referred  to  some  of  these,  but  recapitulate  them 
shortly  here  because  they  are  specially  important  in  this  connec¬ 
tion. 

The  want  of  a  social  and  commercial  capital  is  such  a  cause. 
To  be  a  Federal  politician  you  must  live  in  Washington,  that 
is,  abandon  your  circle  of  home  friends,  your  profession  or  busi¬ 
ness,  your  local  public  duties.  But  to  live  in  Paris  or  London 
is  of  itself  an  attraction  to  many  Englishmen  and  Frenchmen. 

There  is  no  class  in  America  to  which  public  political  life  comes 
naturally,  scarcely  any  families  with  a  sort  of  hereditary  right 
to  serve  the  State.  Nobody  can  get  an  early  and  easy  start  on 
the  strength  of  his  name  and  connections,  as  still  happens  in 
several  European  countries. 

In  Britain  or  France  a  man  seeking  to  enter  the  higher  walks 
of  public  life  has  more  than  five  hundred  seats  for  which  he  may 
stand.  If  his  own  town  or  county  is  impossible  he  goes  elsewhere. 
In  the  United  States  he  cannot.  If  his  own  district  is  already 
filled  by  a  member  of  his  own  party, there  is  nothing  to  be  done, 
unless  he  will  condescend  to  undermine  and  supplant  at  the  next 
nominating  convention  the  sitting  member.  If  he  has  been 
elected  and  happens  to  lose  his  own  re-nomination  or  re-election, 
he  cannot  re-enter  Congress  by  any  other  door.  The  fact  that 
a  man  has  served  gives  him  no  claim  to  be  allowed  to  go  on  serv- 


CHAP,  lviii  BEST  MEN  DO  NOT  GO  INTO  POLITICS 


71 


ing.  In  the  West,  rotation  has  been  the  rule.  No  wonder  that, 
when  a  political  career  is  so  precarious,  men  of  worth  and 
capacity  hesitate  to  embrace  it.  They  cannot  afford  to  be 
thrown  out  of  their  life’s  course  by  a  mere  accident.1 

Politics  have  been  since  the  Civil  War  less  interesting  or  at 
any  rate  less  exciting,  than  they  have  in  Europe  during  the  same 
period.  The  two  kinds  of  questions  which  most  attract  eager  or 
ambitious  minds,  questions  of  foreign  policy  and  of  domestic 
constitutional  change,  were  generally  absent,  happily  absent. 
Currency  and  tariff  questions  and  financial  affairs  generally, 
internal  improvements,  the  regulation  of  railways  and  so  forth, 
are  important,  no  doubt,  but  to  some  minds  not  fascinating. 
How  few  people  in  the  English  or  French  legislatures  have  mas¬ 
tered  them,  or  would  relish  political  life  if  it  dealt  with  little 
else  !  There  are  no  class  privileges  or  religious  inequalities  to  be 
abolished.  Religion,  so  powerful  a  political  force  in  Europe,  is 
outside  politics  altogether. 

In  most  European  countries  there  has  been  for  many  years 
past  an  upward  pressure  of  the  poorer  or  the  unprivileged  masses, 
a  pressure  which  has  seemed  to  threaten  the  wealthier  and  more 
particularly  the  landowning  class.  Hence  members  of  the  latter 
class  have  had  a  strong  motive  for  keeping  tight  hold  of  the  helm  of 
state.  They  have  felt  a  direct  personal  interest  in  sitting  in  the 
legislature  and  controlling  the  administration  of  their  country. 
This  has  not  been  so  in  America.  Its  great  political  issues  have 
not  hitherto  been  class  issues.  On  the  contrary  there  has  been,  till 
within  the  last  few  years,  so  great  and  general  a  sense  of  economic 
security,  whether  well  or  ill  founded  I  do  not  now  inquire,  that  the 
wealthy  and  educated  have  been  content  to  leave  the  active  work 
of  politics  alone. 

The  division  of  legislative  authority  between  the  Federal 
Congress  and  the  legislatures  of  the  States  further  lessens  the 
interest  and  narrows  the  opportunities  of  a  political  career.  Some 
of  the  most  useful  members  of  the  English  Parliament  have  been 
led  to  enter  it  by  their  zeal  for  philanthropic  schemes  and  social 
reforms.  Others  enter  because  thejr  are  interested  in  foreign 

1  The  tendency  in  Switzerland  to  re-elect  the  same  men  to  the  legislature 
and  to  public  office  has  doubtless  worked  as  much  for  good  in  politics  there  as 
the  opposite  tendency  works  for  evil  in  the  United  States.  Men  who  have 
supported  measures  which  their  constituency  disapproves  are  often  re-elected 
because  they  are  thought  honest  and  capable.  The  existence  of  the  referen¬ 
dum  facilitates  this. 


72 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


politics  or  in  commercial  questions.  In  the  United  States  foreign 
politics  and  commercial  questions  belong  to  Congress,  so  no  one 
will  be  led  by  them  to  enter  the  legislature  of  his  State.  Social 
reforms  and  philanthropic  enterprises  belong  to  the  State  legisla¬ 
tures,  so  no  one  will  be  led  by  them  to  enter  Congress.  The  lim¬ 
ited  sphere  of  each  body  deprives  it  of  the  services  of  many  active 
spirits  who  would  have  been  attracted  by  it  had  it  dealt  with  both 
these  sets  of  matters,  or  with  the  particular  set  of  matters  in  which 
their  own  particular  interest  happens  to  lie. 

In  America  there  are  more  easy  and  attractive  openings  into 
other  careers  than  in  most  European  countries.  The  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  great  West,  the  making  and  financing  of  railways,  the 
starting  of  industrial  or  commercial  enterprises  in  the  newer 
States,  offer  a  tempting  field  to  ambition,  ingenuity,  and  self- 
confidence.  A  man  without  capital  or  friends  has  a  better  chance 
than  in  Europe,  and  as  the  scale  of  undertakings  is  vaster, 
the  prizes  are  more  seductive.  Hence  much  of  the  practical 
ability  which  in  the  Old  World  goes  to  Parliamentary  politics  or 
to  the  civil  administration  of  the  state,  goes  in  America  into  busi¬ 
ness,  especially  into  railways  and  finance.  No  class  strikes  one 
more  by  its  splendid  practical  capacity  than  the  class  of  railroad 
men.  It  includes  administrative  rulers,  generals,  diplomatists, 
financiers,  of  the  finest  gifts.  And  in  point  of  fact  (as  will  be  more 
fully  shown  later)  the  railroad  kings  have  of  late  years  swayed  the 
fortunes  of  American  citizens  more  than  the  politicians. 

The  fascination  which  politics  have  for  many  people  in  England 
is  largely  a  social  fascination.  Those  who  belong  by  birth  to  the 
upper  classes  like  to  support  their  position  in  county  society  by 
belonging  to  the  House  of  Commons,  or  by  procuring  either  a  seat 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  or  the  lord-lieutenancy  of  their  county,  or 
perhaps  a  post  in  the  royal  household.  The  easiest  path  to  these 
latter  dignities  lies  through  the  Commons.  Those  who  spring 
from  the  middle  class  expect  to  find  by  means  of  politics  an  en¬ 
trance  into  a  more  fashionable  society  than  they  have  hitherto 
frequented.  Their  wives  will  at  least  be  invited  to  the  party  re¬ 
ceptions,  or  they  may  entertain  a  party  chieftain  when  he  comes  to 
address  a  meeting  in  their  town.  Such  inducements  scarcely 
exist  in  America.  A  congressman,  a  city  mayor,  even  a  State 
governor,  gains  nothing  socially  by  his  position.  There  is  in¬ 
deed,  except  in  a  few  large  cities  with  exclusive  sets,  really 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  social  prize  set  before  social  ambi- 


CHAP,  lviii  BEST  MEN  DO  NOT  GO  INTO  POLITICS 


73 


tion,  while  the  career  of  political  ambition  is  even  in  those  cities 
wholly  disjoined  from  social  success.  The  only  exception  to  this 
rule  occurs  in  Washington,  where  a  senator  or  cabinet  minister 
enjoys  ex  officio  a  certain  social  rank.1 

None  of  these  causes  is  discreditable  to  America,  yet,  taken 
together,  they  go  far  to  account  for  the  large  development  of 
the  professional  element  among  politicians.  Putting  the  thing 
broadly,  one  may  say  that  in  America,  while  politics  are  relatively 
less  interesting  than  in  Europe  and  lead  to  less,  other  careers  are 
relatively  more  interesting  and  lead  to  more.2 

It  may  however  be  alleged  that  I  have  omitted  one  significant 
ground  for  the  distaste  of  “  the  best  people  ”  for  public  life,  viz. 
the  bad  company  they  would  have  to  keep,  the  general  vulgarity 
of  tone  in  politics,  the  exposure  to  invective  or  ribaldry  by  hostile 
speakers  and  a  reckless  press. 

I  omit  this  ground  because  it  seems  insignificant.  In  every 
country  a  politician  has  to  associate  with  men  whom  he  despises 
and  distrusts,  and  those  whom  he  most  despises  and  distrusts 
are  sometimes  those  whose  so-called  social  rank  is  highest  — 
the  sons  or  brothers  of  great  nobles.  In  every  country  he  is 
exposed  to  misrepresentation  and  abuse,  and  the  most  galling 
misrepresentations  are  not  the  coarse  and  incredible  ones,  but 
those  which  have  a  semblance  of  probability,  which  delicately 
discolour  his  motives  and  ingeniously  pervert  his  words.  A 
statesman  must  soon  learn,  even  in  decorous  England  or  punc¬ 
tilious  France  or  polished  Italy,  to  disregard  all  this,  and  rely 
upon  his  conscience  for  his  peace  of  mind,  and  upon  his  conduct 
for  the  respect  of  his  countrymen.  If  he  can  do  so  in  England 
or  France  or  Italy,  he  may  do  so  in  America  also.  No  more  there 
than  in  Europe  has  any  upright  man  been  written  down,  for 
though  the  American  press  is  unsparing,  the  American  people  are 

1  It  is  the  same  in  some,  though  by  no  means  in  all,  of  the  cantons  of  Switzer¬ 
land.  Office  carries  little  or  no  social  consideration  with  it.  In  some  cantons 
the  old  families  have  so  completely  withdrawn  or  become  so  completely  shut 
out  from  public  office,  federal  or  cantonal,  that  it  would  be  assumed  that  a 
politician  was  necessarily  a  plebeian.  I  remember  to  have  been  told  in  Bern 
of  a  foreign  diplomatist  who,  strolling  with  one  of  the  old  patricians  of  the  city, 
stopped  at  the  door  of  the  Government  offices.  “Where  are  you  going?” 
asked  the  patrician.  “To  see  one  of  your  ministers  on  business.”  “You  don’t 
mean  that  you  are  going  to  speak  to  one  of  that  canaille  /”  was  the  reply.  The 
minister  was,  as  Swiss  statesmen  generally  are,  a  perfectly  respectable  man ; 
but  to  a  Bernese  Junker  his  being  a  minister  was  enough  to  disparage  him. 

2  This  is  true  even  of  eminence  in  letters  or  art.  A  great  writer  or  eloquent 
preacher  is  more  honoured  and  valued  in  America  than  in  England. 


74 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


shrewd,  and  sometimes  believe  too  little  rather  than  too  much  evil 
of  a  man  whom  the  press  assails.  Although  therefore  one  hears 
the  pseudo-European  American  complain  of  newspaper  violence, 
and  allege  that  it  keeps  him  and  his  friends  from  doing  their  duty 
by  their  country,  and  although  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  fear 
of  newspaper  attacks  deters  a  good  citizen  from  exposing  some 
job  or  jobber,  still  I  could  not  learn  the  name  of  any  able  and 
high-minded  man  of  whom  it  could  be  truly  said  that  through 
this  cause  his  gifts  and  virtues  had  been  reserved  for  private 
life.  The  roughness  of  politics  has,  no  doubt,  some  influence 
on  the  view  which  wealthy  Americans  take  of  a  public  career, 
but  these  are  just  the  Americans  who  think  that  European  politics 
are  worked,  to  use  the  common  phrase,  “  with  kid  gloves,”  and 
they  are  not  the  class  most  inclined  anyhow  to  come  to  the  front 
for  the  service  of  the  nation.  Without  denying  that  there  is 
recklessness  in  the  American  press,  and  a  notable  want  of  refine¬ 
ment  in  politics  generally,  I  doubt  whether  these  phenomena  have 
anything  like  the  importance  which  European  visitors  are  taught, 
and  willingly  learn,  to  attribute  to  them.  Far  more  weight  is  to 
be  laid  upon  the  difficulties  which  the  organization  of  the  party 
system,  to  be  described  in  the  following  chapters,  throws  in  the 
way  of  men  who  seek  to  enter  public  life.  There  is,  as  we  shall 
see,  much  that  is  disagreeable,  much  that  is  even  humiliating,  in 
the  initial  stages  of  a  political  career,  and  doubtless  many  a  pil¬ 
grim  turns  back  after  a  short  experience  of  this  Slough  of  Despond. 

To  explain  the  causes  which  keep  so  much  of  the  finest  intel¬ 
lect  of  the  country  away  from  national  business  is  one  thing, 
to  deny  the  unfortunate  results  would  be  quite  another.  Unfor¬ 
tunate  they  certainly  are.  But  the  downward  tendency  observ¬ 
able  since  the  end  of  the  Civil  War  seems  to  have  been  ar¬ 
rested.  When  the  war  was  over,  the  Union  saved,  and  the  curse 
of  slavery  gone  for  ever,  there  came  a  season  of  contentment  and 
of  lassitude.  A  nation  which  had  surmounted  such  dangers  ' 
seemed  to  have  nothing  more  to  fear.  Those  who  had  fought 
with  tongue  and  pen  and  rifle,  might  now  rest  on  their  laurels. 
After  long-continued  strain  and  effort,  the  wearied  nerve  and 
muscle  sought  repose.  It  was  repose  from  political  warfare  only. 
For  the  end  of  the  war  coincided  with  the  opening  of  a  time  of 
swift  material  growth  and  abounding  material  prosperity,  in 
which  industry  and  the  development  of  the  West  absorbed  more 
and  more  of  the  energy  of  the  people.  Hence  a  neglect  of  the  de- 


CHAP,  lviii  BEST  MEN  DO  NOT  GO  INTO  POLITICS 


75 


tails  of  politics  by  the  better  class  of  voters  such  as  had  never  been 
seen  before.  Later  years  have  brought  a  revival  of  interest  in 
public  affairs,  and  especially  in  the  management  of  cities.  There 
is  more  speaking  and  writing  and  thinking,  practical  and  definite 
thinking,  upon  the  principles  of  government  than  at  any  pre¬ 
vious  epoch.  Good  citizens  are  beginning  to  put  their  hands 
to  the  machinery  of  government ;  and  those  who  do  so  are,  more 
largely  than  formerly,  young  men,  who  have  not  contracted  the 
bad  habits  which  the  practice  of  politics  engendered  among  many 
of  their  elders,  and  who  will  in  a  few  years  have  become  an  even 
more  potent  force  than  they  are  now.1  If  the  path  to  Congress 
and  the  State  legislatures  and  the  higher  municipal  offices  were 
cleared  of  the  stumbling-blocks  and  dirt  heaps  which  now  en¬ 
cumber  it,  cunningly  placed  there  by  the  professional  politicians, 
a  change  would  soon  pass  upon  the  composition  of  legislative 
bodies,  and  a  new  spirit  be  felt  in  the  management  of  State  and 
municipal  as  well  as  of  national  affairs. 


1  This  seems  to  be  even  more  true  in  1910  than  it  was  in  1894. 


CHAPTER  LIX 


PARTY  ORGANIZATIONS 

The  Americans  are,  to  use  their  favourite  expression,  a  highly 
executive  people,  with  a  greater  ingenuity  in  inventing  means, 
and  a  greater  promptitude  in  adapting  means  to  an  end,  than 
any  European  race.  Nowhere  are  large  undertakings  organized 
so  skilfully ;  nowhere  is  there  so  much  order  with  so  much  com¬ 
plexity;  nowhere  such  quickness  in  correcting  a  suddenly  dis¬ 
covered  defect,  in  supplying  a  suddenly  arisen  demand. 

Government  by  popular  vote,  both  local  and  national,  is  older 
in  America  than  in  continental  Europe.  It  is  far  more  complete 
than  even  in  England.  It  deals  with  larger  masses  of  men. 
Its  methods  have  engaged  a  greater  share  of  attention,  and  en¬ 
listed  more  inventive  skill  in  their  service,  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world.  They  have  therefore  become  more  elaborate  and,  so 
far  as  mere  mechanism  goes,  more  perfect  than  elsewhere. 

The  greatest  discovery  ever  made  in  the  art  of  war  was  when 
men  began  to  perceive  that  organization  and  discipline  count  for 
more  than  numbers.  This  discovery  gave  the  Spartan  infantry 
a  long  career  of  victory  in  Greece,  and  the  Swiss  infantry  a  not 
less  brilliant  renown  in  the  later  Middle  Ages.  The  Americans 
made  a  similar  discovery  in  politics  between  1820  and  1840.  By 
degrees,  for  even  in  America  great  truths  do  not  burst  full-grown 
upon  the  world,  it  was  perceived  that  the  victories  of  the  ballot- 
box,  no  less  than  of  the  sword,  must  be  won  by  the  cohesion  and 
disciplined  docility  of  the  troops,  and  that  these  merits  can  only 
be  secured  by  skilful  organization  and  long-continued  training. 
Both  parties  flung  themselves  into  the  task,  and  the  result  has  been 
an  extremely  complicated  system  of  party  machinery,  firm  yet 
flexible,  delicate  yet  quickly  set  up  and  capable  of  working  well  in 
the  roughest  communities.1  Strong  necessity,  long  practice,  and 
the  fierce  competition  of  the  two  great  parties,  have  enabled  this 

1  Since  the  earlier  editions  of  this  book  appeared,  a  careful  and  instructive 
study  of  U.  S.  political  party  machinery  has  been  published  by  M.  Ostrogorski 
under  the  title  of  Political  Party  Organizations  in  England  and  America. 

76 


CHAP.  LIX 


PARTY  ORGANIZATIONS 


77 


executive  people  to  surpass  itself  in  the  sphere  of  electioneering 
politics.  Yet  the  principles  are  so  simple  that  it  will  be  the 
narrator’s  fault  if  they  are  not  understood. 

One  preliminary  word  upon  the  object  of  a  party  organiza¬ 
tion.  To  a  European  politician,  by  which  I  mean  one  who 
knows  politics  but  does  not  know  America,  the  aims  of  a  party 
organization,  be  it  local  or  general,  seem  to  be  four  in  number  — 

Union  —  to  keep  the  party  together  and  prevent  it  from  wast¬ 
ing  its  strength  by  dissensions  and  schisms. 

Recruiting  —  to  bring  in  new  voters,  e.g.  immigrants  when 
they  obtain  citizenship,  young  men  as  they  reach  the  age 
of  suffrage,  new-comers,  or  residents  hitherto  indifferent  or 
hostile. 

Enthusiasm  —  to  excite  the  voters  by  the  sympathy  of  num¬ 
bers  and  the  sense  of  a  common  purpose,  rousing  them  by 
speeches  or  literature. 

Instruction  —  to  give  the  voters  some  knowledge  of  the  political 
issues  they  have  to  decide,  to  inform  them  of  the  virtues  of  their 
leaders,  and  the  crimes  of  their  opponents. 

These  aims,  or  at  least  the  first  three  of  them,  are  pursued 
by  the  party  organizations  of  America  with  eminent  success. 
But  they  are  less  important  than  a  fifth  object  which  has  been 
little  regarded  in  Europe,  though  in  America  it  is  the  main¬ 
spring  of  the  whole  mechanism.  This  is  the  selection  of  party 
candidates  ;  and  it  is  important  not  only  because  the  elective 
places  are  far  more  numerous  than  in  any  European  country, 
but  because  they  are  tenable  for  short  terms,  so  that  elections 
frequently  recur.  Since  the  parties,  having  of  late  had  few 
really  distinctive  principles,  and  therefore  no  well-defined  aims 
in  the  direction  of  legislation  or  administration,  exist  practi¬ 
cally  for  the  sake  of  filling  certain  offices,  and  carrying  on  the 
machinery  of  government,  the  choice  of  those  members  of  the 
party  whom  the  party  is  to  reward,  and  who  are  to  strengthen 
it  by  the  winning  of  the  offices,  becomes  a  main  end  of  its  being. 

There  are  three  ways  by  which  in  self-governing  countries 
candidates  may  be  brought  before  electors.  One  is  for  the 
candidate  to  offer  himself,  appealing  to  his  fellow-citizens  on 
the  strength  of  his  personal  merits,  or  family  connections,  or 
wealth,  or  local  influence.  This  was  the  practice  in  most 
British  constituencies  till  our  own  time ;  and  seems  to  be  the 


78 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


practice  over  parliamentary  Europe  still.  It  was  not  uncom¬ 
mon  in  the  Southern  States  before  the  Civil  War.  Another  is 
for  a  group  or  junto  of  influential  men  to  put  a  candidate 
forward,  intriguing  secretly  for  him  or  openly  recommending 
him  to  the  electors.  This  also  largely  prevailed  in  England, 
where,  in  counties,  four  or  five  of  the  chief  landowners  used  to 
agree  as  to  the  one  of  themselves  who  should  stand  for  the 
county,  or  perhaps  chose  the  eldest  son  of  a  duke  or  marquis  as 
the  person  whom  rank  designated.1  So  in  Scotch  burghs  a  knot 
of  active  bailies  and  other  citizens  combined  to  bring  out  a 
candidate,  but  generally  kept  their  action  secret,  for  “the 
clique”  was  always  a  term  of  reproach.  The  practice  is  com¬ 
mon  in  France  now,  where  the  committees  of  each  party  recom¬ 
mend  a  candidate. 

The  third  system  is  that  in  which  the  candidate  is  chosen 
neither  by  himself  nor  by  the  self-elected  local  group,  but  by 
the  people  themselves,  i.e.  by  the  members  of  a  party,  whether 
assembled  in  mass  or  acting  through  representatives  chosen  for 
the  purpose.  This  plan  offers  several  advantages.  It  promises 
to  secure  a  good  candidate,  because  presumably  the  people  will 
choose  a  suitable  man.  It  encourages  the  candidate,  by  giving 
him  the  weight  of  party  support,  and  therefore  tends  to  induce 
good  men  to  come  forward.  It  secures  the  union  of  the  party, 
because  a  previous  vote  has  determined  that  the  candidate  is 
the  man  whom  the  majority  prefer,  and  the  minority  are  there¬ 
fore  likely,  having  had  their  say  and  been  fairly  outvoted,  to 
fall  into  line  and  support  him.  This  is  the  system  which  now 
prevails  from  Maine  to  California,  and  is  indeed  the  keystone 
of  trans-atlantic  politics.  But  there  is  a  further  reason  for  it 
than  those  I  have  mentioned. 

That  no  American  dreams  of  offering  himself  for  a  post  un¬ 
less  he  has  been  chosen  by  his  party,  or  some  section  thereof, 
is  due  not  to  the  fact  that  few  persons  have  the  local  pre-emi¬ 
nence  which  the  social  conditions  of  Europe  bestow  on  the 
leading  landowners  of  a  neighbourhood,  or  on  some  great  mer¬ 
chants  or  employers  in  a  town,  nor  again  to  the  modesty  which 
used  to  make  an  Englishman  hesitate  to  appear  as  a  candi- 

1  Thus  in  Mr.  Disraeli’s  novel  of  Tancred  the  county  member,  a  man  of 
good  birth  and  large  estates,  offers  to  retire  in  order  to  make  room  for  the 
eldest  son  of  the  duke  when  he  comes  of  age.  This  would  not  happen  now¬ 
adays,  unless  of  course  the  duke  were  a  party  leader,  and  the  county  member 
desired  to  be  rewarded  by  a  peerage. 


CHAP.  LIX 


PARTY  ORGANIZATIONS 


79 


date  for  Parliament  until  he  had  got  up  a  requisition  to  him¬ 
self  to  stand,  but  to  the  notion  that  the  popular  mind  and 
will  are  and  must  be  all  in  all,  that  the  people  must  not  only 
create  the  office-bearer  by  their  votes,  but  even  designate  the 
persons  for  whom  votes  may  be  given.  For  a  man  to  put 
himself  before  the  voters  is  deemed  presumptuous,  because  an 
encroachment  on  their  right  to  say  whom  they  will  even  so 
much  as  consider.  The  theory  of  popular  sovereignty  requires 
that  the  ruling  majority  must  name  its  own  standard-bearers 
and  servants,  the  candidates,  must  define  its  own  platform, 
must  in  every  way  express  its  own  mind  and  will.  Were  it  to 
leave  these  matters  to  the  initiative  of  candidates  offering 
themselves,  or  candidates  put  forward  by  an  unauthorized 
clique,  it  would  subject  itself  to  them,  would  be  passive  instead 
of  active,  would  cease  to  be  worshipped  as  the  source  of  power. 
A  system  for  selecting  candidates  is  therefore  not  a  mere 
contrivance  for  preventing  party  dissensions,  but  an  essential 
feature  of  matured  democracy. 

It  was  not  however  till  democracy  came  to  maturity  that  the 
system  was  perfected.  As  far  back  as  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  it  was  the  custom  in  Massachusetts,  and 
probably  in  other  colonies,  for  a  coterie  of  leading  citizens  to 
put  forward  candidates  for  the  offices  of  the  town  or  colony,  and 
their  nominations,  although  clothed  with  no  authority  but  that 
of  the  individuals  making  them,  were  generally  accepted.  This 
lasted  on  after  the  Revolution,  for  the  structure  of  society  still 
retained  a  certain  aristocratic  quality.  Clubs  sprang  up  which, 
especially  in  New  York  State,  became  the  organs  of  groups  and 
parties,  brought  out  candidates,  and  conducted  election  cam¬ 
paigns  ;  while  in  New  England  the  clergy  and  the  men  of  sub¬ 
stance  continued  to  act  as  leaders.  Presently,  as  the  demo¬ 
cratic  spirit  grew,  and  people  would  no  longer  acquiesce  in 
self-appointed  chiefs,  the  legislatures  began  to  be  recognized 
as  the  bodies  to  make  nominations  for  the  higher  Federal  and 
State  offices.  Each  party  in  Congress  nominated  the  candidate 
to  be  run  for  the  presidency,  each  party  in  a  State  legislature 
the  candidate  for  governor,  and  often  for  other  posts  also.  This 
lasted  during  the  first  two  or  three  decades  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  till  the  electoral  suffrage  began  to  be  generally  lowered, 
and  a  generation  which  had  imbibed  Jeffersonian  principles 
had  come  to  manhood,  a  generation  so  filled  with  the  spirit  of 


80 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


democratic  equality  that  it  would  recognize  neither  the  natural 
leaders  whom  social  position  and  superior  intelligence  indi¬ 
cated,  nor  the  official  leadership  of  legislative  bodies.  As  party 
struggles  grew  more  bitter,  a  party  organization  became  neces¬ 
sary,  which  better  satisfied  the  claims  of  petty  local  leaders, 
which  knit  the  voters  in  each  district  together  and  concentrated 
their  efforts,  while  it  expressed  the  absolute  equality  of  all 
voters,  and  the  right  of  each  to  share  in  determining  his  candi¬ 
date  and  his  party  platform.  The  building  up  of  this  new 
organization  was  completed  for  the  Democratic  party  about  the 
year  1835,  for  the  Whig  party  not  till  some  years  later.  When 
the  Republican  party  arose  about  1854,  it  reproduced  so  closely, 
or  developed  on  lines  so  similar,  the  methods  which  experience 
had  approved,  that  the  differences  between  the  systems  of  the 
two  great  parties  are  now  unimportant,  and  may  be  disregarded 
in  the  sketch  I  have  to  give.  It  is  not  so  much  these  differ¬ 
ences  as  the  variations  between  the  arrangements  in  cities  and 
those  in  rural  districts,  as  well  as  between  the  arrangements  in 
different  “ Sections”  of  the  country,  that  make  it  hard  to  pre¬ 
sent  a  perfectly  accurate  and  yet  concise  description. 

The  essential  feature  of  the  system  is  that  it  is  from  bottom 
to  top  strictly  representative.  This  is  because  it  has  power, 
and  power  can  flow  only  from  the  people.  An  organization 
which  exists,  like  the  political  associations  of  Britain,  almost 
entirely  for  the  sake  of  canvassing,  conducting  registration, 
diffusing  literature,  getting  up  courses  of  lectures,  holding 
meetings  and  passing  resolutions,  may  have  little  or  no  power. 
Its  object  is  to  excite,  or  to  persuade,  or  to  manage  such  busi¬ 
ness  as  the  defective  registration  system  of  the  country  leaves 
to  be  discharged  by  voluntary  agencies.  So  too  in  America  the 
committees  or  leagues  which  undertake  to  create  or  stimulate 
opinion  have  no  power,  and  need  not  be  strictly  representative. 
But  when  an  organization  which  the  party  is  in  the  habit  of 
obeying,  chooses  a  party  candidate,  it  exerts  power,  power  often 
of  the  highest  import,  because  it  practically  narrows  the  choice 
of  a  party,  that  is,  of  about  a  half  of  the  people,  to  one  par¬ 
ticular  person  out  of  the  many  for  whom  they  might  be  inclined 
to  vote.1  Such  power  would  not  be  yielded  to  any  but  a  rep- 

1  The  rapid  change  in  the  practice  of  England  in  this  point  is  a  curious  symp¬ 
tom  of  the  progress  of  democratic  ideas  and  usages  there.  As  late  as  the 
general  elections  of  1868  and  1874,  nearly  all  candidates  offered  themselves 


CHAP.  LIX 


PARTY  ORGANIZATIONS 


81 


resentative  body,  and  it  is  yielded  to  the  bodies  I  shall  describe 
because  they  are,  at  least  in  theory,  representative,  and  are 
therefore  deemed  to  have  the  weight  of  the  people  behind  them. 

to  the  constituency,  though  some  professed  to  do  so  in  pursuance  of  requisitions 
emanating  from  the  electors.  In  1880  many  —  I  think  most  —  Liberal  can¬ 
didates  in  boroughs,  and  some  in  counties,  were  chosen  by  the  local  partj^  as¬ 
sociations,  and  appealed  to  the  Liberal  electors  on  the  ground  of  having  been 
so  chosen.  In  1885  and  at  every  subsequent  election,  all  or  nearly  all  new  Liberal 
candidates  were  so  chosen,  and  a  man  offering  himself  against  the  nominee  of 
the  association  was  denounced  as  an  interloper  and  traitor  to  the  party.  The 
same  process  has  been  going  on  in  the  Tory  party,  though  more  slowly.  The 
influence  of  the  locally  wealthy,  and  also  that  of  the  central  party  office,  re¬ 
mains  somewhat  greater  among  the  Tories,  but  in  course  of  time  choice  by  rep¬ 
resentative  associations  will  doubtless  become  the  rule.  This  subject  has  been 
excellently  treated  in  Mr.  A.  L.  Lowell’s  Government  of  England,  which  see. 

The  main  difference  which  still  exists  between  British  and  American  practice 
is  that  in  Britain  the  sitting  member  is  always  understood  to  have  a  presump¬ 
tive  claim  to  be  adopted  as  the  party  candidate.  Unless  he  has  become  per¬ 
sonally  unpopular,  or  has  failed  to  support  his  party,  he  is  almost  certain  to  be 
renominated. 


G 


CHAPTER  LX 


THE  MACHINE 

The  organization  of  an  American  party  consists  of  two  dis¬ 
tinct,  but  intimately  connected,  sets  of  bodies,  the  one  perma¬ 
nent,  the  other  temporary.  The  function  of  the  one  is  to 
manage  party  business,  of  the  other  to  nominate  party  candi¬ 
dates.1 

The  first  of  these  is  a  system  of  managing  committees.  In 
some  States  every  election  district  has  such  a  committee,  whose 
functions  cover  the  political  work  of  the  district.  Thus  in 
country  places  there  is  a  township  committee,  in  cities  a  ward 
committee.  There  is  a  committee  for  every  city,  for  every 
district,  and  for  every  county.  In  other  States  it  is  only  the 
larger  areas,  cities,  counties,  and  Congressional  or  State  As¬ 
sembly  districts  that  have  committees.  There  is,  of  course,  a 
committee  for  each  State,  with  a  general  supervision  of  such 
political  work  as  has  to  be  done  in  the  State  as  a  whole.  There 
is  a  National  Committee  for  the  political  business  of  the  party 
in  the  Union  as  a  whole,  and  especially  for  the  presidential 
contest.2  The  whole  country  is  covered  by  this  network  of 
committees,  each  with  a  sphere  of  action  corresponding  to 
some  constituency  or  local  election  area,  so  that  the  proper 
function  of  a  city  committee,  for  instance,  is  to  attend  to  elec¬ 
tions  for  city  offices,  of  a  ward  committee  to  elections  for  ward 
offices,  of  a  district  committee  to  elections  for  district  offices. 
Of  course  the  city  committee,  while  supervising  the  general 
conduct  of  city  elections,  looks  to  each  ward  organization  to 
give  special  attention  to  the  elections  in  its  own  ward  ;  and  the 
State  committee  will  in  State  elections  expect  similar  help 

1  As  to  recent  changes  affecting  what  is  said  in  this  and  the  following  chap¬ 
ters,  see  note  at  end  of  this  chapter. 

2  Within  the  State  Committees  and  National  Committee  there  is  almost 
always  a  small  Executive  Committee  which  practically  does  most  of  the  work 
and  exercises  most  of  the  power. 


82 


CHAP.  LX 


THE  MACHINE 


83 


from,  and  be  entitled  to  issue  directions  to,  all  bodies  acting 
for  the  minor  areas  —  districts,  counties,  townships,  cities,  and 
wards  —  comprised  in  the  State.  The  smaller  local  committees 
are  in  fact  autonomous  for  their  special  local  purposes,  but 
subordinate  in  so  far  as  they  serve  the  larger  purposes  common 
to  the  whole  party.  The  ordinary  business  of  these  committees 
is  to  raise  and  apply  funds  for  election  purposes  and  for  political 
agitation  generally,  to  organize  meetings  when  necessary,  to 
prepare  lists  of  voters,  to  disseminate  political  tracts  and  other 
information,  to  look  after  the  press,  to  attend  to  the  admission 
of  immigrants  as  citizens  and  their  enrolment  on  the  party 
lists.1  At  election  times  they  have  also  to  superintend  the 
canvass,  to  procure  and  distribute  tickets  at  the  polls  (unless 
this  is,  under  recent  legislation,  done  by  a  public  authority), 
to  allot  money  for  various  election  services,  to  see  that  voters 
are  brought  up  to  the  poll ;  but  they  are  often  aided,  or  vir¬ 
tually  superseded,  in  this  work  by  “campaign  committees” 
specially  created  for  the  occasion.  Finally,  they  have  to  con¬ 
voke  at  the  proper  times  those  nominating  assemblies  which 
form  the  other  parallel  but  distinct  half  of  the  party  organization. 

These  committees  are  permanent  bodies,  that  is  to  say,  they 
are  always  in  existence  and  capable  of  being  called  into  activity 
at  short  notice.  They  are  re-appointed  annually  by  the  Pri¬ 
mary  (hereinafter  described)  or  Convention  (as  the  case  may 
be)  for  their  local  area,  and  of  course  their  composition  may  be 
completely  changed  on  a  re-appointment.  In  practice  it  is 
but  little  changed,  the  same  men  continuing  to  serve  year  after 
year,  because  they  hold  the  strings  in  their  hands,  because 
they  know  most  and  care  most  about  the  party  business.  In 
particular,  the  chairman  is  apt  to  be  practically  a  permanent 
official,  and  (if  the  committee  be  one  for  a  populous  area)  a 
powerful  and  important  official,  who  has  large  sums  to  dis¬ 
burse  and  quite  an  army  of  workers  under  his  orders.  The 
chairmanship  of  the  organizing  committee  of  the  county  and 
city  of  New  York,  for  instance,  is  a  post  of  great  responsibility 
and  influence,  in  which  high  executive  gifts  find  a  worthy  sphere 
for  their  exercise. 

One  function  and  one  only  —  besides  that  of  adopting  plat- 

1  The  business  of  registration  is  undertaken  by  the  public  authority  for  the 
locality,  instead  of  being,  as  in  England,  partially  left  to  the  action  of  the  in¬ 
dividual  citizen  or  of  the  parties. 


84 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


forms  —  is  beyond  the  competence  of  these  committees  —  the 
choice  of  candidates.  That  belongs  to  the  other  branch  of  the 
organization,  the  nominating  assemblies. 

Every  election  district,  by  which  I  mean  every  local  area  or 
constituency  which  chooses  a  person  for  any  office  or  post, 
administrative,  legislative,  or  judicial,  has  a  party  meeting  to 
select  the  party  candidate  for  that  office.  This  is  called  Nomi¬ 
nating.  If  the  district  is  not  subdivided,  i.e.  does  not  contain 
any  lesser  districts,  its  meeting  is  called  a  Primary.  A  primary 
has  two  duties.  One  is  to  select  the  candidates  for  its  own 
local  district  offices.  Thus  in  the  country  a  township  primary  1 
nominates  the  candidates  for  township  offices,  in  a  city  a  ward 
primary  nominates  those  for  ward  offices  (if  any).  The  other 
duty  is  to  elect  delegates  to  the  nominating  meetings  of  larger 
areas,  such  as  the  county  or  congressional  district  in  which  the 
township  is  situated,  or  the  city  to  which  the  ward  belongs. 
The  primary  is  composed  of  all  the  party  voters  resident  within 
the  bounds  of  the  township  or  ward.  They  are  not  too  nu¬ 
merous,  for  in  practice  the  majority  do  not  attend,  to  meet  in 
one  room,  and  they  are  assumed  to  be  all  alike  interested. 
But  as  the  party  voters  in  such  a  large  area  as  a  county,  con¬ 
gressional  district,  or  city,  are  too  numerous  to  be  able  to  meet 
and  deliberate  in  one  room,  they  usually  act  through  repre¬ 
sentatives,  and  entrust  the  choice  of  candidates  for  office  to  a 
body  called  a  Nominating  Convention.2  This  body  is  composed 
of  delegates  from  all  the  primaries  within  its  limits,  chosen  at 
those  primaries  for  the  sole  purpose  of  sitting  in  the  convention 
and  of  there  selecting  the  candidates. 

Sometimes  a  convention  of  this  kind  has  itself  to  choose 
delegates  to  proceed  to  a  still  higher  convention  for  a  larger 
area.  The  greatest  of  all  nominating  bodies,  that  which  is 
called  the  National  Convention  and  nominates  the  party  can¬ 
didate  for  the  presidency,  is  entirely  composed  of  delegates 
from  other  conventions,  no  primary  being  directly  represented 
in  it.  As  a  rule,  however,  there  are  only  tw*o  sets  of  nomi- 

1 1  take  township  and  ward  as  examples,  but  in  parts  of  the  country  where 
the  township  is  not  the  unit  of  local  government  (see  Chapter  XLVIII.  ante), 
the  local  unit,  whatever  it  is,  must  be  substituted. 

2  Sometimes,  however,  a  primary  is  held  for  a  whole  congressional  district  or 
city.  As  to  recent  changes  in  the  primary  system,  see  note  at  end  of  this  chap¬ 
ter.  All  that  is  said  here  must  be  taken  as  subject  to  what  is  said  hereafter 
regarding  the  new  Statutory  Primaries  created  in  many  States. 


CHAP.  LX 


THE  MACHINE 


85 


nating  authorities,  the  primary  which  selects  candidates  for  its 
own  petty  offices,  the  convention  composed  of  the  delegates 
from  all  the  primaries  in  the  local  circumscriptions  of  the 
district  for  which  the  convention  acts. 

A  primary,  of  course,  sends  delegates  to  a  number  of  differ¬ 
ent  conventions,  because  its  area,  let  us  say  the  township  or 
ward,  is  included  in  a  number  of  different  election  districts, 
each  of  which  has  its  own  convention.  Thus  the  same  pri¬ 
mary  will  in  a  city  choose  delegates  to  at  least  the  following 
conventions,  and  probably  to  one  or  two  others.1  (a)  To  the 
city  convention,  which  nominates  the  mayor  and  other  city 
officers.  (6)  To  the  Assembly  district  convention,  which  nomi¬ 
nates  candidates  for  the  lower  house  of  the  State  legislature, 
(c)  To  the  senatorial  district  convention,  which  nominates 
candidates  for  the  State  Senate,  (d)  To  the  congressional 
district  convention,  which  nominates  candidates  for  Congress. 
(e)  To  the  State  convention,  which  nominates  candidates  for 
the  governorship  and  other  State  offices.  Sometimes,  however, 
the  nominating  body  for  an  Assembly  district  is  a  primary  and 
not  a  convention.  In  New  York  City  the  Assembly  district  is 
the  unit,  and  each  of  the  thirty  districts  has  its  primary. 

This  seems  complex  :  but  it  is  a  reflection  of  the  complexity 
of  government,  there  being  everywhere  three  authorities,  Fed¬ 
eral,  State,  and  Local  (this  last  further  subdivided),  covering 
the  same  ground,  yet  the  two  former  quite  independent  of  one 
another,  and  the  third  for  many  purposes  distinct  from  the 
second. 

The  course  of  business  is  as  follows  :  A  township  or  ward 
primary  is  summoned  by  the  local  party  managing  committee, 
who  fix  the  hour  and  place  of  meeting,  or  if  there  be  not  such 
a  committee,  then  by  some  permanent  officer  of  the  organi¬ 
zation  in  manner  prescribed  by  the  by-laws.  A  primary  for 
a  larger  area  is  usually  summoned  by  the  county  committee. 
If  candidates  have  to  be  chosen  for  local  offices,  various  names 
are  submitted  and  either  accepted  without  a  division  or  put  to 
the  vote,  the  person  who  gets  most  votes  being  'declared  chosen 
to  be  the  party  candidate.  He  is  said  to  have  received  the 

1  There  may  be  also  a  county  convention  for  county  offices,  and  a  judicial 
district  convention  for  judgeships,  but  in  a  large  city  or  county  the  county 
convention  delegates  may  also  be  delegates  to  the  congressional  convention, 
perhaps  also  to  the  State  assembly  district  and  senatorial  district  conventions. 


86 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


party  nomination.  The  selection  of  delegates  to  the  various 
conventions  is  conducted  in  the  same  way.  The  local  com¬ 
mittee  has  usually  prepared  beforehand  a  list  of  names  of  per¬ 
sons  to  be  chosen  to  serve  as  delegates,  but  any  voter  present 
may  bring  forward  other  names.  All  names,  if  not  accepted 
by  general  consent,  are  then  voted  on.  At  the  close  of  the  pro¬ 
ceedings  the  chairman  signs  the  list  of  delegates  chosen  to  the 
approaching  convention  or  conventions,  if  more  than  one,  and 
adjourns  the  meeting  sine  die. 

The  delegates  so  chosen  proceed  in  due  course  to  their  re¬ 
spective  conventions,  which  are  usually  held  a  few  days  after 
the  primaries,  and  a  somewhat  longer  period  before  the  elec¬ 
tions  for  offices.1  The  convention  is  summoned  by  the  manag¬ 
ing  committee  for  the  district  it  exists  for,  and  when  a  suffi¬ 
cient  number  of  delegates  are  present,  some  one  proposes  a 
temporary  chairman,  or  the  delegate  appointed  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  by  the  committee  of  the  district  for  which  the  convention 
is  being  held  “calls  the  meeting  to  order”  as  temporary  chair¬ 
man.  This  person  names  a  Committee  on  Credentials,  which 
forthwith  examines  the  credentials  presented  by  the  delegates 
from  the  primaries,  and  admits  those  whom  it  deems  duly 
accredited.  Then  a  permanent  chairman  is  proposed  and 
placed  in  the  chair,  and  the  convention  is  held  to  be  “organ¬ 
ized,”  i.e.  duly  constituted.  The  managing  committee  have 
almost  always  arranged  beforehand  who  shall  be  proposed  as 
candidates  for  the  party  nominations,  and  their  nominees  are 
usually  adopted.  However,  any  delegate  may  propose  any  per¬ 
son  he  thinks  fit,  being  a  recognized  member  of  the  party, 
and  carry  him  on  a  vote  if  he  can.  The  person  adopted  by 
a  majority  of  delegates’  votes  becomes  the  party  candidate, 
having  “received  the  nomination.”  The  convention  sometimes, 
but  not  always,  also  amuses  itself  by  passing  resolutions  ex¬ 
pressive  of  its  political  sentiments ;  or  if  it  is  a  State  conven¬ 
tion  or  a  National  convention,  it  adopts  a  platform,  touching 
on,  or  purporting  to  deal  with,  the  main  questions  of  the  day. 
It  then,  having  fulfilled  its  mission,  adjourns  sine  die,  and  the 
rest  of  the  election  business  falls  to  the  managing  committee. 

1  In  the  case  of  elections  to  the  presidency  and  to  the  governorship  of  a 
State  the  interval  between  the  nominating  convention  and  the  election  is  much 
longer  —  in  the  former  case  nearly  four  months. 

The  procedure  described  here  is  that  of  State  and  local  conventions.  For 
National  Nominating  Conventions,  see  Chapter  LXIX.  post. 


CHAP.  LX 


THE  MACHINE 


87 


It  must  be  remembered  that  primaries  and  conventions,  unlike 
the  local  party  associations  of  England,  are  convoked  but  once, 
make  their  nominations,  and  vanish.  They  are  swans  which 
sing  their  one  song  and  die. 

The  National  convention  held  every  fourth  year  before  a 
presidential  election  needs  a  fuller  description,  which  I  shall 
give  presently.  Meantime  three  features  of  the  system  just 
outlined  may  be  adverted  to. 

Every  voter  belonging  to  the  party  in  the  local  area  for  which 
the  primary  is  held,  is  presumably  entitled  to  appear  and  vote 
in  it.  In  rural  districts,  where  everybody  knows  everybody 
else,  there  is  no  difficulty  about  admission,  for  if  a  Democrat 
came  into  a  Republican  primary,  or  a  Republican  from  North 
Adams  tried  to  vote  in  the  Republican  primary  of  Lafayette- 
ville,  he  would  be  recognized  as  an  intruder  and  expelled.  But 
in  cities  where  people  do  not  know  their  neighbours  by  head- 
mark,  it  becomes  necessary  to  have  regular  lists  of  the  party 
voters  entitled  to  a  voice  in  the  primary.  These  are  made  up 
by  the  local  committee,  which  may  exclude  persons  whom, 
though  they  call  themselves  Republicans  (or  Democrats,  as  the 
cases  may  be),  it  deems  not  loyal  members  of  the  party.  The 
usual  test  is,  Did  the  claimant  vote  the  party  ticket  at  the  last 
important  election,  generally  the  presidential  election,  or  that 
for  the  State  governorship  ?  If  he  did  not,  he  may  be  excluded. 
Sometimes,  however,  the  local  rules  or  the  party  require  every 
one  admitted  to  the  list  of  party  voters  to  be  admitted  by  the 
votes  of  the  existing  members,  who  may  reject  him  at  their 
pleasure,  and  also  exact  from  each  member  two  pledges,  to  obey 
the  local  committee,  and  to  support  the  party  nominations,  the 
breach  of  either  pledge  being  punishable  by  expulsion.  In 
many  primaries  voters  supposed  to  be  disagreeably  independent 
are  kept  out  either  by  the  votes  of  the  existing  members  or 
by  the  application  of  these  strict  tests.  Thus  it  happens  that 
three-fourths  or  even  four-fifths  of  the  party  voters  in  a  pri¬ 
mary  area  may  not  be  on  the  lists  and  entitled  to  raise  their 
voice  in  the  primary  for  the  selection  of  candidates  or  dele¬ 
gates.  Another  regulation,  restricting  nominations  to  those 
who  are  enrolled  members  of  the  regular  organization,  makes 
persons  so  kept  off  the  list  ineligible  as  party  candidates. 

Every  member  of  a  nominating  meeting,  be  it  a  primary  or 
a  convention  of  delegates,  is  deemed  to  be  bound  by  the  vote 


88 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


of  the  majority  to  support  the  candidate  whom  the  majority 
select,  whether  or  no  an  express  pledge  to  that  effect  has  been 
given.  And  in  the  case  of  a  convention,  a  delegate  is  generally 
held  to  bind  those  whom  he  represents,  i.e.  the  voters  at  the 
primary  which  sent  him.  Of  course  no  compulsion  is  possible, 
but  long  usage  and  an  idea  of  fair  play  have  created  a  senti¬ 
ment  of  honour  (so-called)  and  party  loyalty  strong  enough, 
with  most  people  and  in  all  but  extreme  cases,  to  secure  for 
the  party’s  candidate  the  support  of  the  whole  party  organiza¬ 
tion  in  the  district.1  It  is  felt  that  the  party  must  be  kept 
together,  and  that  he  who  has  come  into  the  nominating  assem¬ 
bly  hoping  to  carry  his  own  candidate  ought  to  obey  the  decision 
of  the  majority.  The  vote  of  a  majority  has  a  sacredness  in 
America  not  yet  reached  in  Europe. 

As  respects  the  freedom  left  to  delegates  to  vote  at  their  own 
pleasure  or  under  the  instructions  of  their  primary,  and  to  vote 
individually  or  as  a  solid  body,  the  practice  is  not  uniform. 
Sometimes  they  are  sent  up  to  the  nominating  convention 
without  instructions,  even  without  the  obligation  to  “go  solid.” 
Sometimes  they  are  expressly  directed,  or  it  is  distinctly  under¬ 
stood  by  them  and  by  the  primary,  that  they  are  to  support 
the  claims  of  a  particular  person  to  be  selected  as  candidate, 
or  that  they  are  at  any  rate  to  vote  all  together  for  one  person. 
Occasionally  they  are  even  given  a  list  arranged  in  order  of 
preference,  and  told  to  vote  for  A.  B.,  failing  him  for  C.  D., 
failing  him  for  E.  F.,  these  being  persons  whose  names  have 
already  been  mentioned  as  probable  candidates  for  the  nomi¬ 
nation.  This,  however,  would  only  happen  in  the  case  of  the 
greater  offices,  such  as  those  of  member  of  Congress  or  governor 
of  a  State.  The  point  is  in  practice  less  important  than  it 
seems,  because  in  most  cases,  whether  there  be  any  specific  and 
avowed  instruction  or  not,  it  is  well  settled  beforehand  by 
those  who  manage  the  choice  of  delegates  what  candidate  any 
set  of  delegates  are  to  support,  or  at  least  whose  lead  they  are 
to  follow  in  the  nominating  convention. 

Note  further  how  complex  is  the  machinery  needed  to  enable 
the  party  to  concentrate  its  force  in  support  of  its  candidates 
for  all  these  places,  and  how  large  the  number  of  persons  con¬ 
stituting  the  machinery.  Three  sets  of  offices,  municipal  or 

1  The  obligation  is  however  much  less  strict  in  the  case  of  municipal  elec¬ 
tions,  in  which  party  considerations  sometimes  count  for  little. 


CHAP.  LX 


THE  MACHINE 


89 


county,  State,  Federal,  have  to  be  filled ;  three  different  sets  of 
nominating  bodies  are  therefore  needed.  If  we  add  together 
all  the  members  of  all  the  conventions  included  in  these  three 
sets,  the  number  of  persons  needed  to  serve  as  delegates  will 
be  found  to  reach  a  high  total,  even  if  some  of  them  serve  in 
more  than  one  convention.  Men  whose  time  is  valuable  will 
refuse  the  post  of  delegate,  gladly  leaving  to  others  who  desire 
it  the  duty  of  selecting  candidates  for  offices  to  which  they  sel¬ 
dom  themselves  aspire.  However,  as  we  shall  see,  such  men 
are  but  rarely  permitted  to  become  delegates,  even  when  they 
desire  the  function. 

“  Why  these  tedious  details?”  the  European  reader  may 
exclaim.  “  Of  what  cons  quence  can  they  be  compared  to  the 
Constitution  and  laws  of  the  country?”  Patience!  These 
details  have  more  significance  and  make  more  difference  to  the 
working  of  the  government  than  many  of  the  provisions  of  the 
Constitution  itself.  The  mariner  feels  the  trade  winds  which 
sweep  over  the  surface  of  the  Pacific  and  sees  nothing  of  the  coral 
insects  which  are  at  work  beneath  its  waves,  but  it  is  by  the  labour 
of  these  insects  that  islands  grow,  and  reefs  are  built  up  on  which 
ships  perish. 

Note  on  Recent  Legislation  regarding  Primaries 

Soon  after  1890  the  sins  of  the  Machine,  and  the  abuse  of  the  system 
of  nomination  by  primaries  and  conventions  described  in  this  and  suc¬ 
ceeding  chapters,  led  to  an  effort  to  cure  those  abuses  and  to  secure  the 
ordinary  citizen  in  his  freedom  of  selecting  candidates  for  office  by  bring¬ 
ing  party  nominations  under  the  authority  of  the  law  and  surrounding 
them  with  safeguards  similar  to  those  which  surround  elections.  Thus 
statutes  have  been  enacted  in  nearly  all  the  States  which  deal  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent  with  the  times  and  manner  of  holding  primary  meetings  for 
the  nomination  of  party  candidates  for  office  and  of  delegates  for  party 
conventions.  Oklahoma,  the  latest  of  the  new  States  of  the  Union,  en¬ 
tered  the  Union  with  a  constitution  containing  four  important  consti¬ 
tutional  provisions  on  the  subject  of  primary  elections.  (See  these  in 
Appendix  to  Vol.  I.) 

The  regulations  imposed  upon  the  holding  of  these  party  meetings 
differ  widely  in  the  several  States.  They  range  from  minor  provisions 
concerning  the  dates  of  primaries,  the  preparation  of  the  ballots,  and 
the  regularization  of  the  methods  of  counting,  up  to  sweeping  and  drastic 
measures,  such  as  are  found  in  Oregon  and  Wisconsin,  for  instance,  re¬ 
quiring  the  nomination  of  nearly  all  party  candidates  (including  United 
States  Senators)  at  public  primaries  conducted  under  official  supervision. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  give  within  moderate  compass  a  full 


90 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


account  of  these  statutes  for  they  vary  from  State  to  State  and  are  often 
complicated  in  their  provisions.  Moreover,  they  are  frequently  changed. 
All  that  can  be  done  here  is  to  summarize  the  tendencies  they  disclose, 
and  to  indicate  briefly  those  features  in  the  system  of  party  nomination 
which  are  now  being  made  subject  to  legislative  interference. 

Many  laws  fix  the  dates  on  which  primaries  should  be  held  for  all  the 
political  parties  and  also  prescribe  conditions  as  to  the  times  at  which 
the  primaries  and  conventions  shall  be  summoned. 

The  determination  of  who  may  vote  at  a  primary  and  who  are  to  be 
deemed  legitimate  and  regular  members  of  a  particular  party  entitled  to 
vote  at  its  primaries  is  a  vexed  question  on  which  no  uniformity  of  prac¬ 
tice  exists.  Broadly  speaking  there  are  two  systems.  Under  the  “Open 
Primary  ”  plan  the  use  of  the  so-called  “Australian  ”  secret  ballot  enables 
the  voter  to  vote  a  party  primary  ticket  without  declaring  to  which  party 
he  belongs,  though,  to  prevent  him  from  voting  for  more  than  one  party 
at  a  primary,  it  is  generally  provided  that  ballots  cast  for  any  person  as 
candidate  for  a  nomination  are  to  be  counted  for  that  person  only  as  a 
candidate  of  the  party  upon  whose  ticket  his  name  is  written.  In  Wis¬ 
consin,  for  instance,  the  primary  is  secret,  and  the  voter  may  cast  his  ballot 
as  he  pleases.  Under  the  “Closed  Primary”  plan  the  voter  is  subjected 
to  some  test  determining  his  party  affiliation,  and  can  vote  only  for  the 
candidates  of  that  party.  In  some  States  he  is  required  to  enrol  him¬ 
self  as  a  member  of  some  particular  party  if  he  wishes  to  take  part  in 
the  proceedings  of  the  primary.  So  in  California,  under  a  statute  of 
1909,  the  voter  must  declare  the  political  party  with  which  he  intends 
to  affiliate,  otherwise  he  cannot  vote  at  the  primary ;  and  it  is  provided 
that  at  the  primary  he  shall  receive  the  ballot  of  that  party  and  of  no 
other.  So  in  Minnesota  the  voter  must  declare  his  allegiance  before  he 
receives  the  party  ballot.  In  some  States  he  must  even  announce  his 
intention  to  support  the  party  at  the  election  next  following ;  in  some 
he  must  bind  himself  to  support  the  persons  nominated  at  the  primary 
(so  in  Louisiana  and  Texas).  Other  States  allow  the  authorities  of  the 
party  themselves  to  fix  the  test  of  membership  in  a  party  which  shall 
qualify  the  person  to  cast  a  primary  vote. 

Many  States  have  a  separate  official  ballot  for  each  party  at  the  pri¬ 
mary,  but  others  are  content  to  regulate  the  colour,  size,  etc.,  of  the  party 
ballot. 

Those  States  which  require  all  parties  to  hold  their  primaries  on  the 
same  day  generally  require  them  to  use  the  same  pohing  place  and  official 
ballot  boxes. 

The  conduct  of  primaries  is  now  generally  placed  under  the  supervision 
of  regular  officials  being  the  same  as  those  who  conduct  the  elections  : 
and  the  hours  of  opening  and  closing  the  primary,  as  well  as  the  partic¬ 
ular  method  of  voting  at  it  are  prescribed. 

The  official  expenses  of  primaries  are  borne  by  the  same  public  au¬ 
thority  which  bears  the  general  election  expenses. 

For  the  prevention  of  corruption  and  other  offences  at  primaries 
the  usual  precautions  against  bribery  and  fraudulent  voting  at  elections 
are  prescribed. 

The  extent  to  which  the  primaries  are  used  for  the  nomination  of 


CHAP.  LX 


THE  MACHINE 


91 


candidates  varies  from  State  to  State.  In  general  it  is  only  delegates 
to  conventions  and  members  of  political  committees  who  are  required 
to  be  selected  by  ballot.  Sometimes  it  is  left  to  the  local  committee 
of  the  party  to  determine  whether  or  not  the  primary  shall  be  used  for 
nomination  to  local  offices.  The  laws  of  Wisconsin,  Oregon,  Nebraska, 
and  several  other  states  require  the  primary  to  be  used  for  the  nomina¬ 
tion  of  United  States  Senators,  who,  of  course,  have  to  be  elected  by  the 
legislature,  and  of  all  other  officers  except  presidential  electors,  school 
superintendents  and  certain  judicial  persons. 

Many  legal  questions  have  arisen  and  many  decisions  have  been  de¬ 
livered  upon  these  enactments  when  it  has  been  alleged  that  provisions 
of  a  particular  Primary  law  are  unconstitutional. 

The  further  extension  of  the  principle  of  legislative  control  over  the 
operations  of  political  parties  has  become  a  leading  question  in  the 
politics  of  not  a  few  States.  Oregon,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  and  Okla¬ 
homa  might  seem  to  have  gone  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  go  in  this  direc¬ 
tion,  but,  as  has  already  been  observed,  many  States  are  continuing  to 
make  experiments  in  the  matter.  A  succinct  account  of  the  condition 
of  legislation  on  the  subject  in  1908  may  be  found  in  a  Report  of  the 
Connecticut  State  Commissioners  of  Jan.,  1909,  following  upon  a  simi¬ 
lar  Report  made  in  1907.  It  is  there  stated  that  two-thirds  of  all 
the  States  had  established  direct  primaries  in  one  form  or  another, 
and  that  in  twenty-six  States  U,  S.  Senators  were  practically  nominated 
by  the  people. 

Regarding  the  practical  value  of  these  Primary  laws  as  a  means  of 
relieving  the  good  average  citizen  from  the  yoke  of  party  Machines,  opin¬ 
ion  has  not  yet  settled  itself.  The  new  laws  were  disliked,  and  in  some 
States  opposed,  by  the  professional  politicians ;  and  this  naturally  con¬ 
firmed  the  reformers  in  their  expectation  of  good  results.  In  some 
States,  however,  it  is  alleged  that  the  professionals  have  succeeded  in 
manipulating  the  new  system  so  as  practically  to  re-establish  their  own 
control,  although,  of  course,  at  the  cost  of  more  trouble  to  themselves 
than  they  had  previously  to  take.  In  other  States  this  does  not  seem  to 
have  happened ;  and  the  voters  think  themselves  more  free  than  for¬ 
merly.  The  extreme  complexity  of  some  Primary  laws,  and  the  long 
and  elaborately  constructed  ballot  placed  before  the  voter,  do  give 
ground  for  the  apprehension  that  the  professional  politicians  may  lay 
hold  of  and  work  a  system  which,  in  some  of  its  forms,  no  one  but 
an  expert  can  master.  And  it  is  also  feared  that  the  expense  of  work¬ 
ing  primaries,  which  are  practically  another  set  of  elections,  may  prove 
a  heavy  burden  both  on  the  public  revenue,  so  far  as  it  is  chargeable 
thereon,  and  upon  the  candidates,  who  will  have  to  spend  money  in  a 
good  many  ways,  some  perhaps  illegitimate. 

That  provision  of  many  of  these  laws  which  requires  a  voter  at  a  pri¬ 
mary  to  declare  himself  beforehand  a  member  of  the  political  party,  or 
even  binds  him  to  support  the  primary’s  nominee,  seems  in  itself  objec¬ 
tionable,  but  has  in  some  States  been  thought  needed  as  a  protection 
against  tricks.  May  it  not,  however,  be  thought  that  such  a  provision 
unduly  limits  the  voter’s  freedom  ?  Why  should  the  citizen  be  obliged 
to  put  himself  into  a  sheep  pen  and  feel  himself  bound  legally,  or,  if  not 


92 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


legally,  yet  to  some  extent  morally,  to  support  a  particular  party  candi¬ 
date  at  a  future  election  ?  Who  can  tell  what  persons  may  be  selected, 
or  what  further  light  may  be  thrown  on  the  records  of  those  persons,  or 
what  aspect  the  issues  will  have  assumed  on  the  following  day  ? 

Apart,  however,  from  this  objection,  Europeans  whose  habit  of  regard¬ 
ing  party  organization  as  a  purely  voluntary  matter  and  parties  as  fluid 
and  changing,  not  solid  and  permanent  entities,  makes  them  averse  to  any 
legal  recognition  of  parties  as  concrete  and  authoritative  bodies  existing 
within  the  community,  are  disposed  to  ask  whether  these  laws  may  not 
be  a  sort  of  counsel  of  despair,  an  abandonment  by  the  good  citizens  of 
their  old  hope  of  extinguishing  or  superseding  the  Machine  altogether 
by  the  voluntary  and  unfettered  action  of  the  voters  themselves.  Were 
those  citizens  who  have  no  interest  except  in  good  government,  those 
who  value  their  party  only  because  it  is  a  means  of  giving  effect  to  their 
views  of  the  true  needs  and  aims  of  the  nation,  to  take  hold  themselves, 
and  by  their  own  constant  presence  and  activity  make  meetings  for  the 
nomination  of  candidates  serve  their  proper  purpose  of  selecting  those 
men  whom  they  feel  to  be  their  best  men,  this  recourse  to  State  regula¬ 
tion  and  supervision  might  be  dispensed  with.  In  Britain,  however, 
parties  are  so  much  less  organized  and  so  much  less  powerful  as  organi¬ 
zations  than  they  are  in  the  United  States  that  the  reflections  which 
occur  to  an  English  mind  may  be  deemed  inapplicable  to  American  con¬ 
ditions  ;  and  it  is  plain  that  in  many  States  the  reformers  hold  these 
Primary  laws  to  be  a  long  step  toward  the  overthrow  of  the  Machine 
and  of  the  evils  associated  with  its  action. 

Pending  further  experience  of  the  working  of  these  measures,  the 
variety  of  which  gives  ground  for  hope  that  one  form  may  ultimately 
approve  itself  as  the  best,  all  that  it  seems  safe  to  say  is  that  the  rapid 
adoption  by  one  State  after  another  of  the  plan  of  invoking  the  law  to  re¬ 
store  to  voters  their  freedom  in  the  choice  of  candidates  shows  that  the 
evils  of  the  old  system  have  become  widely  recognized,  and  that  the  spirit 
of  reform,  now  thoroughly  awakened,  will  doubtless  oersist  until  some  solid 
and  lasting  improvements  have  been  secured. 


CHAPTER  LXI 


WHAT  THE  MACHINE  HAS  TO  DO 

The  system  I  have  described  is  simple  in  principle,  and  would 
be  simple  in  working  if  applied  in  a  European  country  where 
elective  offices  are  few.  The  complexity  which  makes  it  puzzle 
many  Americans,  and  bewilder  all  Europeans,  arises  from  the 
extraordinary  number  of  elections  to  which  it  is  applied,  and 
from  the  way  in  which  the  conventions  for  different  election 
districts  cross  and  overlap  one  another.  A  few  instances  may 
serve  to  convey  to  the  reader  some  impression  of  this  profusion 
of  elections  and  intricacy  of  nominating  machinery. 

In  Europe  a  citizen  rarely  votes  more  than  twice  or  thrice  a 
year,  sometimes  less  often,  and  usually  for  only  one  person  at 
a  time.  Thus  in  England  any  householder,  say  at  Manchester 
or  Liverpool,  votes  once  a  year  for  a  town  councillor  (if  there 
is  a  contest  in  his  ward) ;  once  in  four  years  (on  an  average) 
for  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons.1  Allowing  for  the 
frequent  cases  in  which  there  is  no  municipal  contest  in  his 
ward,  he  will  not  on  an  average  vote  more  than  one  and  a  half 
times  each  year.  It  is  much  the  same  in  Scotland,  nor  do  elec¬ 
tions  seem  to  be  more  frequent  in  France,  Germany,  or  Italy,  or 
even  perhaps  in  Switzerland. 

In  the  United  States,  however,  the  number  of  elective  offices 
is  so  enormous  and  the  terms  of  office  usually  so  short  that  the 
voter  is  not  only  very  frequently  called  upon  to  go  to  the  polls,  but 
has  a  very  large  number  of  candidates  placed  before  him  from 
among  whom  he  must  choose  those  whom  he  prefers.2  More- 

1  He  may  also  vote  once  a  year  for  guardians  of  the  poor,  but  this  office  has 
been  usually  so  little  sought  that  the  election  excites  slight  interest  and  com¬ 
paratively  few  persons  vote.  If  he  goes  to  a  vestry  meeting  he  may,  in  places 
where  there  is  a  select  vestry,  vote  for  its  members. 

2  Speaking  generally  the  ordinary  ^citizen  has  to  vote  for  five  sets  of  offices, 
viz.,  Federal,  State,  District,  County,  City,  the  Federal  elections  coming  once 
in  two  years  (Congress)  and  once  in  four  (presidential  election)  and  the  others 

93 


94 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


over,  besides  the  voting  at  the  regular  election,  he  ought  also  to 
vote  at  primaries,  i.e.  to  vote  to  select  the  candidates  from  among 
whom  he  is  subsequently  to  choose  those  whom  he  desires  to 
have  as  officers ;  while  in  many  States  the  law  now  fixes  the 
day  and  manner  in  which  he  ought  to  do  so.  And  as  if  this 
was  not  burden  enough,  he  has  also,  in  a  good  many  States,  to 
vote  also  on  a  number  of  legislative  propositions  which  the  law 
requires  to  be  submitted  to  him  for  his  decision  instead  of  their 
being  left  to  state  legislatures  or  city  councils.  As  Professor 
Beard  well  observes  : 1  — 

“The  glaring  absurdity  of  this  system  can  best  be  illustrated  by 
concrete  examples,  which  bring  home  the  details  of  the  voters’  task. 
I  have  before  me  the  ballot  for  the  thirteenth  and  thirty-fourth  wards 
of  the  sixth  congressional  district  of  Chicago  in  1906.  It  is  two  feet 
and  two  inches  by  eighteen  and  one-half  inches ;  and  it  contains  334 
names  distributed  with  more  or  less  evenness  as  candidates  for  the 
following  offices :  — 

State  treasurer,  state  superintendent  of  public  instruction,  trustees  of  the 
University  of  Illinois,  representatives  in  Congress,  state  senator,  repre¬ 
sentatives  in  the  state  Assembly,  sheriff,  county  treasurer,  county  clerk, 
clerk  of  the  probate  court,  clerk  of  the  criminal  court,  clerk  of  the  circuit 
court,  county  superintendent  of  schools,  judge  of  the  county  court,  judge 
of  the  probate  court,  members  of  the  board  of  assessors,  member  of  the 
board  of  review  president  of  the  board  of  county  commissioners,  county 
commissioners  (ten  to  be  elected  on  general  ticket),  trustees  of  the  sanitary 
district  of  Chicago  (three  to  be  elected),  clerk  of  the  municipal  court, 
bailiff  of  the  municipal  court,  chief  justice  of  the  municipal  court,  judges 
of  the  municipal  court  (nine  to  be  elected),  judges  of  the  municipal  court 
for  the  four-year  term  (nine  to  be  elected),  judges  of  the  municipal  court 
for  the  two-year  term  (nine  to  be  elected). 

In  Sioux  City,  Iowa,  the  following  nine  elections  were  held  in  1908  :  — 

January  21.  Special  election  on  the  commission  plan  of  government. 

February  24.  City  primary.  Regular  biennial  election.  Candidates 
nominated  for  eighteen  city  offices. 

March  9.  School  election.  Regular  annual.  Two  directors  and  a 
school  treasurer  elected.  A  tax  proposition  to  appropriate  $60,000  for  a 
school-house  fund  also  voted  on. 

March  30.  City  election.  Regular  biennial.  Eight  officers  and  a 
council  of  ten  elected,  each  voter  voting  for  eleven  candidates. 

at  longer  or  shorter  (usually  short)  intervals  according  to  the  laws  of  the  par¬ 
ticular  State.  Even  a  single  city  election  may  present  a  very  complicated  prob¬ 
lem  to  the  voter. 

1  Political  Science  Quarterly,  Vol.  XXIV.  p.  598.  Professor  Beard’s  article 
entitled  The  Ballot's  Burden  contains  many,  valuable  facts  and  remarks  on  the 
way  in  which  the  complexity  of  nominating  and  election  machinery  destroys  that 
freedom  of  the  citizen  which  it  was  originally  meant  to  secure. 


CHAP.  LXI  WHAT  THE  MACHINE. HAS  TO  DO 


95 


May  28.  Special  election  on  traction  franchise.  Franchise  defeated. 

June  2.  Regular  biennial  election.  Candidates  nominated  for  twenty- 
eight  different  national,  state  and  local  offices. 

August  11.  Second  special  election  on  traction  franchise. 

November  3.  General  election.  Regular.  Forty-three  officials 
voted  for,  including  thirteen  presidential  electors,  twelve  state  officers, 
one  congressman,  one  state  senator,  two  state  representatives,  nine 
county  and  five  township  officers.  Amendment  to  state  constitution 
also  voted  on. 

November  17.  Special  election  on  the  Perry  Creek  and  the  Bacon 
Creek  conduit  and  the  gas  franchise. 

Surely  the  people  of  the  United  States  believe,  with  the  inhabitants 
of  Lilliput,  ‘that  the  common  size  of  human  understandings  is  fitted 
to  some  station  or  other,  and  that  Providence  never  intended  to  make 
the  management  of  public  affairs  a  mystery.’ 

It  is  not  only  the  elections  that  bother  us.  The  primaries,  whether 
under  the  convention  or  direct  nomination  systems  are,  if  possible, 
more  complicated ;  and,  as  everybody  knows,  whoever  controls  the 
primaries  controls  the  strategic  point  in  our  whole  election  system.  If 
all  of  the  voters,  moved  by  the  appeals  of  the  good  government  people 
and  stung  by  the  taunts  of  the  bosses,  were  to  appear  at  the  primaries 
of  their  parties,  they  would  not  be  able  to  change  the  actual  operation 
of  the  nomination  system  ;  for  the  preliminary  work  of  the  nominations, 
owing  to  the  intricacies  of  the  process,  must  be  done  by  the  experts  — 
a  fact  too  often  overlooked  by  those  who  advocate  direct  nominations  as 
a  cure  for  boss  rule.  Within  the  cycle  of  four  years,  every  party  voter 
in  every  election  district  in  New  York  City,  with  minor  variations, 
must  vote  from  one  to  four  times  for  the  following  party  candidates  :  — 

(1)  Members  of  the  city  committee  ;  (2)  members  of  the  county  com¬ 
mittee  ;  (3)  members  of  the  assembly  district  committee ;  (4)  delegates 
to  an  aldermanic  district  convention ;  (5)  delegates  to  a  municipal  court 
district  convention ;  (6)  delegates  to  a  borough  convention ;  (7)  dele¬ 
gates  to  a  city  convention ;  (8)  delegates  to  a  county  convention ;  (9) 
delegates  to  a  judicial  district  convention  ;  (10)  delegates  to  an  assembly 
district  convention;  (11)  delegates  to  a  senatorial  district  convention; 
(12)  delegates  to  a  congressional  district  convention  ;  (13)  delegates  to  an 
assembly  district  convention. 

The  best  way  to  demonstrate  the  colossal  task  set  before  the  be¬ 
wildered  New  York  voter  is  to  describe  an  actual  primary  ballot  — 
the  Democratic  ballot  for  the  thirty-second  assembly  district.  It 
is  eight  and  one-half  inches  by  two  feet  four  inches.  It  contains  the 
names  of  835  candidates :  417  for  members  of  the  county  general  com¬ 
mittee,  104  for  delegates  to  the  county  convention,  40  for  delegates 
to  the  first  district  minicipal  court  convention,  65  for  delegates  to  the 
second  district  municipal  court  convention,  104  for  delegates  to  the 
thirty-second  assembly  district  convention  and  105  for  delegates  to 
the  thirty-fourth,  thirty-fifth  and  thirty-sixth  aldermanic  district  con¬ 
ventions.” 


96 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


Let  us  now  take  another  illustration  from  Massachusetts,  and 
regard  the  system  from  another  side  by  observing  how  many 
sets  of  delegates  a  primary  will  have  to  send  to  the  several 
nominating  conventions  which  cover  the  local  area  to  which 
the  primary  belongs.1 

“A  Massachusetts  primary  has  to  choose  the  following  sets  of  persons, 
including  committee-men,  candidates,  and  delegates  :  — 

1.  Ward  and  city  committees  in  cities,  and  town  committees  in 
towns.2 

2.  In  cities,  candidates  for  common  council  and  board  of  aldermen, 
so  in  towns,  candidates  for  town  officers,  i.e.  selectmen,  school  committee, 
overseers  of  poor,  town  clerk  and  treasurer,  assessors  of  taxes,  etc. 

3.  In  cities,  delegates  to  a  convention  to  nominate  city  officers. 

4.  Delegates  to  a  convention  to  nominate  county  officers. 

5.  Candidates  for  representatives  to  State  legislature,  or  delegates  to 
a  convention  to  nominate  the  same. 

6.  Delegates  to  a  convention  for  nominating  candidates  for  State 
Senate. 

7.  Delegates  to  a  convention  for  nominating  candidates  for  State 
Governor’s  council. 

8.  Delegates  to  a  convention  for  nominating  candidates  for  State 
offices  (e.g.  Governor,  Lieutenant-Governor,  etc). 

The  above  are  annual.  Then  every  two  years  — 

9.  Delegates  to  a  congressional  district  convention  for  nominating 
candidates  for  representatives  to  Congress. 

Then  every  four  years  — 

10.  Delegates  to  a  district  convention  for  nominating  other  delegates 
(corresponding  to  the  members  of  Congress)  to  the  national  Presidential 
Convention  of  the  party  ;  and 

11.  Delegates  to  a  general  convention  for  nominating  four  delegates 
at  large  (corresponding  to  United  States  senators)  to  national  presidential 
Conventions.” 3 

In  New  York  City  many  posts  have  recently  been  made 
appointive,  yet  at  the  November  elections  there  were  in  1908 
eighty-six  candidates  for  the  offices  to  be  filled  by  election.  In 
1909  when  a  mayor  was  to  be  chosen,  there  were  eighty-one 
candidates,  although  the  party  lists  had  been  so  far  united  that 

1 1  owe  the  following  list,  and  the  explanatory  note  at  the  end  of  the  vol¬ 
ume  to  the  kindness  of  a  friend  in  Massachusetts  (Mr.  G.  Bradford  of  Boston), 
who  has  given  much  attention  to  the  political  methods  of  his  country. 

2  A  “town”  in  New  England  is  the  unit  of  rural  local  government  corre¬ 
sponding  to  the  township  of  the  Middle  and  Western  States.  See  Chapter 
XLVIII.  ante. 

3  See  further  the  note  to  this  chapter  in  the  Appendix. 


CHAP,  lx i  WHAT  THE  MACHINE  HAS  TO  DO 


97 


a  good  many  of  the  candidates  on  several  of  these  lists  were  the 
same.  The  ballot  paper  was  3  feet  9o  inches  long  and  15 
inches  wide  and  had  eighteen  columns  of  candidates  besides  a 
nineteenth  in  which  the  voter  might  place  the  names,  under 
the  respective  offices,  of  the  persons  he  desired  to  vote  for  who 
were  not  on  the  printed  lists  of  candidates.  So  at  Chicago  in 
the  November  election  of  1908,  there  were  on  the  ballot  paper 
(exclusive  of  the  names  of  presidential  electors)  the  names  of  195 
candidates,  nominated  to  fill  46  posts  in  the  State  and  the 
county,  as  well  as  the  municipal  judgeships,  but  no  other  city 
offices.  However,  I  need  not  weary  the  reader  with  further 
examples,  for  the  facts  above  stated  are  fairly  illustrative  of 
what  goes  on  over  the  whole  Union. 

It  is  hard  to  keep  one’s  head  through  this  mazy  whirl  of 
offices,  elections,  and  primaries  or  nominating  conventions.  In 
America  itself  one  finds  few  ordinary  citizens  who  can  state  the 
details  of  the  system,  though  these  are  of  course  familiar  to 
professional  politicians. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  a  European  who  contemplates  the 
party  organization  which  works  this  elaborate  elective  system 
is  the  great  mass  of  work  it  has  to  do.  In  Ohio,  for  instance, 
there  are,  if  we  count  in  such  unpaid  offices  as  are  important 
in  the  eyes  of  politicians,  on  an  average  more  than  twenty 
offices  to  be  filled  annually  by  election.  Primaries  or  conven¬ 
tions  have  to  select  candidates  for  all  of  these.  Managing 
committees  have  to  organize  the  primaries,  ‘  run  ’  the  conven¬ 
tions,  conduct  the  elections.  Here  is  ample  occupation  for  a 
professional  class. 

What  are  the  results  which  one  may  expect  this  abundance 
of  offices  and  elections  to  produce  ? 

Where  the  business  is  that  of  selecting  delegates  and,  in  the 
particular  State,  the  selection  of  candidates  is  made  by  the 
older  kind  of  primaries  and  Conventions,  it  will  be  hard  to  find 
an  adequate  number  of  men  of  any  mark  or  superior  intelli¬ 
gence  to  act  as  delegates.  The  bulk  will  be  persons  unlikely 
to  possess,  still  more  unlikely  to  exercise,  a  careful  or  independent 
judgment.  The  function  of  delegate  being  in  the  case  of  most 
conventions  humble  and  uninteresting,  because  the  offices  are 
unattractive  to  good  men,  persons  whose  time  is  valuable  will 
not,  even  if  they  do  exist  in  sufficient  numbers,  seek  it.  Hence 
the  best  citizens,  i.e.  the  men  of  position  and  intelligence,  will 


98 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


leave  the  field  open  to  inferior  persons  who  have  any  private 
or  personal  reason  for  desiring  to  become  delegates.  I  do  not 
mean  to  imply  that  there  is  necessarily  any  evil  in  this  as  re¬ 
gards  most  of  the  offices,  but  mention  the  fact  to  explain  why 
few  men  of  good  social  position  think  of  the  office  of  delegate, 
except  to  the  National  Convention  once  in  four  years,  as  one 
of  trust  or  honour. 

If  on  the  other  hand  the  new  statutory  primaries  have  in  the 
particular  State  superseded  conventions,  then  the  attendance 
at  these  primaries  and  the  choice  of  candidates  there  is  a 
serious  task  thrown  on  the  voter  for  which  his  knowledge  of 
the  persons  from  whom  candidates  are  to  be  selected  may  be 
quite  inadequate.  As  Professor  Beard  remarks  :  — • 

“The  direct  nomination  device  will  duplicate  the  present  com¬ 
plicated  mechanism  and  render  it  necessary  to  have  abler  experts  who 
understand  not  only  the  mysteries  of  the  regular  election  law  but  the 
added  mysteries  of  the  primary  law  as  well.  .  .  .  The  primary  law  is 
in  most  States  a  booklet  of  no  mean  proportions  and  taken  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  ordinary  election  law  is  enough  to  stagger  the  experienced 
student  to  say  nothing  of  the  inexperienced  voter  for  whose  guidance 
it  is  devised.” 

The  number  of  places  to  be  filled  by  election  being  very  large, 
ordinary  citizens  will  find  it  hard  to  form  an  opinion  as  to  the  men 
best  qualified  for  the  offices.  Their  minds  will  be  distracted 
among  the  multiplicity  of  places.  In  large  cities  particularly, 
where  people  know  little  about  their  neighbours,  the  names  of 
most  candidates  will  be  unknown  to  them,  and  there  will  be  po 
materials,  except  the  recommendation  of  a  party  organization, 
available  for  determining  the  respective  fitness  of  the  candidates 
put  forward  by  the  several  parties.  Most  of  the  elected  officials 
are  poorly  paid.  Even  the  governor  of  a  great  State  may  receive 
no  more  than  $5000  to  $8000  a  year,  the  lower  officials  much  less. 
The  duties  of  most  offices  require  no  conspicuous  ability,  but  can 
be  discharged  by  any  honest  man  of  good  sense  and  business 
habits.  Hence  they  will  not  (unless  where  they  carry  large  fees, 
or  important  patronage)  be  sought  by  persons  of  ability  and 
energy,  because  such  persons  can  do  better  for  themselves  in 
private  business ;  it  will  be  hard  to  say  which  of  the  many  can¬ 
didates  is  the  best;  the  selection  will  rouse  little  stir  among  the 
people  at  large. 

Those  who  have  had  experience  of  public  meetings  know  that 


CHAP,  lxi  WHAT  THE  MACHINE  HAS  TO  DO 


99 


to  make  them  go  off  well,  it  is  as  desirable  to  have  the  proceed¬ 
ings  prearranged  as  it  is  to  have  a  play  rehearsed.  You  must 
select  beforehand  not  only  your  chairman,  but  also  your  speakers. 
Your  resolutions  must  be  ready  framed ;  you  must  be  prepared 
to  meet  the  case  of  an  adverse  resolution  or  hostile  amendment. 
This  is  'still  more  advisable  where  the  meeting  is  intended  to 
transact  some  business,  instead  of  merefy  expressing  its  opinion ; 
and  when  certain  persons  are  to  be  selected  for  any  duty,  prear¬ 
rangement  becomes  not  merely  convenient  but  indispensable  in 
the  interests  of  the  meeting  itself,  and  of  the  business  which  it  has 
to  dispatch.  “Does  not  prearrangement  practically  curtail  the 
freedom  of  the  meeting?”  Certainly  it  does.  But  the  alterna¬ 
tive  is  confusion  and  a  hasty  unconsidered  decision.  Crowds  need 
to  be  led ;  if  you  do  not  lead  them  they  will  go  astray,  will  follow 
the  most  plausible  speaker,  will  break  into  fractions  and  accom¬ 
plish  nothing.  Hence  if  a  primary  of  the  older  type  is  to  discharge 
properly  its  function  of  selecting  candidates  for  office  or  a  number 
of  delegates  to  a  nominating  convention,  it  is  necessary  to  have  a 
list  of  candidates  or  delegates  settled  beforehand.  And  for  the 
reasons  already  given,  the  more  numerous  the  offices  and  the  dele¬ 
gates,  and  the  less  interesting  the  duties  they  have  to  discharge,  so 
much  the  more  necessary  is  it  to  have  such  lists  settled ;  and 
so  much  the  more  likely  to  be  accepted  by  those  present  is  the 
list  proposed.  On  the  other  hand  the  new  statutory  primary 
intended  to  secure  the  freedom  of  the  voter  is  also  so  complex 
a  matter  that  preliminary  steps  must  be  taken  by  experts 
familiar  with  the  law  and  practice  governing  it. 

The  reasons  have  already  been  stated  which  make  the  list  of 
candidates  put  forth  by  a  primary  or  by  a  nominating  conven¬ 
tion  carry  great  weight  with  the  voters.  They  are  the  chosen 
standard-bearers  of  the  party.  A  European  may  remark  that 
the  citizens  are  not  bound  by  the  nomination ;  they  may  still 
vote  for  whom  they  will.  If  a  bad  candidate  is  nominated,  he 
may  be  passed  over.  That  is  easy  enough  where,  as  in  England, 
there  are  only  one  or  two  offices  to  be  filled  at  an  election,  where 
these  few  offices  are  important  enough  to  excite  general  interest, 
and  where  therefore  the  candidates  are  likely  to  be  men  of  mark. 
But  in  America  the  offices  are  numerous,  they  are  mostly  unim¬ 
portant,  and  the  candidates  are  usually  obscure.  Accordingly 
guidance  is  not  merely  welcome,  but  essential.  Even  in  England 
the  voters  may  in  large  boroughs  know  little  of  the  names  sub- 


100 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


mitted  and  be  puzzled  how  to  cast  his  vote,  and  the  party  as  a 
whole  votes  for  the  person  who  receives  the  party  nomination  from 
the  organization  authorized  to  express  the  party  view.  Hence  the 
high  importance  attached  to  “  getting  the  nomination  ”  which  in 
so  many  places  is  equivalent  to  an  election ;  hence  the  care  be¬ 
stowed  on  constructing  the  nominating  machinery;  hence  the 
need  for  prearranging  the  lists  of  delegates  to  be  submitted  to  the 
primary,  and  of  candidates  to  come  before  the  convention. 

I  have  sought  in  these  chapters  firstly  to  state  how  the  nominat¬ 
ing  machine  is  constituted,  and  what  work  it  has  to  do,  then  to 
suggest  some  of  the  consequences  which  the  quantity  and  nature 
of  that  work  may  be  expected  to  entail.  We  may  now  go  on  to  see 
how  in  practice  the  work  turns  out  to  be  done. 


CHAPTER  LXII 


HOW  THE  MACHINE  WORKS 

Nothing  seems  fairer  or  more  conformable  to  the  genius  of 
democratic  institutions  than  the  system  I  have  described,  whereby 
the  choice  of  party  candidates  for  office  is  vested  in  the  mass  of 
the  party  itself.  A  plan  which  selects  the  candidate  likely  to  com¬ 
mand  the  greatest  support  is  calculated  to  prevent  the  dissension 
and  consequent  waste  of  strength  which  the  appearance  of  rival 
candidates  of  the  same  party  involves ;  while  the  popular  charac¬ 
ter  of  that  method  excludes  the  dictation  of  a  clique,  and  rec¬ 
ognizes  the  sovereignty  of  the  people.  It  is  a  method  simple, 
uniform,  and  agreeable  throughout  to  its  leading  principle. 

To  understand  how  it  actually  works  one  must  distinguish 
between  two  kinds  of  constituencies  or  voting  areas.  One  kind 
is  to  be  found  in  the  great  cities  —  places  whose  population 
exceeds,  speaking  roughly,  100,000  souls,  of  which  there  were  in 
1910  over  forty  in  the  Union.  The  other  kind  includes  con¬ 
stituencies  in  smaller  cities  and  rural  districts.  What  I  have  to 
say  wall  refer  chiefly  to  the  Northern  States  —  i.e.  the  former  Free 
States,  because  the  phenomena  of  the  Southern  States  are  still 
exceptional,  owing  to  the  vast  population  of  ignorant  negroes, 
among  whom  the  whites,  or  rather  the  better  sort  of  whites,  still 
stand  as  an  aristocracy. 

The  tests  by  which  one  may  try  the  results  of  the  system  of 
selecting  candidates  are  two.  Is  the  choice  of  candidates  for 
office  really  free  —  i.e.  does  it  represent  the  unbiassed  wish  and 
mind  of  the  voters  generally?  Are  the  offices  filled  by  men  of 
probity  and  capacity  sufficient  for  the  duties  ? 

In  the  country  generally,  i.e.  in  the  rural  districts  and  small 
cities,  both  these  tests  are  tolerably  well  satisfied.  It  is  true  that, 
many  of  the  voters  do  not  attend  the  primaries.  The  selection 
of  delegates  and  candidates  is  left  to  be  made  by  that  section  of 
the  population  which  chiefly  interests  itself  in  politics;  and  in 

101 


102 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


this  section  local  attorneys  and  office-seekers  have  much  influence. 
The  persons  who  seek  the  post  of  delegate,  as  well  as  those  who 
seek  office,  are  seldom  the  most  energetic  and  intelligent  citizens  ; 
but  that  is  because  the  latter  class  have  something  better  to  do. 
An  observer  from  Europe  who  looks  to  see  men  of  rank  and  culture 
holding  the  same  place  in  State  and  local  government  as  they  do  in 
England,  especially  rural  England,  or  in  Italy,  or  even  in  parts  of 
rural  France  and  Switzerland,  will  be  disappointed.  But  democ¬ 
racies  must  be  democratic.  Equality  will  have  its  perfect  work ; 
and  you  cannot  expect  citizens  pervaded  by  its  spirit  to  go  cap 
in  hand  to  their  richer  neighbours  begging  them  to  act  as  dele¬ 
gates,  or  city  or  county  officials,  or  congressmen.  This  much 
may  be  said,  that  although  there  is  in  America  no  difference  of 
rank  in  the  European  sense,  superior  wealth  or  intelligence  does 
not  prejudice  a  man’s  candidature,  and  in  most  places  improves 
its  chance.  If  such  men  are  not  commonly  chosen  it  is  for  the 
same  reason  which  makes  them  comparatively  scarce  among  the 
town-councillors  of  English  municipalities. 

In  these  primaries  1  and  conventions  the  business  is  always 
prearranged  —  that  is  to  say,  the  local  party  committee  come 
prepared  with  their  list  of  delegates  or  candidates.  This  list 
is  usually,  but  not  invariably,  accepted ;  or,  if  serious  opposition 
appears,  alterations  may  be  made  to  disarm  it,  and  preserve 
the  unity  of  the  party.  The  delegates  and  candidates  chosen  are 
generally  the  members  of  the  local  committee,  their  friends  or 
creatures.  Except  in  very  small  places,  they  are  rarely  the  best 
men.  But  neither  are  they  the  worst.  In  moderately-sized  com¬ 
munities  men’s  characters  are  known  and  the  presence  of  a  bad 
man  in  office  brings  on  his  fellow-citizens  evils  which  they  are  not 
too  numerous  to  feel  individually.  Hence  tolerable  nominations 
are  made  :  the  general  sentiment  of  the  locality  is  not  outraged ; 
and  although  the  nominating  machinery  is  worked  rather  in  the 
name  of  the  people  than  by  the  people,  the  people  are  willing  to 
have  it  so,  knowing  that  they  can  interfere  if  necessary  to  prevent 
serious  harm. 

In  large  cities  the  results  are  different  because  the  circum¬ 
stances  are  different.  We  find  there,  besides  the  conditions 


1  The  reference  here  is  to  primaries  of  the  older  type.  Though  they  are 
being  largely  superseded  by  the  newer  directly  nominating  primaries,  a  knowl¬ 
edge  of  both  systems  is  still  necessary.  It  was  indeed  the  abuse  of  the  old  pri¬ 
maries  which  led  to  the  statutes  creating  the  new  ones. 


CHAP.  LXII 


HOW  THE  MACHINE  WORKS 


103 


previously  enumerated,  —  viz.  numerous  offices,  frequent  elec¬ 
tions,  universal  suffrage,  an  absence  of  stimulating  issues,  — 
three  others  of  great  moment  — 

A  vast  population  of  ignorant  immigrants  : 

The  leading  men  all  intensely  occupied  with  business  : 

Communities  so  large  that  people  know  little  of  one  another, 
and  that  the  interest  of  each  individual  in  good  government  is 
comparatively  small. 

Any  one  can  see  how  these  conditions  affect  the  problem. 
The  immigrants  are  entitled  to  obtain  a  vote  after  three  or  four 
years’  residence  at  most  (often  less),  but  they  are  not  fit  for  the 
suffrage.1  They  know  nothing  of  the  institutions  of  the  country, 
of  its  statesmen,  of  its  political  issues.  Those  especially  who  come 
from  Central  and  Southern  Europe  bring  little  knowledge  of  the 
methods  of  free  government,  and  from  Ireland  they  used  to  bring 
a  suspicion  of  all  government.  Incompetent  to  give  an  intelligent 
vote,  but  soon  finding  that  their  vote  has  a  value,  they  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  party  organizations,  whose  officers  enrol  them  in 
their  lists,  and  undertake  to  fetch  them  to  the  polls.  I  was  long 
ago  taken  to  watch  the  process  of  citizen-making  in  New  York. 
Droves  of  squalid  men,  who  looked  as  if  they  had  just  emerged 
from  an  emigrant  ship,  and  had  perhaps  done  so  only  a  few  weeks 
before,  for  the  law  prescribing  a  certain  term  of  residence  is  fre¬ 
quently  violated,  were  brought  up  to  a  magistrate  by  the  ward 
agent  of  the  party  which  had  captured  them,  declared  their  alle¬ 
giance  to  the  United  States,  and  were  forthwith  placed  on  the  roll.2 
Such  a  sacrifice  of  common  sense  to  abstract  principles  has  seldom 
been  made  by  any  country.  Nobody  pretends  that  such  persons 
are  fit  for  civic  duty,  or  will  be  dangerous  if  kept  for  a  time  in 
pupilage,  but  neither  party  will  incur  the  odium  of  proposing  to 
exclude  them.  The  real  reason  for  admitting  them,  besides  demo- 

1  Federal  law  prescribes  a  residence  of  five  years  as  the  prerequisite  for 
naturalization,  but  the  laws  of  not  a  few  Western  States  enable  a  vote  to  be 
acquired  in  a  shorter  term  by  one  who  is  not  a  United  States  citizen.  See 
Chapter  XXVIII.  ante.  And  in  some  States,  persons  who  have  not  completed 
their  five  years  are  often  fraudulently  naturalized. 

2  Things  are  better  now  than  they  were  then,  but  even  now  there  is  no  security 
that  the  recently  arrived  immigrant  possesses  the  qualifications  required  for  the 
giving  of  an  intelligent  vote.  It  is  even  alleged  that  many  of  the  immigrants 
(especially  Italians)  brought  over  to  be  employed  on  railroad-making  and  other 
similar  works  come  under  what  are  virtually  contracts  to  cast  their  votes  in  a 
particular  way,  and  do  so  cast  them,  possibly  returning  to  Europe  after  some 
months  or  years,  richer  by  the  payment  they  have  received  for  their  votes  as 
well  as  for  their  labour. 


104 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


cratic  theory,  has  been  either  that  the  locally  dominant  party 
expected  to  gain  their  votes,1  or  that  neither  of  the  parties  wished 
to  incur  such  odium  as  might  attach  to  those  who  seemed 
to  be  debarring  residents  from  full  civic  rights.  It  is  an  after¬ 
thought  to  argue  that  they  will  sooner  become  good  citizens  by 
being  immediately  made  full  citizens.  A  stranger  must  not  pre¬ 
sume  to  say  that  the  Americans  have  been  imprudent,  but  he  may 
doubt  whether  the  possible  ultimate  gain  compensates  the  direct 
and  unquestionable  mischief. 

In  these  great  transatlantic  cities,  population  is  far  less 
settled  and  permanent  than  in  the  cities  of  Europe.  In  New 
York,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Minneapolis,  San  Francisco,  a  very 
small  part  of  the  inhabitants  are  natives  of  the  city,  or  have 
resided  in  it  for  twenty  years.  Hence  they  know  but  little 
of  one  another,  or  even  of  those  who  would  in  Europe  be  called 
the  leading  men.  There  are  scarcely  any  old  families,  fami¬ 
lies  associated  with  the  city,2  whose  name  recommends  one  of 
their  scions  to  the  confidence  of  his  fellow-citizens.  There 
are  few  persons  who  have  had  any  chance  of  becoming  gener¬ 
ally  known,  except  through  their  wealth ;  and  the  wealthy 
have  neither  time  nor  taste  for  political  work.  Political  work 
is  a  bigger  and  heavier  affair  than  in  small  communities ;  hence 
ordinary  citizens  cannot  attend  to  it  in  addition  to  their  regu¬ 
lar  business.  Moreover,  the  population  is  so  large  that  an  in¬ 
dividual  citizen  feels  himself  a  drop  in  the  ocean.  His  power 
of  affecting  public  affairs  by  his  own  intervention  seems  insig¬ 
nificant.  His  pecuniary  loss  through  over-taxation,  or  jobbery, 
or  malversation,  is  trivial  in  comparison  with  the  trouble  of 
trying  to  prevent  such  evils. 

As  party  machinery  is  in  great  cities  most  easily  perverted, 
so  the  temptation  to  pervert  it  is  there  strongest,  because  the 
prizes  are  great.  The  offices  are  well  paid,  the  patronage  is 
large,  the  opportunities  for  jobs,  commissions  on  contracts, 
pickings,  and  even  stealings,  are  enormous.  Hence  it  is  well 
worth  the  while  of  unscrupulous  men  to  gain  control  of  the 
machinery  by  which  these  prizes  may  be  won.3 

1  At  one  time  a  speedy  admission  to  suffrage  was  adopted  as  an  inducement 
to  immigrants ;  but  this  motive  has  ceased  to  have  force  in  most  States. 

2  In  a  few  of  the  older  cities  some  such  families  still  exist,  but  their  mem¬ 
bers  do  not  often  enter  “politics.” 

3  Although  what  is  here  stated  is  generally  true  of  Machines  in  large  cities, 
there  may  be,  even  in  such  cities,  districts  inhabited  by  well-to-do  people,  in 


CHAP.  LXII 


HOW  THE  MACHINE  WORKS 


105 


Such  men,  the  professional  politicians  of  the  great  cities, 
have  two  objects  in  view.  One  is  to  seize  the  local  city  and 
county  offices.  A  great  city  of  course  controls  the  county  in 
which  it  is  situate.  The  other  is  so  to  command  the  local  party 
vote  as  to  make  good  terms  with  the  party  managers  of  the 
State,  and  get  from  them  a  share  in  State  offices,  together  with 
such  legislation  as  is  desired  from  the  State  legislature,  and 
similarly  to  make  good  terms  with  the  Federal  party  managers, 
thus  securing  a  share  in  Federal  offices,  and  the  means  of  in¬ 
fluencing  legislation  in  Congress.  How  do  the  city  professionals 
move  towards  these  objects? 

There  are  two  stages  in  an  election  campaign.  The  first  is 
to  nominate  the  candidates  you  desire  ;  the  second  to  carry 
them  at  the  polls.  The  first  of  these  is  often  the  more  impor¬ 
tant,  because  in  many  cities  the  party  majority  inclines  so 
decidedly  one  way  or  the  other  ( e.g .  most  districts  of  New 
York  City  are  steadily  Democratic,  while  Philadelphia  is  Re¬ 
publican),  that  nomination  is  in  the  case  of  the  dominant  party 
equivalent  to  election.  Now  to  nominate  your  candidates  you 
must,  above  all  things,  secure  the  primaries.  They  require  and 
deserve  unsparing  exertion,  for  everything  turns  upon  them.1 

The  first  thing  is  to  have  the  kind  of  primary  you  want. 
Now  the  composition  of  a  primary  is  determined  by  the  roll,  or 
“  check  list,”  as  it  is  called,  of  ward  voters  entitled  to  appear 
in  it.  This  is  prepared  by  the  managing  committee  of  the 
ward,  who  are  naturally  desirous  to  have  on  it  only  such  men 
as  they  can  trust  or  control.  They  are  aided  in  securing  this 
by  any  rules  which  require  members  to  be  admitted  by  the  votes 
of  those  already  on  the  list,  and  exact  from  persons  admitted 
a  pledge  to  obey  the  committee,  and  abide  by  the  party  nomi¬ 
nations.2  Men  of  independent  temper  often  refuse  this  pledge, 

which  the  political  organizations,  being  composed  of  men  of  good  character 
and  standing,  are  honestly  worked.  The  so-called  “brown-stone  districts”  in 
New  York  City  have,  I  believe,  fair  Machines. 

1  The  two  paragraphs  that  follow  refer  to  primaries  of  the  older  type,  the 
primary  under  the  new  laws  being  simply  an  election  of  candidates  either  by 
the  voters  of  each  party  separately  or  by  the  voters  of  both  parties  voting 
together. 

2  The  rules  of  the  Tammany  Hall  (Democratic)  organization  in  New  York 
City  for  many  years  past  made  the  consent  of  a  majority  of  the  members  of 
each  primary  necessary  to  the  admission  of  a  new  member.  A  similar  system 
prevails  among  the  Republicans  in  that  city.  “The  organization  of  the  twenty- 
four  Republican  primaries  (one  for  each  Assembly  district)  was  as  complicated, 
and  the  access  to  membership  as  difficult,  as  that  of  any  private  club.”  Now, 


106 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


and  are  excluded.  Many  of  the  ward  voters  do  not  apply  for 
admission.  Of  those  who  do  apply  and  take  the  pledge,  some 
can  be  plausibly  rejected  by  the  primary  on  the  ground  that 
they  have  on  some  recent  occasion  failed  to  vote  the  party 
ticket.  Thus  it  is  easy  for  an  active  committee  to  obtain  a 
subservient  primary,  composed  of  persons  in  sympathy  with 
it  or  obedient  to  it.  In  point  of  fact  the  rolls  of  membership 
of  many  primaries  are  largely  bogus  rolls.  Names  of  former 
members  are  kept  on  when  these  men  have  left  the  district  or 
died ;  names  are  put  on  of  men  who  do  not  belong  to  the  dis¬ 
trict  at  all,  and  both  sets  of  names  are  so  much  “voting  stock/' 1 
applicable  at  the  will  and  needs  of  the  local  party  managers, 
who  can  admit  the  latter  to  vote,  and  “recognize”  men  person¬ 
ating  the  former.  In  fact,  their  control  of  the  lists  enables 
them  to  have  practically  whatever  primary  they  desire.1 

The  next  thing  is  to  get  the  delegates  chosen  whom  you  wish 
for.  The  committee  when  it  summons  the  primary  settles  in 
secret  conclave  the  names  of  the  delegates  to  be  proposed,  of 
course  selecting  men  it  can  trust,  particularly  office-holders 
bound  to  the  party  which  has  put  them  in,  and  “workers” 
whom  the  prospect  of  office  will  keep  faithful.  When  the 

however,  under  the  New  York  primary  law  of  1899  a  person  desiring  to  qualify 
to  vote  at  a  primary  has  to  enrol  himself  on  the  general  registration  days,  de¬ 
claring  on  the  enrolment  form  that  he  is  in  general  sympathy  with  the  party 
which  he  has  designated  by  his  mark  at  the  foot  of  the  paper,  that  he  intends 
to  support  the  nominees  of  such  party  for  State  and  National  offices  generally 
at  the  next  general  election,  and  that  he  has  not  since  the  last  preceding  first  of 
January  enrolled  as  a  member  of  any  other  party.  No  one  not  then  enrolled 
may  vote  at  a  party  primary. 

1  In  1880  it  was  computed  that  out  of  58,000  Republican  voters  in  New 
York  City  not  more  than  6000,  or  8000  at  the  most,  were  members  of  the  Re¬ 
publican  organization,  and  entitled  to  vote  in  a  primary. 

The  numbers  present  in  the  old-fashioned  primaries  were  sometimes  very 
small.  “At  the  last  Republican  primaries  in  New  York  City  only  8  per  cent 
of  the  Republican  electors  took  part.  In  only  eight  out  of  twenty-four  districts 
did  the  percentage  exceed  10,  in  some  it  was  as  low  as  2  per  cent.  In  the  Twenty- 
first  Assembly  District  Tammany  Primary,  116  delegates,  to  choose  an  Assem¬ 
bly  candidate,  were  elected  by  less  than  fifty  voters.  In  the  Sixth  Assembly 
District  County  Democracy  Primary,  less  than  7  per  cent  of  the  Democratic 
voters  took  part,  and  of  those  who  did,  sixtv-nine  in  number,  nearly  one-fourth, 
were  election  officers.  The  primary  was  held  in  a  careless  way  in  a  saloon 
while  card  playing  was  going  on.”  —  Mr.  A.  C.  Bernheim,  in  Pol.  Science 
Quarterly  for  March,  1888. 

A  trustworthy  correspondent  wrote  to  me  from  Philadelphia  in  1894,  “There 
is  probably  an  average  of  150  Republican  voters  to  an  election  district.  The 
average  attendance  at  primaries  is  said  to  be  about  12,  which  is  approximately 
the  nuipber  of  party  servants  necessary  to  manage  the  meeting  under  party 
rules.” 


CHAP.  LXII 


HOW  THE  MACHINE  WORKS 


107 


meeting  assembles  a  chairman  is  suggested  by  the  committee 
and  usually  accepted.  Then  the  list  of  delegates,  which  the 
committee  has  brought  down  cut  and  dry,  is  put  forward.  If 
the  meeting  is  entirely  composed  of  professionals,  office-holders, 
and  their  friends,  it  is  accepted  without  debate.  If  opponents 
are  present,  they  may  propose  other  names,  but  the  official 
majority  is  almost  always  sufficient  to  carry  the  official  list, 
and  the  chairman  is  prepared  to  exert,  in  favour  of  his  friends, 
his  power  of  ruling  points  of  order.  In  extreme  cases  a  dis¬ 
turbance  will  be  got  up,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  chairman 
may  plausibly  declare  the  official  list  carried,  or  the  meeting 
is  adjourned  in  the  hope  that  the  opposition  will  not  be  at 
the  trouble  of  coming  next  time,  a  hope  likely  to  be  realized, 
if  the  opposition  consists  of  respectable  citizens  who  dislike 
spending  an  evening  in  such  company.  Sometimes  the  profes¬ 
sionals  will  bring  in  roughs  from  other  districts  to  shout  down 
such  opponents,  and  if  necessary  threaten  them.  One  way  or 
another  the  “ regular”  list  of  delegates  is  almost  invariably 
carried  against  the  “good  citizens.”  When  however  there  are 
two  hostile  factions  of  professionals,  each  anxious  to  secure 
nominations  for  its  friends,  the  struggle  is  sharper  and  its  issue 
more  doubtful.  Fraud  is  likely  to  be  used  on  both  sides  ;  and 
fraud  often  provokes  violence.1  It  is  a  significant  illustration 
of  the  difference  between  the  party  system  in  America  and 
Europe  that  in  the  former  foul  play  is  quite  as  likely,  and  vio¬ 
lence  more  likely,  to  occur  at  party  nominating  meetings  than 
in  the  actual  elections  where  two  opposing  parties  are  confronted. 

The  scene  now  shifts  to  the  Nominating  Convention,  which 
is  also  summoned  by  the  appropriate  committee.  When  it  is 
“called  to  order”  a  temporary  chairman  is  installed,  the  im¬ 
portance  of  whose  position  consists  in  his  having  (usually)  the 
naming  of  a  committee  on  credentials,  or  contested  seats,  which 
examines  the  titles  of  the  delegates  from  the  various  primaries 

1  For  a  remarkable  instance  in  Baltimore  see  the  report  of  United  States 
Civil  Service  Commissioner  Roosevelt  made  to  the  President,  May  1,  1891. 
“Pudding  ballots”  (composed  of  six  or  seven  ballots  folded  together  as  if  one) 
were  profusely  used  at  these  primary  elections  in  the  various  wards  of  Balti¬ 
more.  One  of  the  witnesses  examined,  an  employee  of  the  Custom  House,  tes¬ 
tified  as  follows:  “Each  side  cheats  as  much  as  it  can  in  the  primaries.  Who¬ 
ever  gets  two  judges  wins.  I  do  just  the  same  as  they  do.  They  had  two 
judges.”  ...  Q.  “How  do  you  do  your  cheating?”  A.  “Well,  we  do  our 
cheating  honourably.  If  they  catch  us  at  it,  it’s  all  right :  it’s  fair.  I  even 
carried  the  box  home  with  me  on  one  occasion  ...  I  have  broken  up  more 
than  one  election.” 


108 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


to  vote  in  the  convention.  Being  himself  in  the  interest  of 
the  professionals,  he  names  a  committee  in  their  interest,  and 
this  committee  does  what  it  can  to  exclude  delegates  who  are 
suspected  of  an  intention  to  oppose  the  candidates  whom  the 
professionals  have  prearranged.  The  primaries  have  almost 
always  been  so  carefully  packed,  and  so  skilfully  “run,”  that 
a  majority  of  trusty  delegates  has  been  secured ;  but  some¬ 
times  a  few  primaries  have  sent  delegates  belonging  to  another 
faction  of  the  party,  or  to  some  independent  section  of  the 
party,  and  then  there  may  be  trouble.  Occasionally  two  sets 
of  delegates  appear,  each  claiming  to  represent  their  primary. 
The  dispute  generally  ends  by  the  exclusion  of  the  Indepen¬ 
dents  or  of  the  hostile  faction,  the  committee  discovering  a 
flaw  in  their  credentials,  but  sometimes,  though  rarely,  the 
case  is  so  clear  that  they  must  be  admitted.  In  doubtful  cases 
a  partisan  chairman  is  valuable,  for,  as  it  is  expressed,  “he 
is  a  solid  8  to  7  man  all  the  time.”  When  the  credentials  have 
been  examined  the  convention  is  deemed  to  be  duly  organized, 
a  permanent  chairman  is  appointed,  and  the  business  of  nomi¬ 
nating  candidates  proceeds.  A  spokesman  of  the  professionals 
proposes  A.  B.  in  a  speech,  dwelling  on  his  services  to  the 
party.  If  the  convention  has  been  properly  packed,  he  is 
nominated  by  acclamation.  If  there  be  a  rival  faction  repre¬ 
sented,  or  if  independent  citizens  who  dislike  him  have  been 
sent  up  by  some  primary  which  the  professionals  have  failed 
to  secure,  another  candidate  is  proposed  and  a  vote  taken. 
Here  also  there  is  often  room  for  a  partial  chairman  to  influ¬ 
ence  the  result ;  here,  as  in  the  primary,  a  tumult  or  a  hocus 
pocus  may  in  extreme  cases  be  got  up  to  enable  the  chairman 
to  decide  in  favour  of  his  allies. 

Americans  are,  however,  so  well  versed  in  the  rules  which 
govern  public  meetings,  and  so  prepared  to  encounter  all  sorts 
of  tricks,  that  the  managers  do  not  consider  success  certain 
unless  they  have  a  majority  behind  them.  This  they  almost 
certainly  have ;  at  least  it  reflects  discredit  on  their  handling 
of  the  primaries  if  they  have  not.  The  chief  hope  of  an  op¬ 
position  therefore  is  not  to  carry  its  own  candidate  but  so 
to  frighten  the  professionals  as  to  make  them  abandon  theirs, 
and  substitute  some  less  objectionable  name.  The  candidate 
chosen,  who,  ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hundred,  is  the  person 
predetermined  by  the  managers,  becomes  the  party  nominee, 


CHAP.  LXII 


HOW  THE  MACHINE  WORKS 


109 


entitled  to  the  support  of  the  whole  party.  He  has  received 
“the  regular  nomination.”  If  there  are  other  offices  whereto 
nominations  have  to  be  made,  the  convention  goes  on  to 
these,  which  being  despatched,  it  adjourns  and  disappears  for 
ever. 

I  once  witnessed  such  a  convention,  a  State  convention,  held 
at  Rochester,  N.Y.,  by  the  Democrats  of  New  York  State,  at 
that  time  under  the  control  of  the  Tammany  Ring  of  New 
York  City.  The  most  prominent-  figure  was  the  famous  Mr. 
William  M.  Tweed,  then  in  the  zenith  of  his  power.  There 
was,  however, Tittle  or  nothing  in  the  public  proceedings  from 
which  an  observer  could  learn  anything  of  the  subterranean 
forces  at  work.  During  the  morning  a  tremendous  coming 
and  going  and  chattering  and  clattering  of  crowds  of  men  who 
looked  at  once  sordid  and  flashy,  faces  shrewd  but  mean  and 
sometimes  brutal,  vulgar  figures  in  good  coats  forming  into 
small  groups  and  talking  eagerly,  and  then  dissolving  to  form 
fresh  groups,  a  universal  camaraderie ,  with  no  touch  of  friend¬ 
ship  about  it ;  something  between  a  betting-ring  and  the  flags 
outside  the  Liverpool  Exchange.  It  reminded  one  of  the 
swarming  of  bees  in  tree  boughs,  a  ceaseless  humming  and 
buzzing  which  betokens  immense  excitement  over  proceedings 
which  the  bystander  does  not  comprehend.  After  some  hours 
all  this  settled  down  ;  the  meeting  was  duly  organized  ;  speeches 
were  made,  all  dull  and  thinly  declamatory,  except  one  by  an 
eloquent  Irishman ;  the  candidates  for  State  offices  were  pro¬ 
posed  and  carried  by  acclamation ;  and  the  business  ended. 
Everything  had  evidently  been  prearranged ;  and  the  discon¬ 
tented,  if  any  there  were,  had  been  talked  over  during  the 
swarming  hours. 

After  each  of  the  greater  conventions  it  is  usual  to  hold  one 
or  more  public  gatherings,  at  which  the  candidates  chosen  are 
solemnly  adopted  by  the  crowd  present,  and  rousing  speeches 
are  delivered.  Such  a  gathering,  called  a  “ratification  ”  meet¬ 
ing,  has  no  practical  importance,  being  attended  only  by  those 
prepared  to  support  the  nominations  made.  The  candidate  is 
now  launched,  and  what  remains  is  to  win  the  election. 

The  above  may  be  thought,  as  it  is  thought  by  many  Ameri¬ 
cans,  a  travesty  of  popular  choice.  Observing  the  form  of  con¬ 
sulting  the  voters,  it  substantially  ignores  them,  and  forces 
on  them  persons  whom  they  do  not  know,  and  would  dislike  if 


110 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


they  knew  them.  It  substitutes  for  the  party  voters  generally 
a  small  number  of  professionals  and  their  creatures,  extracts 
prearranged  nominations  from  packed  meetings,  and  calls  this 
consulting  the  pleasure  of  the  sovereign  people.1 

Yet  every  feature  of  the  Machine  is  the  result  of  patent 
causes.  The  elective  offices  are  so  numerous  that  ordinary 
citizens  cannot  watch  them,  and  cease  to  care  who  gets  them. 
The  conventions  come  so  often  that  busy  men  cannot  serve  in 
them.  The  minor  offices  are  so  unattractive  that  able  men  do 
not  stand  for  them.  The  primary  lists  are  so  contrived  that 
only  a  fraction  of  the  party  get  on  them ;  and  of  this  fraction 
many  are  too  lazy  or  too  busy  or  too  careless  to  attend.  The 
mass  of  the  voters  are  ignorant ;  knowing  nothing  about  the 
personal  merits  of  the  candidates,  they  are  ready  to  follow  their 
leaders  like  sheep.  Even  the  better  class,  however  they  may 
grumble,  are  swayed  by  the  inveterate  habit  of  party  loyalty, 
and  prefer  a  bad  candidate  of  their  own  party  to  a  (probably 
no  better)  candidate  of  the  other  party.  It  is  less  trouble  to 
put  up  with  impure  officials,  costly  city  government,  a  jobbing 
State  legislature,  an  inferior  sort  of  congressman,  than  to  sac¬ 
rifice  one’s  own  business  in  the  effort  to  set  things  right.  Thus 
the  Machine  works  on,  and  grinds  out  places,  power,  and  oppor¬ 
tunities  for  illicit  gain  to  those  who  manage  it. 

1  It  was  a  perception  of  these  facts  and  a  growing  discontent  with  their  results 
that  suggested  the  new  primary  laws  above  referred  to. 


CHAPTER  LXIII 


RINGS  AND  BOSSES 

This  is  the  external  aspect  of  the  Machine ;  these  the  phe¬ 
nomena  which  a  visitor  taken  round  to  see  a  number  of  Pri¬ 
maries  and  Nominating  Conventions  would  record.  But  the 
reader  will  ask,  How  is  the  Machine  run  ?  What  are  the  inner 
springs  that  move  it  ?  What  is  the  source  of  the  power  the 
committees  wield?  What  force  of  cohesion  keeps  leaders  and 
followers  together?  What  kind  of  government  prevails  among 
this  army  of  professional  politicians? 

The  source  of  power  and  the  cohesive  force  is  the  desire  for 
office,  and  for  office  as  a  means  of  gain.  This  one  cause  is 
sufficient  to  account  for  everything,  when  it  acts,  as  it  does  in 
these  cities,  under  the  condition  of  the  suffrage  of  a  host  of 
ignorant  and  pliable  voters. 

Those  who  in  great  cities  form  the  committees  and  work  the 
Machine  are  persons  whose  chief  aim  in  life  is  to  make  their 
living  by  office.  Such  a  man  generally  begins  by  acquiring 
influence  among  a  knot  of  voters  who  live  in  his  neighbour¬ 
hood,  or  work  under  the  same  employer,  or  frequent  the  same 
grog-shop  or  beer  saloon,  which  perhaps  he  keeps  himself.  He 
becomes  a  member  of  his  primary,  attends  regularly,  attaches 
himself  to  some  leader  in  that  body,  and  is  forward  to  render 
service  by  voting  as  his  leader  wishes,  and  by  doing  duty  at 
elections.  He  has  entered  the  large  and  active  class  called, 
technically,  “workers,”  or  more  affectionately,  “the  Boys.” 
Soon  he  becomes  conspicuous  in  the  primary,  being  recognized 
as  controlling  the  votes  of  others  —  “owning  them”  is  the 
technical  term  —  and  is  chosen  delegate  to  a  convention. 
Loyalty  to  the  party  there  and  continued  service  at  elections 
mark  him  out  for  further  promotion.  He  is  appointed  to  some 
petty  office  in  one  of  the  city  departments,  and  presently  is 
himself  nominated  for  an  elective  office.  By  this  time  he  has 
also  found  his  way  on  to  the  ward  committee,  whence  by  degrees 

111 


112 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


he  rises  to  sit  on  the  central  committee,  having  carefully  nursed 
his  local  connection  and  surrounded  himself  with  a  band  of 
adherents,  who  are  called  his  “ heelers,”  and  whose  loyalty  to 
him  in  the  primary,  secured  by  the  hope  of  “  something  good,” 
gives  weight  to  his  words.  Once  a  member  of  the  central 
committee  he  discovers  what  everybody  who  comes  to  the 
front  discovers  sooner  or  later,  by  how  few  persons  the  world 
is  governed.  He  is  one  of  a  small  knot  of  persons  who  pull 
the  wires  for  the  whole  city,  controlling  the  primaries,  select¬ 
ing  candidates,  “  running”  conventions,  organizing  elections, 
treating  on  behalf  of  the  party  in  the  city  with  the  leaders  of 
the  party  in  the  State.  Each  of  this  knot,  which  is  probably 
smaller  than  the  committee,  because  every  committee  includes 
some  ciphers  put  on  to  support  a  leader,  and  which  may  include 
one  or  two  strong  men  not  on  the  committee,  has  acquired  in 
his  upward  course  a  knowledge  of  men  and  their  weaknesses,  a 
familiarity  with  the  wheels,  shafts,  and  bands  of  the  party 
machine,  together  with  a  skill  in  working  it.  Each  can  com¬ 
mand  some  primaries,  each  has  attached  to  himself  a  group  of 
dependants  who  owe  some  place  to  him,  or  hope  for  some  place 
from  him.  The  aim  of  the  knot  is  not  only  to  get  good  posts 
for  themselves,  but  to  rivet  their  yoke  upon  the  city  by  gar¬ 
risoning  the  departments  with  their  own  creatures,  and  so 
controlling  elections  to  the  State  legislature  that  they  can  pro¬ 
cure  such  statutes  as  they  desire,  and  prevent  the  passing  of 
statutes  likely  to  expose  or  injure  them.  They  cement  their 
dominion  by  combination,  each  placing  his  influence  at  the 
disposal  of  the  others,  and  settle  all  important  measures  in 
secret  conclave. 

Such  a  combination  is  called  a  Ring. 

The  power  of  such  a  combination  is  immense,  for  it  ramifies 
over  the  whole  city.  There  are,  in  New  York  City,  for  instance, 
more  than  forty  thousand  persons  employed  by  the  city  au¬ 
thorities  (without  counting  the  eleven  thousand  school-teachers) , 
the  large  majority  dismissible  by  their  superiors  at  short  notice 
and  without  cause  assigned.  Of  the  large  number  employed 
by  the  National  Government  in  the  Custom-House,  Post- 
Office,  and  other  branches  of  the  Federal  service,1  many 

1  The  state  of  things  under  which  rings  first  developed  was  worse,  because 
then  everybody  was  dismissible.  Now  many  Federal  posts  and  (in  some  places) 
some  city  posts  have  been  brought  under  Civil  Service  rules,  but  there  are  still 
a  great  many  officials  who  are  expected  to  work  for  the  party. 


CHAP.  LXIII 


RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


113 


are  similarly  dismissible  by  the  proper  Federal  authority  ;  and 
there  are  also  State  servants,  responsible  to  and  dismissible  by 
the  State  authority.  If  the  same  party  happens  to  be  supreme 
in  city  politics,  in  the  Federal  government,  and  in  the  State 
government,  all  this  army  of  employees  is  expected  to  work  for 
the  party  leaders  of  the  city,  in  city  primaries,  conventions,  and 
elections,  and  is  virtually  amenable  to  the  orders  of  these  leaders.1 
If  the  other  party  holds  the  reins  of  Federal  government,  or  of 
both  the  Federal  government  and  State  government,  then  the 
city  wirepullers  have  at  any  rate  their  own  ten  thousand  or 
more,  while  other  thousands  swell  the  army  of  “workers”  for  the 
opposite  party.  Add  those  who  expect  to  get  offices,  and  it 
will  be  seen  how  great  and  how  disciplined  a  force  is  available 
to  garrison  the  city  and  how  effective  it  becomes  under  strict 
discipline.  Yet  it  is  not  larger  than  is  needed,  for  the  work  is 
heavy.  Tantae  molis  erat  Romanam  condere  gentem.- 

In  a  Ring  there  is  usually  some  one  person  who  holds  more 
strings  in  his  hand  than  do  the  others.  Like  them  he  has  worked 
himself  up  to  power  from  small  beginnings,  gradually  extending 
the  range  of  his  influence  over  the  mass  of  workers,  and  knitting 
close  bonds  with  influential  men  outside  as  well  as  inside  politics, 
perhaps  with  great  financiers  or  railway  magnates,  whom  he  can 
oblige,  and  who  can  furnish  him  with  funds.  At  length  his  su¬ 
perior  skill,  courage,  and  force  of  will  make  him,  as  such  gifts 
always  do  make  their  possessor,  dominant  among  his  fellows. 
An  army  led  by  a  council  seldom  conquers ;  it  must  have  a  com¬ 
mander-in-chief,  who  settles  disputes,  decides  in  emergencies, 
inspires  fear  or  attachment.  The  head  of  the  Ring  is  such 
a  commander.  He  dispenses  places,  rewards  the  loyal,  pun¬ 
ishes  the  mutinous,  concocts  schemes,  negotiates  treaties.  He 
generally  avoids  publicity,  preferring  the  substance  to  the  pomp 
of  power,  and  is  all  the  more  dangerous  because  he  sits,  like  a 
spider,  hidden  in  the  midst  of  his  web.  He  is  a  Boss. 

Although  the  career  I  have  sketched  is  that  whereby  most  bosses 

1  Assuming,  as  one  usually  may,  that  the  city  leaders  are  on  good  terms 
with  the  Federal  and  State  party  managers. 

Federal  Statutes  and  Civil  Service  rules  made  under  them  now  provide 
that  no  person  in  the  public  service  shall  be  compelled  to  contribute  service  or 
money  for  political  purposes ;  and  that  persons  in  the  competitive  service  shall 
take  no  active  part  in  political  campaigns,  or  use  official  authority  or  influence 
for  the  purpose  of  interfering  with  an  election  or  controlling  the  result  thereof. 
These  rules,  however,  do  not  cover  the  whole  field,  and  it  is  believed  that  they 
are  not  always  observed. 


114 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


have  risen  to  greatness,  some  attain  it  by  a  shorter  path.  There 
have  been  brilliant  instances  of  persons  stepping  at  once  on  to  the 
higher  rungs  of  the  ladder  in  virtue  of  their  audacity  and  energy, 
especially  if  coupled  with  oratorical  power.  The  first  theatre  of 
such  a  man’s  successes  may  have  been  the  stump  rather  than  the 
primary ;  he  will  then  become  potent  in  conventions,  and  either 
by  hectoring  or  by  plausible  address,  for  both  have  their  value, 
spring  into  popular  favour,  and  make  himself  necessary  to  the 
party  managers.  It  is  of  course  a  gain  to  a  Ring  to  have  among 
them  a  man  of  popular  gifts,  because  he  helps  to  conceal  the  odious 
features  of  their  rule,  gilding  it  by  his  rhetoric,  and  winning  the 
applause  of  the  masses  who  stand  outside  the  circle  of  workers. 
However,  the  position  of  the  rhetorical  Boss  is  less  firmly  rooted 
than  that  of  the  intriguing  Boss,  and  there  have  been  instances  of 
his  suddenly  falling  to  rise  no  more. 

A  great  city  is  the  best  soil  for  the  growth  of  a  Boss,  because 
it  contains  the  largest  masses  of  manageable  voters  as  well  as 
numerous  offices  and  plentiful  opportunities  for  jobbing.  But 
a  whole  State  sometimes  falls  under  the  dominion  of  one  intriguer. 
To  govern  so  large  a  territory  needs  high  abilities ;  and  the  State 
Boss  is  always  an  able  man,  somewhat  more  of  a  politician,  in  the 
European  sense,  than  a  city  boss  need  be.  He  dictates  State  nomi¬ 
nations,  and  through  his  lieutenants  controls  State  and  sometimes 
Congressional  conventions,  being  in  diplomatic  relations  with  the 
chief  city  bosses  and  local  rings  in  different  parts  of  the  State.  His 
power  over  them  mainly  springs  from  his  influence  with  the  Federal 
executive  and  in  Congress.  He  is  usually,  almost  necessarily,  a 
member  of  Congress,  probably  a  senator,  and  can  procure,  or  at 
any  rate  can  hinder,  such  legislation  as  the  local  leaders  desire  or 
dislike.  The  President  cannot  ignore  him,  and  the  President’s 
ministers,  however  little  they  may  like  him,  find  it  worth  while  to 
gratify  him  with  Federal  appointments  for  persons  he  recom¬ 
mends,  because  the  local  votes  he  controls  may  make  all  the  differ¬ 
ence  to  their  own  prospects  of  getting  some  day  a  nomination  for 
the  presidency.  Thus  he  uses  his  Congressional  position  to  secure 
State  influence,  and  his  State  influence  to  strengthen  his  Federal 
position.  Sometimes,  however,  he  is  rebuffed  by  the  powers  at 
Washington,  and  then  his  State  thanes  fly  from  him.  Sometimes 
he  quarrels  with  a  powerful  city  Boss,  and  then  honest  men  come 
by  their  own. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  members  of  rings,  or  the 


CHAP.  LXIII 


RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


115 


great  Boss  himself,  are  wicked  men.  They  are  the  offspring  of 
a  system.  Their  morality  is  that  of  their  surroundings.  They 
see  a  door  open  to  wealth  and  power,  and  they  walk  in.  The 
obligations  of  patriotism  or  duty  to  the  public  are  not  disregarded 
by  them,  for  these  obligations  have  never  been  present  to  their 
minds.  A  State  Boss  is  usually  a  native  American  and  a  person  of 
some  education,  who  avoids  the  grosser  forms  of  corruption, 
though  he  has  to  wink  at  them  when  practised  by  his  friends.  He 
may  be  a  man  of  personal  integrity.1  A  city  Boss  is  often  of 
foreign  birth  and  humble  origin ;  he  has  grown  up  in  an  atmos¬ 
phere  of  oaths  and  cocktails  :  ideas  of  honour  and  purity  are  as 
strange  to  him  as  ideas  about  the  nature  of  the  currency  and  the 
incidence  of  taxation :  politics  is  merely  a  means  for  getting  and 
distributing  places.  “What,”  said  an  ingenuous  delegate  at  one  of 
the  National  Conventions  at  Chicago  in  1880,  “  what  are  we  here 
for  except  the  offices?”  It  is  no  wonder  if  he  helps  himself  from 
the  city  treasury  and  allows  his  minions  to  do  so.  Sometimes  he 
does  not  rob,  and,  like  Clive,  wonders  at  his  own  moderation. 
And  even  the  city  Boss  improves  as  he  rises  in  the  world.  Like  a 
tree  growing  out  of  a  dust  heap,  the  higher  he  gets,  the  cleaner  do 
his  boughs  and  leaves  become.  America  is  a  country  where 
vulgarity  is  scaled  off  more  easily  than  in  England,  and  where 
the  general  air  of  good  nature  softens  the  asperities  of  power. 
Some  city  bosses  are  men  from  whose  decorous  exterior  and 
unobtrusive  manners  no  one  would  divine  either  their  sordid 
beginnings  or  their  noxious  trade.  As  for  the  State  Boss,  whose 
talents  are  probably  greater  to  begin  with,  he  must  be  of  very 
coarse  metal  if  he  does  not  take  a  certain  polish  from  the  society 
of  Washington. 

A  city  Ring  works  somewhat  as  follows.  When  the  annual 
or  biennial  city  or  State  elections  come  round,  its  members  meet 
to  discuss  the  apportionment  of  offices.  Each  may  desire  some¬ 
thing  for  himself,  unless  indeed  he  is  already  fully  provided  for, 
and  anyhow  desires  something  for  his  friends.  The  common  sort 
are  provided  for  with  small  places  in  the  gift  of  some  official,  down 
to  the  place  of  a  policeman  or  doorkeeper  or  messenger,  which 
is  thought  good  enough  for  a  common  “  ward  worker.”  Better 
men  receive  clerkships  or  the  promise  of  a  place  in  the  custom¬ 
house  or  post-office  to  be  obtained  from  the  Federal  authorities. 

1  So  too  a  rural  Boss  is  often  quite  pure,  and  blameworthy  rather  for  his 
intriguing  methods  than  for  his  aims. 


116 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


Men  still  more  important  aspire  to  the  elective  posts,  seats  in  the 
State  legislature,  a  city  aldermanship  or  commissionership,  per¬ 
haps  even  a  seat  in  Congress.  All  the  posts  that  will  have  to  be 
filled  at  the  coming  elections  are  considered  with  the  object  of 
bringing  out  a  party  ticket,  i.e.  a  list  of  candidates  to  be  supported 
by  the  party  at  the  polls  when  its  various  nominations  have  been 
successfully  run  through  the  proper  conventions.  Some  leading 
man,  or  probably  the  Boss  himself,  sketches  out  an  allotment  of 
places ;  and  when  this  allotment  has  been  worked  out  fully,  it 
results  in  a  Slate,  i.e.  a  complete  draft  list  of  candidates  to  be  pro¬ 
posed  for  the  various  offices.1  It  may  happen  that  the  slate 
does  not  meet  everybody’s  wishes.  Some  member  of  the  Ring  or 
some  local  Boss  —  most  members  of  a  Ring  are  bosses  each  in  his 
own  district,  as  the  members  of  a  cabinet  are  heads  of  the  depart¬ 
ments  of  state,  or  as  the  cardinals  are  bishops  of  dioceses  near 
Rome  and  priests  and  deacons  of  her  parish  churches  —  may 
complain  that  he  and  his  friends  have  not  been  adequately  pro¬ 
vided  for,  and  may  demand  more.  In  that  case  the  slate  will 
probably  be  modified  a  little  to  ensure  good  feeling  and  content ; 
and  it  will  then  be  presented  to  the  convention. 

But  there  is  sometimes  a  more  serious  difficulty  to  surmount. 
A  party  in  a  State  or  city  may  be  divided  into  two  or  more 
factions.  Success  in  the  election  will  be  possible  only  by  unit¬ 
ing  these  factions  upon  the  same  nominees  for  office.  Occa¬ 
sionally  the  factions  may  each  make  its  list  and  then  come 
together  in  the  party  convention  to  fight  out  their  differences. 
But  the  more  prudent  course  is  for  the  chiefs  to  arrange  matters 
in  a  private  conference.  Each  comes  wishing  to  get  the  most  he 
can  for  his  clansmen,  but  feels  the  need  for  a  compromise.  By  a 
process  of  “dickering  ”  {i.e.  bargaining  by  way  of  barter),  various 
offers  and  suggestions  being  made  all  round,  a  list  is  settled  on 
which  the  high  contracting  parties  agree.  This  is  a  Deal,  or 
Trade,  a  treaty  which  terminates  hostilities  for  the  time,  and 
brings  about  “  harmony.”  The  list  so  settled  is  now  a  slate, 

1  A  pleasant  story  is  told  of  a  former  Boss  of  New  York  State,  who  sat  with 
his  vassals  just  before  the  convention,  preparing  the  slate.  There  were  half 
a  dozen  or  more  State  offices  for  which  nominations  were  to  be  made.  The 
names  were  with  deliberation  selected  and  set  down,  with  the  exception  of 
the  very  unimportant  place  of  .State  Prison  Inspector.  One  of  his  subordi¬ 
nates  ventured  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Boss  to  what  he  supposed  to  be  an 
inadvertence,  and  asked  who  was  to  be  the  man  for  that  place,  to  which  the 
great  man  answered,  with  an  indulgent  smile,  “I  guess  we  will  leave  that  to  the 
convention.” 


CHAP.  LXIII 


RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


117 


unless  some  discontented  magnate  objects  and  threatens  to  with¬ 
draw.  To  do  so  is  called  “breaking  the  slate.”  If  such  a  “sore¬ 
head  ”  persists,  a  schism  may  follow,  with  horrible  disaster  to  the 
party ;  but  usually  a  new  slate  is  prepared  and  finally  agreed  upon. 
The  accepted  slate  is  now  ready  to  be  turned  by  the  Machine  into 
a  Ticket,  and  nothing  further  remains  but  the  comparatively  easy 
process  of  getting  the  proper  delegates  chosen  by  packed  primaries, 
and  running  the  various  parts  of  the  ticket  through  the  conventions 
to  which  the  respective  nominations  belong.  Internal  dissen¬ 
sion  among  the  chiefs  is  the  one  great  danger;  the  party  must 
at  all  hazards  be  kept  together,  for  the  power  of  a  united  party 
is  enormous.  It  has  not  only  a  large  but  a  thoroughly  trained 
and  disciplined  army  in  its  office-holders  and  office-seekers ; 
and  it  can  concentrate  its  force  upon  any  point  where  opposition 
is  threatened  to  the  regular  party  nominations.1  All  these 
office-holders  and  office-seekers  have  not  only  the  spirit  of  self- 
interest  to  rouse  them,  but  the  bridle  of  fear  to  check  any  stirrings 
of  independence.  Discipline  is  very  strict  in  this  army.  Even 
city  politicians  must  have  a  moral  code  and  moral  standard.  It 
is  not  the  code  of  an  ordinary  unprofessional  citizen.  It  does  not 
forbid  falsehood,  or  malversation,  or  ballot  stuffing,  or  “  repeat¬ 
ing.”  But  it  denounces  apathy  or  cowardice,  disobedience,  and 
above  all,  treason  to  the  party.  Its  typical  virtue  is  “  solidity,” 
unity  of  heart,  mind,  and  effort  among  the  workers,  unquestioning 
loyalty  to  the  party  leaders,  and  devotion  to  the  party  ticket.  He 
who  takes  his  own  course  is  a  Kicker  or  Bolter ;  and  is  punished 
not  only  sternly  but  vindictively.  The  path  of  promotion  is 
closed  to  him  ;  he  is  turned  out  of  the  primary,  and  forbidden  to 
hope  for  a  delegacy  to  a  convention;  he  is  dismissed  from  any 
office  he  holds  which  the  Ring  can  command.  Dark  stories  are 
even  told  of  a  secret  police  which  will  pursue  the  culprit  who  has 
betrayed  his  party,  and  of  mysterious  disappearances  of  men  whose 
testimony  against  the  Ring  was  feared.  Whether  there  is  any 
foundation  for  such  tales  I  do  not  undertake  to  say.  But  true  it  is 
that  the  bond  between  the  party  chiefs  and  their  followers  is 
very  close  and  very  seldom  broken.  What  the  client  was  to 

1  As  for  instance  by  packing  the  primaries  with  its  adherents  from  other 
districts,  whom  a  partisan  chairman  or  committee  will  suffer  to  come  in  and 
vote. 

These  remarks  all  refer  to  the  old-fashioned  primaries.  The  new  statutory 
primary,  as  already  observed,  is  a  different  thing,  whose  defects,  as  well  as  its 
merits,  are  different. 


118 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


his  patron  at  Rome,  what  the  vassal  was  to  his  lord  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  the  “ heelers  ”  and  “  workers”  are  to  their  Boss  in 
these  great  transatlantic  cities.  They  render  a  personal  feudal 
service,  which  their  suzerain  repays  with  the  gift  of  a  livelihood ; 
and  the  relation  is  all  the  more  cordial  because  the  lord  bestows 
what  costs  him  nothing,  while  the  vassal  feels  that  he  can  keep 
his  post  only  by  the  favour  of  the  lord. 

European  readers  must  again  be  cautioned  against  drawing 
for  themselves  too  dark  a  picture  of  the  Boss.  He  is  not  a  demon. 
He  is  not  regarded  with  horror  even  by  those  “good  citizens ” 
who  strive  to  shake  off  his  yoke.  He  is  not  necessarily  either 
corrupt  or  mendacious,  though  he  grasps  at  place,  power,  and 
wealth.  He  is  a  leader  to  whom  certain  peculiar  social  and 
political  conditions  have  given  a  character  dissimilar  from  the 
party  leaders  whom  Europe  knows.  It  is  worth  while  to  point  out 
in  what  the  dissimilarity  consists. 

A  Boss  needs  fewer  showy  gifts  than  a  European  demagogue. 
His  special  theatre  is  neither  the  halls  of  the  legislature  nor  the 
platform,  but  the  committee-room.  A  power  of  rough-and-ready 
repartee,  or  a  turn  for  florid  declamation,  will  help  him ;  but  he 
can  dispense  with  both.  What  he  needs  are  the  arts  of  intrigue 
and  that  knowledge  of  men  which  teaches  him  when  to  bully,  when 
to  cajole,  whom  to  attract  by  the  hope  of  gain,  whom  by  appeals 
to  party  loyalty.  Nor  are  so-called  social  gifts  unimportant. 
The  lower  sort  of  city  politicians  congregate  in  clubs  and  bar¬ 
rooms  ;  and  as  much  of  the  cohesive  strength  of  the  smaller 
party  organizations  arises  from  their  being  also  social  bodies,  so 
also  much  of  the  power  which  liquor  dealers  exercise  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  “  heelers  ”  and  “  workers  ”  spend  their  evenings  in 
drinking  places,  and  that  meetings  for  political  purposes  are  held 
there.  Of  the  1007  primaries  and  conventions  of  all  parties  held 
in  New  York  City  preparatory  to  the  elections  of  1884,  633  took 
place  in  liquor  saloons.1  A  Boss  ought  therefore  to  be  hail  fellow 
well  met  with  those  who  frequent  these  places,  not  fastidious  in 
his  tastes,  fond  of  a  drink  and  willing  to  stand  one,  jovial  in  man¬ 
ners,  and  ready  to  oblige  even  a  humble  friend. 

The  aim  of  a  Boss  is  not  so  much  fame  as  power,  and  power 
not  so  much  over  the  conduct  of  affairs  as  over  persons.  Patron¬ 
age  is  what  he  chiefly  seeks,  patronage  understood  in  the  largest 
sense  in  which  it  covers  the  disposal  of  lucrative  contracts  and 

1  Where  primary  laws  are  in  force,  primaries  are  no  longer  held  in  saloons. 


CHAP.  LXIII 


RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


119 


other  modes  of  enrichment  as  well  as  salaried  places.  The  de¬ 
pendants  who  surround  him  desire  wealth,  or  at  least  a  livelihood  ; 
his  business  is  to  find  this  for  them,  and  in  doing  so  he  strengthens 
his  own  position. 1  It  is  as  the  bestower  of  riches  that  he  holds  his 
position,  like  the  leader  of  a  band  of  condottieri  in  the  fifteenth 
century. 

The  interest  of  a  Boss  in  political  questions  is  usually  quite 
secondary.  Here  and  there  one  may  be  found  who  is  a  politician 
in  the  European  sense,  who,  whether  sincerely  or  not,  professes  to 
be  interested  in  some  measure  affecting  the  welfare  of  the  coun¬ 
try.  But  the  attachment  of  the  ringster  is  usually  given  wholly 
to  the  concrete  party,  that  is  to  the  men  who  compose  it,  regarded 
as  office-holders  or  office-seekers;  and  there  is  often  not  even 
a  profession  of  zeal  for  any  party  doctrine.  •  As  a  noted  politician 
once  happily  observed,  “There  are  no  politics  in  politics.”  Among 
bosses,  therefore,  there  is  little  warmth  of  party  spirit.  The 
typical  Boss  regards  the  Boss  of  the  other  party  much  as  counsel 
for  the  plaintiff  regards  counsel  for  the  defendant.  They  are  pro¬ 
fessionally  opposed,  but  not  necessarily  personally  hostile.  Between 
bosses  there  need  be  no  more  enmity  than  results  from  the  fact 
that  the  one  has  got  what  the  other  wishes  to  have.  Accordingly 
it  sometimes  happens  that  there  is  a  good  understanding  between 
the  chiefs  of  opposite  parties  in  cities ;  they  will  even  go  the  length 
of  making  a  joint  “  deal,”  i.e.  of  arranging  for  a  distribution  of 
offices  whereby  some  of  the  friends  of  one  shall  get  places,  the 
residue  being  left  for  the  friends  of  the  other.2  A  well-organ¬ 
ized  city  party  has  usually  a  disposable  vote  which  can  be  so 
cast  under  the  directions  of  the  managers  as  to  effect  this,  or 
any  other  desired  result.  The  appearance  of  hostility  must, 

1  “A  Boss  is  able  to  procure  positions  for  many  of  his  henchmen  on  horse 
railroads,  the  elevated  roads,  quarry  works,  etc.  Great  corporations  are  pecul¬ 
iarly  subject  to  the  actacks  of  demagogues,  and  they  find  it  greatly  to  their 
interest  to  be  on  good  terms  with  the  leader  in  each  district  who  controls  the 
vote  of  the  assemblyman  and  alderman ;  and  therefore  the  former  is  pretty 
sure  that  a  letter  of  recommendation  from  him  on  behalf  of  any  applicant  for 
work  will  receive  most  favourable  consideration.  The  leader  also  is  continually 
helping  his  supporters  out  of  difficulties,  pecuniary  and  otherwise :  he  lends 
them  a  dollar  now  and  then,  helps  out,  when  possible,  such  of  their  kinsmen 
as  get  into  the  clutches  of  the  law,  gets  a  hold  over  such  of  them  as  have  done 
wrong  and  are  afraid  of  being  exposed,  and  learns  to  mix  bullying  judiciously 
with  the  rendering  of  service.”  —  Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  in  the  Century 
magazine  for  Nov.,  1886. 

2  In  one  great  State  it  was  recently  well  understood  that  the  Democratic 
Boss  of  the  chief  city  and  the  Republican  Boss  of  the  State  were  in  the  habit  of 
trading  offices  with  one  another. 


120 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


of  course,  be  maintained  for  the  benefit  of  the  public ;  but  as 
it  is  for  the  interest  of  both  parties  to  make  and  keep  these  private 
bargains,  they  are  usually  kept  when  made,  though  it  is  seldom 
possible  to  prove  the  fact. 

The  real  hostility  of  the  Boss  is  not  to  the  opposite  party, 
but  to  other  factions  within  his  own  party.  Often  he  has  a  rival 
leading  some  other  organization,  and  demanding,  in  respect  of  the 
votes  which  that  organization  controls,  a  share  of  the  good  things 
going.  The  greatest  cities  can  support  more  than  one  faction 
within  the  same  party ;  thus  New  York  had  long  three  democratic 
organizations,  two  of  which  were  powerful  and  often  angrily  hostile. 
If  neither  can  crush  the  other,  it  finds  itself  obliged  to  treat,  and 
to  consent  to  lose  part  of  the  spoils  to  its  rival.  Still  more  bitter, 
however,  is  the  hatred  of  Boss  and  Ring  towards  those  members  of 
the  party  who  do  not  desire  and  are  not  to  be  appeased  by  a  share 
of  the  spoils,  but  who  agitate  for  what  they  call  reform.  They 
are  natural  and  permanent  enemies ;  nothing  but  the  extinction 
of  the  Boss  himself  and  of  bossdom  altogether  will  satisfy  them. 
They  are  moreover  the  common  enemies  of  both  parties,  that  is, 
of  bossdom  in  both  parties.  Hence  in  ring-governed  cities  pro¬ 
fessionals  of  both  parties  will  sometimes  unite  against  the  reform¬ 
ers,  or  will  rather  let  their  opponents  secure  a  place  than  win  it  for 
themselves  by  the  help  of  the  “  independent  vote.”  Devotion  to 
“  party  government,”  as  they  understand  it,  can  hardly  go  farther. 

This  great  army  of  workers  is  mobilized  for  elections,  the 
methods  of  which  form  a  wide  and  instructive  department  of 
political  science.  Here  I  refer  only  to  their  financial  side,  because 
that  is  intimately  connected  with  the  Machine.  Elections  need 
money,  in  America  a  great  deal  of  money.  Whence,  then,  does 
the  money  come,  seeing  that  the  politicians  themselves  belong  to, 
or  emerge  from,  a  needy  class  ? 

The  revenues  of  a  Ring,  that  is,  their  collective,  or,  as  one 
may  say,  corporate  revenues,  available  for  party  purposes,  flow 
from  five  sources. 

I.  The  first  is  public  subscriptions.  For  important  elections 
such  as  the  biennial  elections  of  State  officers,  or  perhaps  for 
that  of  the  State  legislature,  a  “  campaign  fund,”  as  it  is  called, 
is  raised  by  an  appeal  to  wealthy  members  of  the  party.  So 
strong  is  party  feeling  that  many  respond,  even  though  they 
suspect  the  men  who  compose  the  Ring,  disapprove  its  methods, 
and  have  no  great  liking  for  the  candidates. 


CHAP.  LXII1 


RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


121 


II.  Contributions  are  sometimes  privately  obtained  from 
rich  men  and  especially  from  corporations  (though  statutes  are 
now  attempting  to  prevent  this)  who,  though  not  directly  connected 
with  the  Ring,  may  expect  something  from  its  action.  Contrac¬ 
tors,  for  instance,  have  an  interest  in  getting  pieces  of  work  from 
the  city  authorities.  Railroad  men  have  an  interest  in  preventing 
State  legislation  hostile  to  their  lines.  Both,  therefore,  may  be 
willing  to  help  those  who  can  so  effectively  help  them.  This 
source  of  income  is  only  available  for  important  elections.  Its 
incidental  mischief  in  enabling  wealth  to  control  a  legislature 
through  a  Ring  is  serious. 

III.  An  exceptionally  audacious  Ring  has  been  known  to 
make  a  surreptitious  appropriation  from  the  city  or  (more  rarely) 
from  the  State  treasury  for  the  purposes  not  of  the  city  or  the 
State,  but  of  its  own  election  funds.  It  would  not  be  thought 
prudent  to  bring  such  an  appropriation  into  the  accounts  to  be 
laid  before  the  public  ;  in  fact,  pains  are  taken  to  prevent  the 
item  from  appearing,  and  the  accounts  have  to  be  manipulated 
for  that  purpose.  The  justification,  if  any,  of  conduct  not  au¬ 
thorized  by  the  law,  must  be  sought  in  precedent,  in  the  belief 
that  the  other  side  would  do  the  same,  and  in  the  benefits 
which  the  Ring  expects  to  confer  upon  the  city  it  administers. 
It  is  a  method  of  course  available  only  when  Ring  officials  con¬ 
trol  the  public  funds,  and  cannot  be  resorted  to  by  an  opposition. 

IV.  A  tax  used  to  be  levied  upon  the  office-holders  of  the 
party,  varying  from  one  to  four  or  even  five  per  cent  upon  the 
amount  of  their  annual  salaries.  The  aggregate  annual  salaries 
of  the  city  officials  in  New  York  City  amounted  in  1888  to 
$11,000,000,  and  those  of  the  two  thousand  five  hundred  Federal 
officials,  who,  if  of  the  same  party,  might  also  be  required  to 
contribute,1  to  $2,500,000.  An  assessment  at  two  per  cent  on 
these  amounts  would  produce  over  $220,000  and  $50,000  respec¬ 
tively,  quite  a  respectable  sum  for  election  expenses  in  a  single 
city.2  Even  policemen  in  cities,  even  office  boys  and  workmen 


1  Federal  officials  would,  as  a  rule,  contribute  only  to  the  fund  for  Federal 
elections;  but  when  the  contest  covered  both  Federal  and  city  offices,  the  funds 
would  be  apt  to  be  blended. 

The  totals  of  salaries  of  officials  now  are  of  course  far  larger,  but  as  it  is  im¬ 
possible  to  ascertain  to-day  on  how  much  of  them  an  assessment  is  paid,  the 
figures  in  the  text  have  been  allowed  to  stand. 

2  To  make  the  calculation  complete,  we  should  have  to  reckon  in  also  the 
(comparatively  few)  State  officials  and  assessments  payable  by  them. 


122 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


in  Federal  dockyards,  have  been  assessed  by  their  party.  As  a 
tenant  had  in  the  days  of  feudalism  to  make  occasional  money 
payments  to  his  lord  in  addition  to  the  military  service  he 
rendered,  so  now  the  American  vassal  must  render  his  aids  in 
money  as  w'ell  as  give  knightly  service  at  the  primaries,  in  the 
canvass,  at  the  polls.  His  liabilities  are  indeed  heavier  than 
those  of  the  feudal  tenant,  for  the  latter  could  relieve  himself 
from  duty  in  the  field  by  the  payment  of  scutage,  while  under 
the  Machine  a  money  payment  never  discharges  from  the  obli¬ 
gation  to  serve  in  the  army  of  “  workers/’  Forfeiture  and  the 
being  proclaimed  as  “ni  thing,”  are,  as  in  the  days  of  the  Anglo- 
Norman  kings,  the  penalty  for  failure  to  discharge  the  duties 
by  which  the  vassal  holds.  Efforts  which  began  with  an  order 
issued  by  President  Hayes  in  1877  applying  to  Federal  offices 
have  been  made  to  prevent  by  administrative  action  and  by 
legislation  the  levying  of  this  tribute  on  Federal  officials,  but 
it  is  believed  that  the  evil  has  not  yet  been  extirpated.  Indeed, 
some  officials  do  not  wait  to  be  “  assessed,”  but  think  they  “  earn 
merit  ”  (as  the  Buddhists  say)  by  sending  in  their  contributions 
ultroneously  before  any  suggestion  reaches  them. 

V.  Another  useful  expedient  might  seem  to  have  been  bor¬ 
rowed  from  European  monarchies  in  the  sale  of  nominations  and 
occasionally  of  offices  themselves.1  A  person  who  seeks  to  be 
nominated  as  candidate  for  one  of  the  more  important  offices, 
such  as  a  judgeship  or  a  seat  in  the  State  Senate,  or  in  Con¬ 
gress,  is  often  required  to  contribute  to  the  election  fund  a  sum 
proportioned  to  the  importance  of  the  place  he  seeks,  the  excuse 
given  for  the  practice  being  the  cost  of  elections  ;  and  the  same 
principle  is  occasionally  applied  to  the  gift  of  non-elective 
offices,  the  right  of  appointing  to  which  is  vested  in  some  official 
member  of  a  Ring  —  e.g.  a  mayor.  The  price  of  a  nomina¬ 
tion  for  a  seat  in  the  State  legislature  is  said  to  run  from  $500 
up  to  $1000,  and  for  one  of  the  better  judgeships  higher  than 
$5000;  but  this  is  largely  matter  of  conjecture.2  Of  course 

1  As  judicial  places  were  sold  under  the  old  French  monarchy,  and  commis¬ 
sions  in  the  army  in  England  till  1872. 

2  “A  judgeship,”  said  (writing  in  1883)  Mr.  F.  W.  Whitridge,  ‘‘costs  in  New 
York  about  815,000  ;  the  district  attorneyship  the  same ;  for  a  nomination  to 
Congress  the  price  is  about  $4000,  though  this  is  variable ;  an  aldermanic  nomi¬ 
nation  is  worth  $1500,  and  that  for  the  Assembly  from  $600  to  $1500.  The 
amount  realized  from  these  assessments  cannot  be  exactly  estimated,  but  the 
amount  raised  by  Tammany  Hall,  which  is  the  most  complete  political  organi¬ 
zation,  may  be  fixed  very  nearly  at  $125,000  (£25,000).  This  amount  is  col- 


CHAP.  LXIII 


RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


123 


much  less  will  be  given  if  the  prospects  of  carrying  the  elec¬ 
tion  are  doubtful :  the  prices  quoted  must  be  taken  to  repre¬ 
sent  cases  where  the  large  party  majority  makes  success  certain. 
Naturally,  the  salaries  of  officials  have  to  be  raised  in  order  to 
enable  them  to  bear  this  charge,  so  that  in  the  long  run  it  may 
be  thrown  upon  the  public ;  and  an  eminent  Boss  of  New  York 
City  defended,  before  a  committee  of  the  legislature,  the  large 
salaries  paid  to  aldermen,  on  the  ground  that  “heavy  demands 
were  made  on  them  by  their  party.”  1 

lected  and  expended  by  a  small  executive  committee  who  keep  no  accounts  and 
are  responsible  only  to  each  other.”  —  Article  “Assessments,”  in  Amer.  Cyclop, 
of  Political  Science.  In  1887,  the  City  Chamberlain  of  New  York  estimated 
the  average  minimum  assessment  levied  on  a  candidate  for  mayor  at  $20,000, 
for  comptroller  at  $10,000,  for  district  attorney  at  $5000.  However,  in  1887 
the  Democratic  Rings  in  New  York  City  demanded  $25,000  for  the  nomination 
to  the  Comptrollership,  and  $5000  for  that  to  a  State  Senatorship.  The  salary 
of  the  Comptroller  is  $10,000  for  three  years,  that  of  Senator  $1500  for  two 
years,  i.e.  the  senatorial  candidate  was  expected  to  pay  $2000  more  than  his 
total  salary,  a  fact  suggestive  of  expectations  of  gain  from  some  other  source. 

1  “Before  a  committee  of  the  New  York  legislature  the  county  clerk  testi¬ 
fied  that  his  income  was  nearly  $80,000  a  year,  but  with  refreshing  frankness 
admitted  that  his  own  position  was  practically  that  of  a  figure-head,  and  that 
all  the  work  was  done  by  his  deputy  on  a  small  fixed  salary.  As  the  county 
clerk’s  term  is  three  years,  he  should  nominally  receive  $240,000,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  two-thirds  of  the  money  probably  goes  to  the  political  organi¬ 
zations  with  which  he  is  connected.”  —  Mr.  T.  Roosevelt  in  Century  magazine 
for  Nov.,  1886.  A  county  officer  answered  the  same  committee,  when  they  put 
what  was  meant  to  be  a  formal  question  as  to  whether  he  performed  his  public 
duties  faithfully,  that  he  did  so  perform  them  whenever  they  did  not  conflict 
with  his  political  duties  !  meaning  thereby,  as  he  explained,  attending  to  his 
local  organizations,  seeing  politicians,  “fixing”  primaries,  bailing  out  those  of 
his  friends  who  were  summoned  to  appear  before  a  justice  of  peace,  etc. 


CHAPTER  LXIV 


LOCAL  EXTENSION  OF  RINGS  AND  BOSSES 

To  determine  the  extent  to  which  the  Ring  and  Boss  system 
sketched  in  the  preceding  chapters  prevails  over  the  United 
States  would  be  difficult  even  for  an  American,  because  it 
would  require  a  minute  knowledge  of  the  local  affairs  of  all 
the  States  and  cities.  Much  more,  then,  is  it  difficult  for  a 
European.  I  can  do  no  more  than  indicate  generally  the 
results  of  the  inquiries  I  have  made,  commending  the  details 
of  the  question  to  some  future  investigator. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  rings  and  bosses  are  the  product 
not  of  democracy,  but  of  a  particular  form  of  democratic  gov¬ 
ernment,  acting  under  certain  peculiar  conditions.  They  be¬ 
long  to  democratic  government,  as  the  old  logicians  would  say, 
not  simpliciter  but  secundum  quid:  they  are  not  of  its  essence, 
but  are  merely  separable  accidents.  We  have  seen  that  these 
conditions  are  — 

The  existence  of  a  Spoils  System  (=  paid  offices  given  and 
taken  away  for  party  reasons). 

Opportunities  for  illicit  gains  arising  out  of  the  possession 
of  office. 

The  presence  of  a  mass  of  ignorant  and  pliable  voters. 

The  insufficient  participation  in  politics  of  the  “good  citizens. ” 

If  these  be  the  true  causes  or  conditions  producing  the  phe¬ 
nomenon,  we  may  expect  to  find  it  most  fully  developed  in  the 
places  where  the  conditions  exist  in  fullest  measure,  less  so 
where  they  are  more  limited,  absent  where  they  do  not  exist. 

A  short  examination  of  the  facts  will  show  that  such  is  the 
case. 

It  may  be  thought  that  the  Spoils  System  is  a  constant,  ex¬ 
isting  everywhere,  and  therefore  not  admitting  of  the  applica¬ 
tion  of  this  method  of  concomitant  variations.  That  system 

124 


chap,  lxiv  EXTENSION  OF  RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


125 


does  no  doubt  prevail  over  every  State  of  the  Union,  but  it 
is  not  everywhere  an  equally  potent  factor,  for  in  some  cities 
the  offices  are  much  better  paid  than  in  others,  and  the  reve¬ 
nues  which  their  occupants  control  are  larger.  In  some  small 
communities  the  offices,  or  most  of  them,  are  not  paid  at  all. 
Hence  this  factor  varies  scarcely  less  than  the  others. 

We  may  therefore  say  with  truth  that  all  of  the  four  condi¬ 
tions  above  named  are  most  fully  present  in  great  cities.  Some 
of  the  offices  are  highly  paid ;  many  give  facilities  for  lucrative 
jobbing;  and  the  unpaid  officers  are  sometimes  the  most  apt 
to  abuse  these  facilities.  The  voters  are  so  numerous  that  a 
strong  and  active  organization  is  needed  to  drill  them ;  the 
majority  so  ignorant  as  to  be  easily  led.  The  best  citizens  are 
engrossed  in  business  and  cannot  give  to  political  work  the 
continuous  attention  it  demands.  Such  are  the  phenomena  of 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Chicago,  Pittsburg,  Minneapolis,  St. 
Paul,  St.  Louis,  Cincinnati,  San  Francisco,  and  New  Orleans. 
In  these  cities  Ring-and-Bossdom  has  attained  its  amplest 
growth,  overshadowing  the  whole  field  of  politics. 

Of  the  first  two  of  these  I  need  not  speak  in  detail  here, 
proposing  to  refer  to  their  phenomena  in  later  chapters,  but 
Chicago,  often  shockingly  misgoverned,  has  latterly  improved 
and  seems  likely  to  improve  further  under  the  vigilant  action 
of  a  group  of  public-spirited  citizens.  As  regards  certain  other 
cities,  I  subjoin  some  remarks  with  which  I  was  favoured  in  1887 
by  leading  citizens  resident  therein,  in  reply  to  interrogatories 
which  I  addressed  to  them  ;  and  have  in  each  case  added  a  few 
words  to  bring  the  story  down  through  more  recent  years. 
Knowing  how  apt  a  stranger  is  to  imagine  a  greater  uniformity 
than  exists,  I  desire  to  enable  the  reader  to  understand  to  what 
extent  the  description  I  have  given  is  generally  true,  and  with 
what  local  diversities  its  general  truth  is  compatible.  And  as 
the  remarks  quoted  illustrate  the  phenomena  of  city  misgovern- 
ment  in  general,  they  have  the  interest  which  belongs  to  original 
and  contemporaneous  historical  authorities. 

Cincinnati  (Ohio),  population  in  1890,  296,908,  in  1910, 
364,463. 

“  Our  Ring  is  in  a  less  formal  shape  than  is  sometimes  seen,  but  dis¬ 
honest  men  of  both  parties  do  in  fact  combine  for  common  profits  at  the 
public  expense.  As  regards  a  Boss,  there  is  at  this  moment  an  inter¬ 
regnum,  but  some  ambitious  men  are  observed  to  be  making  progress 


126 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


towards  that  dignity.  Rings  are  both  the  effect  and  the  cause  of  pecu¬ 
lation.  They  are  the  result  of  the  general  law  of  combination  to  further 
the  interest  of  the  combiners. 

“Where  a  Ring  exists  it  can  always  exclude  from  office  a  good  citizen 
known  to  be  hostile  to  it.  But  a  good  easy  man  who  will  not  fight  and 
will  make  a  reputable  figure-head  may  be  an  excellent  investment. 

“  The  large  cities  are  the  great  sufferers  from  the  Spoils  System,  be¬ 
cause  in  them  power  gives  the  greatest  opportunity  for  profit  and  pecula¬ 
tion.  In  them  also  it  is  easy  to  make  a  more  or  less  open  combination 
of  keepers  of  tippling  shops  and  the  ‘bummers,’  etc.,  who  congregate  in 
them.  Here,  too,  is  the  natural  home  of  the  class  of  vagabonds  who  will 
profess  devotion  to  the  party  or  the  man  who  will  pay  them,  and  who 
combine  to  levy  blackmail  upon  every  candidate,  and  in  turn  are  ready 
to  stuff  ballot-boxes,  to  buy  votes,  to  ‘repeat,’  etc.  These  scoundrels 
‘live  by  politics’  in  their  way,  and  force  their  services  upon  more  promi¬ 
nent  men,  till  there  comes  to  be  a  sort  of  ‘solidarity’  in  which  men  of 
national  reputation  find  themselves  morally  compromised  by  being 
obliged  to  recognize  this  sort  of  fraternity,  and  directly  or  indirectly  to 
make  themselves  responsible  for  the  methods  of  these  ‘henchmen’  and 
followers.  They  dare  not  break  with  this  class  because  its  enmity  would 
defeat  their  ambitions,  and  the  more  unscrupulous  of  them  make  fullest 
use  of  the  co-operation,  only  rendering  a  little  homage  to  decency  by 
seeldng  to  do  it  through  intermediates,  so  as  not  too  disgustingly  to  dirty 
their  own  hands. 

“  In  such  a  condition  of  things  the  cities  become  the  prey  of  the 
‘criminal  class’  in  politics,  in  order  to  ensure  the  discipline  and  organ¬ 
ization  in  State  and  national  politics  which  are  necessary  to  the  distin¬ 
guished  leaders  for  success.  As  a  result,  it  goes  almost  without  saying  that 
every  considerable  city  has  its  rings  and  its  actual  or  would-be  bosses. 
There  are  occasional  ‘  revolutions  of  the  palace  ’  in  which  bosses  are 
deposed,  or  ‘  choked  off,’  because  they  are  growing  too  fat  on  the  spoils, 
and  there  is  no  such  permanence  of  tenure  as  to  enable  the  uninitiated 
always  to  tell  what  boss  or  what  ring  is  in  power.  They  do  not  publish 
an  Almanack  de  Gotha ,  but  we  feel  and  know  that  the  process  of  plunder 
continues.  A  man  of  genius  in  this  way,  like  a  Tweed  or  a  Kelly,  comes 
occasionally  to  the  front,  but  even  in  the  absence  of  a  ruler  of  this  sort 
the  ward  politicians  can  always  tell  where  the  decisive  influences  reside. 

“The  size  of  the  city  in  which  the  system  reaches  full  bloom  depends 
upon  its  business  and  general  character.  Small  towns  with  a  proportion¬ 
ately  large  manufacturing  population  are  better  fields  for  rings  than  more 
homogeneous  communities  built  up  as  centres  of  mercantile  trade.  The 
tendency  however  is  to  organize  an  official  body  of  ‘workers’  in  even 
the  smallest  community ;  and  the  selfishness  of  man  naturally  leads  to 
the  doctrine  that  those  who  do  the  work  shall  live  by  it.  Thus,  from  the 
profits  of  ‘  rotation  in  office  ’  and  the  exercise  of  intrigue  and  trick  to  get 
the  place  of  the  present  incumbent,  there  is  the  facilis  descensus  to  re¬ 
garding  the  profits  of  peculation  and  the  plunder  of  the  public  as  a  legiti¬ 
mate  corrective  for  the  too  slow  accumulation  from  legal  pay.  Certain 
salaries  and  fees  in  local  offices  are  notoriously  kept  high,  so  that  the 
incumbent  may  freely  ‘bleed’  for  party  use,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 


chap,  lxiv  EXTENSION  OF  RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


127 


for  the  use  of  party  ‘bummers.’  Thus  we  have  had  clerks  of  courts  and 
sheriffs  getting  many  times  as  much  pay  as  the  judges  on  the  bench,  etc. 
From  this,  jobbing  in  contracts,  bribery,  and  unblushing  stealing  are 
reached  by  such  easy  steps  that  perhaps  the  local  politician  is  hardly  con¬ 
scious  of  the  progress  in  his  moral  education.” 

It  would  not  be  fitting  to  insert  here  equally  free  comments 
on  the  conditions  of  to-day.  But  in  1910  Cincinnati  was  de¬ 
scribed  by  competent  observers  as  suffering  from  the  old  evils, 
and  it  is  no  secret  that  she  has  been  long  ruled  by  a  boss  of 
eminent  capacity. 

St.  Louis  (Missouri),  population  in  1890,  451,770 ;  in  1910, 
687,029. 

“  There  are  always  Rings  in  both  parties  more  or  less  active  according 
to  circumstances. 

“  Two  or  perhaps  three  men  are  the  recognized  Bosses  of  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  party  (which  is  in  the  majority),  one  man  of  the  Republican. 

“  The  Rings  are  the  cause  of  both  peculation  and  jobbery,  although 
St.  Louis  has  had  no  ‘big  steal.’ 

“  A  good  citizen  seeking  office  would  be  excluded  by  the  action  of  the 
Rings  in  our  large  cities,  except  in  times  of  excitement,  when  good  people 
are  aroused  to  a  proper  sense  of  duty.”  1 

In  1909  I  was  informed  that  St.  Louis  had  no  recognized 
Boss,  and  had  enjoyed  for  some  years  an  exceptionally  good 
Mayor.  There  was,  however,  a  good  deal  of  Ring  power,  act¬ 
ing  on  or  through  the  city  Councils. 

Louisville  (Kentucky),  population  in  1890,  161,129;  in  1910, 
233,928. 

“  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  there  is  a  regular  Ring  in  Louisville. 
There  are  corrupt  combinations,  but  they  are  continually  shifting.  The 
higher  places  in  these  combinations  are  occupied  by  Democrats,  these 
being  the  ruling  party,  but  they  always  contain  some  Republicans. 

“  The  only  Boss  there  is  in  Louisville  to-day  is  the  Louisville  Gas 
Company.  It  works  mainly  through  the  Democratic  party,  as  it  is  easier 
to  bribe  the  ‘  Republican  ’  negroes  into  the  support  of  Democratic  candi¬ 
dates  than  white  Democrats  to  support  Republicans. 

“  There  is  very  little  peculation  in  Kentucky  now  —  no  great  disclosure 
for  over  five  years  ;  but  there  is  a  great  deal  of  jobbery. 

“  The  effect  of  the  combinations  is  of  course  towards  excluding  good 
and  capable  men  from  office  and  to  make  room  for  mere  favourites  and 
local  politicians.”  2 

1  My  correspondent  wrote  in  1892  that  the  above  remarks  were  still  equally 
applicable.  Both  parties  remained  under  a  despotic  Ring  rule. 

2  The  condition  of  Louisville  was  described  in  substantially  the  same  in  1893. 


128 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


In  1909  Louisville  was  stated  to  be  suffering  from  rings,  but 
in  a  comparatively  mild  form.  A  civic  uprising  in  1906  had 
given  her  for  three  years  an  upright  and  capable  Mayor. 
Minneapolis  (Minnesota),  population  in  1890,  164,738  — 

“There  has  been  for  several  years  past  a  very  disreputable  Ring, 
which  has  come  into  power  by  capturing  the  machinery  of  the  Democratic 
party,  through  (1)  diligent  work  in  the  ward  caucuses  ;  (2)  by  its  active 
alliance  with  the  liquor  dealers,  gamblers,  and  so  forth,  and  the  support 
of  ‘lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort,’  regardless  of  national  political  prefer¬ 
ences ;  (3)  by  a  skilful  and  plausible  championship  of  ‘labor’  and  a 
capture  of  the  labor  vote. 

“The  Boss  of  this  gang  is  thoroughly  disliked  and  distrusted  by  the 
responsible  and  reputable  element  of  his  party  in  Minnesota,  but  they 
tolerate  him  on  account  of  his  popularity  and  because  they  cannot  break 
him  down.  He  has  operated  chiefly  through  control  of  the  police 
system.  Instead  of  suppressing  gambling  houses,  for  example,  he  has 
allowed  several  of  them  to  run  under  police  protection,  himself  sharing 
in  their  large  gains.  Until  recently  the  liquor  saloon  licenses  have  been 
$500  (£100)  a  year.  He  and  the  heads  of  the  police  department  have 
allowed  a  number  of  places  to  retail  liquor  somewhat  secretly  outside 
the  police  patrol  limits,  within  which  we  restrict  the  liquor  traffic  and 
from  these  illicit  publicans  the  Ring  has  collected  large  sums  of  money. 

“The  Ring  has  seemed  to  control  the  majority  in  the  Common  Coun¬ 
cil,  but  the  system  of  direct  taxation  and  of  checking  expenditure  is  so 
open,  and  the  scrutiny  of  the  press  and  public  so  constant,  that  there  has 
been  little  opportunity  for  actual  plunder.  In  the  awarding  of  contracts 
there  is  sometimes  a  savour  of  jobbery,  and  several  of  the  councilmen 
are  not  above  taking  bribes.  But  they  have  been  able  to  do  compara¬ 
tively  little  mischief  ;  in  fact,  nothing  outrageous  has  occurred  outside  of 
the  police  department.  The  Ring  has  lately  obtained  control  of  the 
(elective)  Park  Board,  and  some  disreputable  jobs  have  resulted.  So 
there  have  been  malpractices  in  the  department  of  health  and  hospitals, 
in  the  management  of  the  water  system  and  in  the  giving  away  of  a 
street  railway  franchise.  But  we  are  not  a  badly-plundered  city  by  any 
means ;  and  we  have  just  succeeded  in  taking  the  control  of  the  police 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  Ring  officials  and  vested  it  in  a  Metropolitan 
Police  Board,  with  excellent  results.  Two  of  the  Ring  are  now  under 
indictment  of  the  county  grand  jury  for  malpractices  in  office.” 

In  1910,  population  301,408,  things  had  improved  in  Minne¬ 
apolis.  A  trustworthy  correspondent  wrote  in  1909  :  — 

“  Old  party  lines,  while  not  exactly  obliterated,  have  become  indis¬ 
tinct  in  all  elections,  whether  municipal,  state,  or  national.  In  fact  the 
hold  of  the  party  over  its  members  has  become  a  very  uncertain  thing 
and  consequently  the  control  of  the  party  machinery  no  longer  suffices 
to  bring  victory  at  the  polls.  No  one  boss  or  political  ring  can  frame 
a  set  of  candidates  and  force  it  on  a  party  since  the  voters  have  now 
a  direct  vote  upon  all  candidates  for  office,  except  those  elected  for  the 


chap,  lxiv  EXTENSION  OF  RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


129 


State,  at  which,  under  the  primary  law,  it  is  a  common  practice  for 
voters  belonging  to  the  minority  party  to  participate  in  the  nomina¬ 
tion  of  the  candidates  in  the  majority  party.  The  practice  is  contrary 
to  law,  and  to  indulge  in  it  the  voter  must  forego  the  right  of  taking 
part  in  the  nomination  of  candidates  of  his  own  party.  The  Voters’ 
League,  which  attempts  to  prevent  the  election  of  incompetent  men  to 
the  City  Councils  and  to  the  Board  of  County  Commissioners  by  pub¬ 
lishing  the  records  of  all  candidates  for  office  and  by  making  recom¬ 
mendations  to  voters  irrespective  of  party  conditions,  has  also  been  a 
force  in  local  politics. 

“Minneapolis  has  no  real  political  boss.  There  have  been  political 
rings,  and  these  still  exist,  but  in  a  modified  form.  The  real  power  in 
politics  in  the  city  is  believed  to  be  in  the  hands  of  some  prominent 
corporations.” 

St.  Paul,  population  in  1890,  133,156,  in  1910,  214,744  — 

“There  is  no  regular  Ring  in  St.  Paul.  It  has  for  many  years  been  in 
the  hands  of  a  clique  of  municipal  Democratic  politicians,  who  are  fairly 
good  citizens,  and  have  committed  no  very  outrageous  depredations. 
The  city  is  run  upon  a  narrow  partisan  plan,  but  in  its  main  policies  and 
expenditures  the  views  of  leading  citizens  as  formulated  in  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  almost  invariably  prevail. 

“The  Rings  of  Western  cities  (adds  my  informant)  are  not  deliber¬ 
ately  organized  for  plunder  or  jobbery.  They  grow  out  of  our  party 
politics.  Certain  of  the  worst  elements  of  a  party  find  that  their  superior 
diligence  and  skill  in  the  manipulation  of  precinct  and  ward  caucuses  put 
them  in  control  of  the  local  machinery  of  their  party  organization.  The 
success  of  their  party  gives  them  control  of  municipal  affairs.  They  are 
generally  men  who  are  not  engaged  in  successful  trade  or  professional 
life,  and  make  city  politics  their  business.  They  soon  find  it  profitable 
to  engage  in  various  small  schemes  and  jobs  for  profit,  but  do  not  usually 
perpetrate  anything  very  bold  or  bad.” 

I  have  taken  the  two  cities  of  Minneapolis  and  St.  Paul 
because  they  illustrate  the  differences  which  one  often  finds 
between  places  whose  population  and  other  conditions  seem 
very  similar.  The  centres  of  these  two  cities  are  only  ten 
miles  apart ;  their  suburbs  have  begun  to  touch ;  they  will 
soon  be,  in  a  material  sense,  one  city.  Minneapolis  is  younger, 
and  has  grown  far  more  rapidly,  and  the  manufacturing  ele¬ 
ment  in  its  population  is  larger.  But  in  most  respects  it 
resembles  its  elder  sister  —  they  are  extremely  jealous  of 
one  another  —  so  closely  that  an  Old  World  observer  who  has 
not  realized  the  swiftness  with  which  phenomena  come  and  go 
in  the  West  is  surprised  to  find  the  political  maladies  of  the 
one  so  much  graver  than  those  of  the  other. 


K 


130 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


It  has  been  seen  how  things  stood  in  1887.  In  1893  they 
had  changed  for  the  better  in  both  cities.  The  Boss  of  Minne¬ 
apolis  had  vanished,  and  the  party  opposed  to  that  he  had 
adorned  was  in  power.  The  municipal  administration,  if  not 
free  from  reproach,  was  comparatively  free  from  scandals. 
St.  Paul  showed  a  marked  improvement.  A  mayor  had  been 
elected  on  a  “ reform  ticket,”  and  the  municipal  clique  formerly 
dominant  had  been  broken  up.  But  no  one  could  feel  sure 
that  these  gains  would  be  preserved. 

In  1909  Minneapolis  having  (as  above  reported)  done  much 
to  reform  her  ways,  it  was  stated  that  the  situation  in  St.  Paul 
had  changed  much  less.  The  former  political  clique  still  held 
power.  A  Boss  had  for  some  time  been  reigning,  but  the  police 
administration  was  described  as  efficient.  Such  are  the  vicis¬ 
situdes  of  cities. 

The  great  city  of  San  Francisco,  capital  of  the  “  Pacific  slope,” 
with  a  population  in  1900  of  342,000  people,  was  for  years  ruled 
by  a  formidable  boss  who,  through  an  energetic  lieutenant, 
commanded  the  Fire  Department  of  the  city,  and  used  its  350 
paid  employes  as  a  sort  of  praetorian  guard.  He  controlled  the 
city  elections,  dominated  the  officials,  was  a  power  in  State 
politics,  tampered  with  the  administration  of  the  criminal  law. 
At  last  steps  were  taken  to  have  him  and  his  grand  vizir  indicted 
for  peculation,  whereupon  they  both  fled  to  Canada,  and  the 
city  escaped  the  yoke.  But  the  conditions  which  produced 
bossdom  remaining,  it  fell  before  long  under  a  still  worse  yoke. 
In  1907  there  was  a  local  revolution,  due  to  the  discovery  of 
corruption  on  the  part  of  prominent  officials  for  which  two 
were  imprisoned,  but  the  phenomena  of  that  uprising  and  the 
events  that  have  followed,  interesting  and  instructive  as  they 
are,  cannot  yet  be  with  propriety  described  in  these  pages. 

Pittsburg,  population  (in  1910)  533,905,  has  had  a  chequered 
history.  No  city  has  been  more  swayed  by  Bosses  of  ability 
and  audacity.  Lately  a  strong  and  able  mayor  gave  it  a  good 
administration,  the  results  of  which  have  tended  to  raise  the 
standard  which  the  people  expect ;  but  whether  that  standard 
will  be  maintained  seems  still  doubtful.  In  1910  several  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  city  government  were  convicted  of  corruption. 

In  cities  of  the  second  rank  (say  from  ten  thousand  to  one 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants)  some  of  the  same  mischiefs 
exist,  but  on  a  smaller  scale.  The  opportunities  for  jobbing 


chap,  lxiv  EXTENSION  OF  RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


131 


are  limited.  The  offices  are  moderately  paid.  The  popula¬ 
tion  of  new  immigrants,  politically  incompetent,  and  therefore 
easily  pervertible,  bears  a  smaller  ratio  to  the  native  Ameri¬ 
cans.  The  men  prominent  by  their  wealth  or  capacity  are 
more  likely  to  be  known  to  the  mass  of  the  voters,  and  may 
have  more  leisure  to  join  in  local  politics.  Hence,  although  we 
find  rings  in  many  of  these  cities,  they  are  less  powerful,  less 
audacious,  less  corrupt.  There  are,  of  course,  differences  between 
one  city  and  another,  differences  sometimes  explicable  by  the  his¬ 
tory  and  the  character  of  its  population.  A  very  high  authority 
wrote  me  in  1887  from  Michigan,  a  State  above  the  average  — 

“  I  have  heard  no  charge  of  the  reign  of  Bosses  or  Rings  for  the  ‘pur¬ 
poses  of  peculation  ’  in  any  of  the  cities  or  towns  of  Michigan  or  Indiana, 
or  indeed  in  more  than  a  few  of  our  cities  generally,  and  those  for  the 
most  part  are  the  large  cities.  In  certain  cases  rings  or  bosses  have  man¬ 
aged  political  campaigns  for  partisan  purposes,  and  sometimes  to  such  an 
extent,  say  in  Detroit,  that  good  citizens  have  been  excluded  from  office 
or  have  declined  to  run.  But  robbery  was  not  the  aim  of  the  rings.  In 
not  a  few  of  our  cities  the  liquor-saloon  keepers  have  combined  to  ‘run 
politics’  so  as  to  gain  control  and  secure  a  municipal  management 
friendly  to  them.  That  is  in  part  the  explanation  of  the  great  uprising 
of  the  Prohibition  party.” 

Detroit  (population  in  1910,  465,766)  was  described  in  1909 
as  improving  steadily,  owing  to  an  aroused  public  sentiment 
for  good  government  which  is  forcing  higher  standards  on  the 
professional  politicians. 

Denver,  now  a  city  of  213,400,  has  obtained  an  unenviable 
notoriety  for  the  prevalence  of  corrupt  influences  in  its  politics, 
but  the  administration  of  its  affairs  seems  to  be  efficient. 

The  cities  of  New  York  State  seem  to  suffer  more  than  those 
of  New  England  or  the  West.  Albany  (a  place  of  100,000 
people)  long  groaned  under  its  Rings,  but  as  the  seat  of  the 
New  York  legislature  it  has  been  a  focus  of  intrigue.  Buffalo 
(with  400,000)  has  a  large  population  of  foreign  origin  and  obeys 
a  boss.  Rochester  and  Troy  are  ruled  by  local  cliques ;  the 
latter  was  at  one  time  full  of  fellows  who  went  to  serve  as 
“ repeaters’’  at  Albany  elections.  Syracuse  is  smaller  and  said 
to  be  more  pure  than  Rochester,  but  has  sometimes  shown 
some  serious  symptoms  of  the  same  disease.  Cleveland  is  a 
larger  place  than  any  of  these,  but  having,  like  the  rest  of 
Northern  Ohio,  a  better  quality  of  population,  its  rings  have 
never  carried  things  with  a  high  hand,  nor  stolen  public  money, 


132 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


and  it  is  fortunate  in  having  a  strong  non-political  commercial 
organization  of  good  citizens  who  keep  an  eye  on  the  city  gov¬ 
ernment.  The  same  may  be  said  of  such  New  England  cities 
as  Providence,  Augusta,  Hartford,  Worcester,  Lowell,  though 
neither  Boston  nor  New  Haven  have  been  free  from  rings. 
The  system  more  or  less  exists  in  all  these,  but  the  bosses  have 
not  ventured  to  exclude  respectable  outsiders  from  office,  nor 
have  they  robbed  the  city,  debauched  the  legislature,  retained 
their  power  by  election  frauds  after  the  manner  of  their  great 
models  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  And  this  seems  to 
hold  true  also  of  the  Western  and  Southern  cities  of  moderate 
size.  A  seaside  suburb  of  one  great  Eastern  city  once  pro¬ 
duced  a  singularly  audacious  Boss,  who  combined  that  position 
with  those  of  head  of  the  police  and  superintendent  of  the 
principal  Sunday-school.  He  had  tampered  freely  with  the 
election  returns,  giving  his  support  sometimes  to  one  party 
sometimes  to  another,  and  had  apparently  been  able  to  “turn 
over’ 7  the  vote  of  the  place  at  his  pleasure.  A  rising  of  the 
“  good  citizens  ”  at  last  succeeded  in  procuring  his  conviction 
and  imprisonment  for  election  offences. 

As  regards  Ohio  a  judicious  authority  said  — 

“  Rings  are  much  less  likely  to  exist  in  the  smaller  cities,  though  a 
population  of  30,000  or  40,000  may  occasionally  support  them.  We 
should  hardly  find  them  in  a  city  below  10,000 :  any  corruption  there 
would  be  occasional,  not  systematic.” 

From  Missouri  I  was  informed  that  — 

“We  have  few  or  no  rings  in  cities  under  60,000  inhabitants.  The 
smaller  cities  are  not  favourable  to  such  kinds  of  control.  Men  know 
one  another  too  well.  There  is  no  large  floating  irresponsible  following 
as  in  large  cities.” 

A  similar  answer  from  Kentucky  adds  that  rings  have  never¬ 
theless  been  heard  of  in  cities  so  small  as  Lexington  when  it 
had  22,000  inhabitants  and  Frankfort  with  less  than  half  that 
population.  In  these  three  States  the  facts  seem  to  be  still 
much  as  formerly  stated. 

In  quite  small  towns  and  in  the  rural  districts  —  in  fact, 
wherever  there  is  not  a  municipality,  but  government  is  either 
by  a  town  meeting  and  selectmen  or  by  township  or  county 
officials  —  the  dangerous  conditions  are  reduced  to  their  mini¬ 
mum.  The  new  immigrants  are  not  generally  planted  in  large 


chap,  lxi v  EXTENSION  OF  RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


133 


masses  but  scattered  among  the  native  population,  whose  habits 
and  modes  of  thinking  they  soon  acquire.  The  Germans  and 
Scandinavians  who  settle  in  the  country  districts  have  been 
among  the  best  of  their  race,  and  form  a  valuable  element. 
The  country  voter,  whether  native  or  foreign,  is  exposed  to 
fewer  temptations  than  his  brother  of  the  city,  and  is  less  easy 
either  to  lead  or  to  drive.  He  is  parsimonious,  and  pays  his 
county  or  town  officials  on  a  niggardly  scale.  A  Boss  has 
therefore  no  occupation  in  such  a  place.  His  talents  would  be 
wasted.  If  a  Ring  exists  in  a  small  city  it  is  little  more  than 
a  clique  of  local  lawyers  who  combine  to  get  hold  of  the  local 
offices,  each  in  his  turn,  and  to  secure  a  seat  for  one  of  them¬ 
selves  in  the  State  legislature,  where  there  may  be  pickings  to 
be  had.  It  is  not  easy  to  draw  the  line  between  such  a  clique, 
which  one  may  find  all  the  world  over,  and  a  true  Ring :  but 
by  whichever  name  we  call  the  weed,  it  does  little  harm  to  the 
crop.  Here  and  there,  however,  one  meets  with  a  genuine  Boss 
even  in  these  seats  of  rural  innocence.  I  know  a  New  England 
town,  with  a  population  of  about  ten  thousand  people,  which 
was  long  ruled  by  such  a  local  wirepuller.  I  do  not  think  he 
stole.  But  he  had  gathered  a  party  of  voters  round  him,  by 
whose  help  he  carried  the  offices,  and  got  a  chance  of  perpe¬ 
trating  jobs  which  enriched  himself  and  supplied  work  for  his 
supporters.  The  circumstances,  however,  were  exceptional. 
Within  the  taxing  area  of  the  town  there  lie  many  villas  of 
wealthy  merchants,  who  do  business  in  a  neighbouring  city, 
but  are  taxed  on  their  summer  residences  here.  The  funds 
which  this  town  has  to  deal  with  were  therefore  much  larger 
than  would  be  the  case  in  most  towns  of  its  size,  while  many 
of  the  rich  taxpayers  are  not  citizens  here,  but  vote  in  the  city 
where  they  live  during  the  winter.1  Hence  they  could  not  go 
to  the  town  meeting  to  beard  the  Boss,  but  had  to  grin  and  pay 
while  they  watched  his  gambols. 

Speaking  generally,  the  country  places  and  the  smaller  cities 
are  not  ring-ridden.  There  is  a  tendency  everywhere  for  the 
local  party  organizations  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  few  men, 
perhaps  of  one  man.  But  this  happens  not  so  much  from  an 

1  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  United  States,  though  a  man  may  pay 
taxes  on  his  real  estate  in  any  number  of  States  or  counties  or  cities,  he  can 
vote,  even  in  purely  local  elections  or  on  purely  local  matters,  in  one  place 
only  —  that  in  which  he  is  held  to  reside.  In  this  respect  the  principle  of  “no 
taxation  without  representation”  has  been  ignored. 


134 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


intent  to  exclude  others  and  misuse  power,  as  because  the  work 
is  left  to  those  who  have  some  sort  of  interest  in  doing  it,  that, 
namely,  of  being  themselves  nominated  to  an  office.  Such 
persons  are  seldom  professional  office-seekers,  but  lawyers, 
farmers,  or  store-keepers,  who  are  glad  to  add  something  to 
their  income,  and  have  the  importance,  not  so  contemptible  in 
a  village,  of  sitting  in  the  State  legislature.  Nor  does  much 
harm  result.  The  administration  is  fairly  good  ;  the  taxpayers 
are  not  robbed.  If  a  leading  citizen,  who  does  not  belong  to 
the  managing  circle,  wishes  to  get  a  nomination,  he  will  prob¬ 
ably  succeed ;  in  fact,  no  one  will  care  to  exclude  him.  In 
many  places  there  is  a  non-party  11  citizens’  committee”  which 
takes  things  out  of  the  hands  of  the  two  organizations  by 
running  as  candidates  respectable  men  irrespective  of  party. 
Such  candidates  generally  succeed  if  the  local  party  managers 
have  offended  public  sentiment  by  bad  nominations.  In  short, 
the  materials  for  real  ring  government  do  not  exist,  and  its 
methods  are  inapplicable,  outside  the  large  cities.  No  one 
needs  to  fear  it,  or  does  fear  it. 

What  has  been  said  refers  chiefly  to  the  Northern,  Middle, 
and  Western  States.  The  circumstances  of  the  South  are  dif¬ 
ferent,  but  they  illustrate  equally  well  the  general  laws  of  ring 
growth.  In  the  Southern  cities  there  is  scarcely  any  population 
of  European  immigrants.  The  lowest  class  consists  of  negroes 
and  “poor  whites.”  The  negroes  are  ignorant,  and  would  be 
dangerously  plastic  material  in  the  hands  of  unscrupulous 
wirepullers,  as  was  amply  shown  after  the  Civil  War.  But 
they  have  hitherto  mostly  belonged  to  the  Republican  party, 
and  the  Democratic  party  has  so  completely  regained  its  as¬ 
cendency  that  the  bosses  who  controlled  the  negro  vote  can 
do  nothing.  In  most  parts  of  the  South  the  men  of  ability  and 
standing  have  interested  themselves  in  politics  so  far  as  to 
dictate  the  lines  of  party  action.  Their  position  when  self- 
government  was  restored  and  the  carpet-baggers  had  to  be 
overthrown  forced  them  to  exertion.  Sometimes  they  use  or 
tolerate  a  Ring,  but  they  do  not  suffer  it  to  do  serious  mischief, 
and  it  is  usually  glad  to  nominate  one  of  them,  or  any  one 
whom  they  recommend.  The  old  traditions  of  social  leadership 
have  survived  better  in  some  parts  of  the  South  than  in  the 
North,  so  that  the  poorer  part  of  the  white  population  is  more 
apt  to  follow  the  suggestions  of  eminent  local  citizens  and  to 


chap,  lxi v  EXTENSION  OF  RINGS  AND  BOSSES 


135 


place  them  at  its  head  when  they  will  accept  the  position. 
Moreover,  the  South  is  a  comparatively  poor  country.  Less  is 
to  be  gained  from  office  (including  membership  of  a  legislature), 
either  in  the  way  of  salary  or  indirectly  through  jobbing  con¬ 
tracts  or  influencing  legislation.  The  prizes  in  the  profession  of 
politics  being  fewer,  the  profession  is  not  prosecuted  with  the 
same  earnestness  and  perfection  of  organization.  There  are, 
however,  some  cities  where  conditions  similar  to  those  of  large 
Northern  cities  reappear,  and  there  Ring-and-Bossdom  reap¬ 
pears  also.  New  Orleans  is  the  best  example  —  it  has  a  strong 
Ring  —  and  in  Arkansas  and  Texas,  where  there  never  was  a 
plantation  aristocracy  like  that  of  the  Slave  States  on  the 
Atlantic  coast,  rings  are  pretty  numerous,  though,  as  the  cities 
are  small  and  seldom  rich,  their  exploits  attract  little  attention. 
That  in  Galveston  fell  when  the  Commission  form  of  city  gov¬ 
ernment  was  adopted. 


CHAPTER  LXV 


SPOILS 

An  illustration  of  Oxenstjerna’s  dictum  regarding  the  wisdom 
with  which  the  world  is  governed  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
the  greatest  changes  are  often  those  introduced  with  the  least 
notion  of  their  consequence,  and  the  most  fatal  those  which 
encounter  least  resistance.  So  the  system  of  removals  from 
Federal  office  which  began  in  the  days  of  Andrew  Jackson, 
though  disapproved  of  by  several  among  the  leading  statesmen 
of  the  time,  including  Clay,  Webster,  and  Calhoun,  excited 
comparatively  little  attention  in  the  country,  nor  did  its  advo¬ 
cates  foresee  a  tithe  of  its  far-reaching  results. 

The  Constitution  vests  the  right  of  appointing  to  Federal 
offices  in  the  President,  requiring  the  consent  of  the  Senate  in 
the  case  of  the  more  important,  and  permitting  Congress  to 
vest  the  appointment  of  inferior  officers  in  the  President  alone, 
in  the  courts,  or  in  the  heads  of  departments.  It  was  assumed 
that  this  clause  gave  officials  a  tenure  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
President  —  i.e.  that  he  had  the  legal  right  of  removing  them 
without  cause  assigned.  But  the  earlier  Presidents  considered 
the  tenure  as  being  practically  for  life  or  during  good  behav¬ 
iour,  and  did  not  remove,  except  for  some  solid  reason,  persons 
appointed  by  their  predecessors.  Washington  in  his  .eight 
years  displaced  only  nine  persons,  and  all  for  cause,  John 
Adams  nine  in  four  years,  and  those  not  on  political  grounds. 
Jefferson  in  his  eight  years  removed  thirty-nine,  but  many,  of 
these  were  persons  whom  Adams  had  unfairly  put  in  just  before 
quitting  office  ;  and  in  the  twenty  years  that  followed  (1808-28) 
there  were  but  sixteen  removals.  In  1820,  however,  a  bill  was 
run  through  Congress  with  hardly  any  discussion,  fixing  four 
years  as  the  term  for  a  large  number  of  the  more  important 
offices,  and  making  those  terms  expire  shortly  after  the  inau¬ 
guration  of  a  President.  This  was  ominous  of  evil,  and  called 
forth  the  strong  displeasure  of  both  Jefferson  and  Madison. 

136 


CHAP.  LXV 


SPOILS 


137 


The  President,  however,  and  his  heads  of  departments,  did  not 
remove,  so  the  tenure  on  good  behaviour  generally  remained. 
But  a  new  era  began  with  the  hot  and  heady  Jackson,  who 
reached  the  presidential  chair  in  1829.  He  was  a  rough  West¬ 
erner,  a  man  of  the  people,  borne  into  power  by  a  popular  move¬ 
ment,  incensed  against  all  who  were  connected  with  his  pre¬ 
decessor,  a  warm  friend  and  a  bitter  enemy,  anxious  to  repay 
services  rendered  to  himself.  Penetrated  by  extreme  theories 
of  equality,  he  proclaimed  in  his  Message  that  rotation  in 
office  was  a  principle  in  the  Republican  creed,  and  obeyed  both 
his  doctrine  and  his  passions  by  displacing  five  hundred  post¬ 
masters  in  his  first  year,  and  appointing  partisans  in  their 
room.  The  plan  of  using  office  as  a  mere  engine  in  partisan 
warfare  had  already  been  tried  in  New  York,  where  the  stress 
of  party  contests  had  led  to  an  early  development  of  many 
devices  in  party  organization  ;  and  it  was  a  New  York  adherent 
of  Jackson,  Marcy,  who,  speaking  in  the  Senate  in  1832,  con¬ 
densed  the  new  doctrine  in  a  phrase  that  has  become  famous 
—  “To  the  victor  belong  the  spoils.”  1 

From  1828  to  a  few  years  ago  the  rule  with  both  parties  has 
been  that  on  a  change  of  President  nearly  all  Federal  offices, 
from  the  embassies  to  European  Courts  down  to  village  post¬ 
masterships,  are  deemed  to  be  vacant.  The  present  holders 
may  of  course  be  continued  or  reappointed  (if  their  term  has 
expired)  ;  and  if  the  new  President  belongs  to  the  same  party 
as  his  predecessor,  many  of  them  will  be ;  but  they  are  not 
held  to  have  either  a  legal  of  a  moral  claim.  The  choice  of  the 
President  or  departmental  head  has  been  absolutely  free,  no 
qualifications,  except  the  citizenship  of  the  nominee,  being 
required,  nor  any  check  imposed  on  him,  except  that  the  Senate’s 
consent  is  needed  to  the  more  important  posts.2 

The  want  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  President  and  his 


1  Before  1820  Governor  Clinton  complained  “of  an  organized  and  disci¬ 
plined  corps  of  Federal  officials  interfering  in  State  elections.”  Marcy ’s  speech 
was  a  defence  of  the  system  of  partisan  removals  and  short  terms  from  the 
example  of  his  own  State.  “They  [the  New  York  politicians]  when  contend¬ 
ing  for  victory  avow  the  intention  of  enjoying  the  fruits  of  it.  They  see  noth¬ 
ing  wrong  in  the  rule  that  to  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  of  the  enemy.” 

2  See  on  this  subject,  Chapter  V.  in  Vol.  I. 

The  Act  of  1820  as  extended  by  subsequent  legislation  applies  to  more  than 
6000  offices.  Its  mischief,  however,  was  not  confined  to  the  legal  vacating  of 
these  posts,  but  has  lain  largely  also  in  establishing  a  custom  applying  to  a 
far  larger  number  of  minor  places. 


138 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


ministers  of  the  persons  who  applied  for  places  at  a  distance, 
obliged  them  to  seek  information  and  advice  from  those  who, 
belonging  to  the  neighbourhood,  could  give  it.  It  was  natural 
for  the  senators  from  a  State  or  the  representative  in  Congress 
from  a  district  within  which  a  vacant  office  lay,  to  recommend 
to  the  President  candidates  for  it,  natural  for  the  President  or 
his  ministers  to  be  guided  by  this  recommendation,  of  course, 
in  both  cases,  only  when  they  belonged  to  the  same  party  as  the 
President.  Thus  the  executive  became  accustomed  to  admit 
the  rights  which  the  politicians  claimed,  and  suffered  its  pat¬ 
ronage  to  be  prostituted  to  the  purpose  of  rewarding  local 
party  service  and  conciliating  local  party  support.  Now  and 
then  a  President,  or  a  strong  Minister  controlling  the  Presi¬ 
dent,  has  proved  restive ;  yet  the  usage  continues,  being 
grounded  on  the  natural  wish  of  the  executive  to  have  the 
good-will  and  help  of  the  senators  in  getting  treaties  and  ap¬ 
pointments  confirmed,  and  on  the  feeling  that  the  party  in 
every  district  must  be  strengthened  by  a  distribution  of  good 
things,  in  the  way  which  the  local  leader  thinks  most  service¬ 
able.  The  essential  features  of  the  system  are,  that  a  place  in 
the  public  service  is  held  at  the  absolute  pleasure  of  the  ap¬ 
pointing  authority ;  that  it  is  invariably  bestowed  from  party 
motives  on  a  party  man,  as  a  reward  for  party  services  (whether 
of  the  appointee  or  of  some  one  who  pushes  him)  ;  that  no 
man  expects  to  hold  it  any  longer  than  his  party  holds  power ; 
and  that  this  gives  him  the  strongest  personal  reasons  for 
fighting  in  the  party  ranks.  Thus  the  conception  of  office 
among  politicians  came  to  be  not  the  ideal  one,  of  its  involving 
a  duty  to  the  community,  nor  the  “practical”  one,  of  its  being 
a  snug  berth  in  which  a  man  may  live  if  he  does  not  positively 
neglect  his  work,  but  the  perverted  one,  of  its  being  a  salary 
paid  in  respect  of  party  services,  past,  present,  and  future. 

The  politicians,  however,  could  hardly  have  riveted  this 
system  on  the  country  but  for  certain  notions  which  had  be¬ 
come  current  among  the  mass  of  the  people.  “  Rotation  in 
office”  was,  and  indeed  by  most  men  still  is,  held  to  be  con¬ 
formable  to  the  genius  of  a  democracy.  It  gives  every  man 
an  equal  chance  of  power  and  salary,  resembling  herein  the 
Athenian  and  Florentine  system  of  choosing  officers  by  lot. 
It  is  supposed  to  stimulate  men  to  exertion,  to  foster  a  laud¬ 
able  ambition  to  serve  the  country  or  the  neighbourhood,  to 


CHAP.  LXV 


SPOILS 


139 


prevent  the  growth  of  an  official  caste,  with  its  habits  of  rou¬ 
tine,  its  stiffness,  its  arrogance.  It  recognizes  that  equality 
which  is  so  dear  to  the  American  mind,  bidding  an  official 
remember  that  he  is  the  servant  of  the  people  and  not  their 
master,  like  the  bureaucrats  of  Europe.  It  forbids  him  to 
fancy  that  he  has  any  right  to  be  where  he  is,  any  ground  for 
expecting  to  stay  there.  It  ministers  in  an  odd  kind  of  way 
to  that  fondness  for  novelty  and  change  in  persons  and  sur¬ 
roundings  which  is  natural  in  the  constantly-moving  communi¬ 
ties  of  the  West.  The  habit  which  grew  up  of  electing  State 
and  city  officers  for  short  terms  tended  in  the  same  direction. 
If  those  whom  the  people  itself  chose  were  to  hold  office  only 
for  a  year  or  two,  why  should  those  who  were  appointed  by 
Federal  authority  have  a  more  stable  tenure?  And  the  use  of 
patronage  for  political  purposes  was  further  justified  by  the 
example  of  England,  whose  government  was  believed  by  the 
Americans  of  the  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  generation  to  be 
worked,  as  it  had  been  largely  worked,  by  the  Patronage  Secre¬ 
tary  of  the  Treasury  in  his  function  of  distributing  places  to  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  honours  (such  as  orders  of 
knighthood  and  steps  in  the  peerage)  to  members  of  the  House 
of  Lords,  ecclesiastical  preferments  to  the  relatives  of  both.1 

Another  and  a  potent  reason  why  the  rotation  plan  com¬ 
mended  itself  to  the  Americans  is  to  be  found  in  the  belief  that 
one  man  is  as  good  as  another,  and  will  do  well  enough  any 
work  you  set  him  to,  a  belief  happily  expressed  by  their  old  enemy 
King  George  the  Third  when  he  said  that  “  every  man  is  good 
enough  for  any  place  he  can  get.”  In  America  a  smart  man  is 
expected  to  be  able  to  do  anything  that  he  turns  his  hand  to, 
and  the  fact  that  a  man  has  worked  himself  into  a  place  is  some 
evidence  of  his  smartness.  He  is  a  “  practical  man.”  This  is 
at  bottom  George  the  Third’s  idea ;  if  you  are  clever  enough 
to  make  people  give  you  a  place,  you  are  clever  enough  to  dis¬ 
charge  its  duties,  or  to  conceal  the  fact  that  you  are  not  dis¬ 
charging  them.  It  may  be  added  that  most  of  these  Federal 
places,  and  those  which  come  most  before  the  eyes  of  the  ordi¬ 
nary  citizen,  require  little  special  fitness.  Any  careful  and 
honest  man  does  fairly  well  for  a  tide-waiter  or  a  lighthouse 


1  Now  of  course  the  tables  have  been  turned,  and  the  examples  of  the  prac¬ 
tically  irremovable  English  civil  service  and  of  the  competitive  entrance  ex¬ 
aminations  in  England  are  cited  against  the  American  system. 


140 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


keeper.  Able  and  active  men  had  no  great  interest  in  advocat¬ 
ing  appointment  by  merit  or  security  of  tenure,  for  they  seldom 
wanted  places  themselves ;  and  they  had,  or  thought  they  had, 
an  interest  in  jobbing  their  poor  relatives  and  unprosperous 
friends  into  the  public  service.  It  is  true  that  the  relative  or 
friend  ran  the  risk  of  being  turned  out.  But  hope  is  stronger 
than  fear.  The  prospect  of  getting  a  place  affects  ten  people 
for  one  who  is  affected  by  the  prospect  of  losing  it,  for  aspirants 
are  many  and  places  relatively  few. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  considering  Federal  offices  only,  the 
immense  majority  whereof  are  such  petty  posts  as  those  of  post¬ 
master  in  a  village,  custom-house  officer  at  a  seaport,  and  so 
forth,  although  they  also  include  clerkships  in  the  departments 
at  Washington,  foreign  ambassadorships  and  consulates,  and 
governorships  of  the  Territories.  The  system  of  rotation  had, 
however,  laid  such  a  hold  on  the  mind  of  the  country  that  it 
soon  extended  itself  over  State  offices  and  city  offices  also,  in 
so  far  as  such  offices  remained  appointive,  and  were  not,  like 
the  higher  administrative  posts  and  (in  most  of  the  States  and 
the  larger  cities)  the  judicial  offices,  handed  over  to  popular 
election.  Thus,  down  to  that  very  recent  time  of  which  I  shall 
speak  presently,  appointment  by  favour  and  tenure  at  the  pleas¬ 
ure  of  the  appointer  became  the  rule  in  every  sphere  and  branch 
of  government,  National,  State,  and  municipal.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  a  people  so  eminently  practical  as  the  Americans 
acquiesced  in  a  system  which  perverts  public  office  from  its 
proper  function  of  serving  the  public,  destroys  the  prospect  of 
that  skill  which  comes  with  experience,  and  gives  nobody  the 
least  security  that  he  will  gain  a  higher  post,  or  even  retain  the 
one  he  holds,  by  displaying  conspicuous  efficiency.  The  expla¬ 
nation  is  that  administration  used  to  be  conducted  in  a  happy- 
go-lucky  way,  that  the  citizens,  accustomed  to  help  themselves, 
relied  very  little  on  their  functionaries,  and  did  not  care  whether 
they  were  skilful  or  not,  and  that  it  was  so  easy  and  so  com¬ 
mon  for  a  man  who  fell  out  of  one  kind  of  business  to  take  to 
and  make  his  living  by  another,  that  deprivation  seemed  to 
involve  little  hardship.  However,  the  main  reason  was  that 
there  was  no  party  and  no  set  of  persons  specially  interested  in 
putting  an  end  to  the  system,  whereas  there  soon  came  to  be 
a  set  specially  concerned  to  defend  it.  It  developed,  I  might 
almost  say  created,  the  class  of  professional  politicians,  and 


CHAP.  LXV 


SPOILS 


141 


they  maintained  it,  because  it  exactly  suited  them.  That  great 
and  growing  volume  of  political  work  to  be  done  in  managing 
primaries,  conventions,  and  elections  for  the  city,  State,  and 
National  governments,  whereof  I  have  already  spoken,  and 
which  the  advance  of  democratic  sentiment  and  the  needs  of 
party  warfare  evolved  from  1820  down  to  about  1850,  needed 
men  who  should  give  to  it  constant  and  undivided  attention. 
These  men  the  plan  of  rotation  in  office  provided.  Persons 
who  had  nothing  to  gain  for  themselves  would  soon  have  tired 
of  the  work.  The  members  of  a  permanent  civil  service  would 
have  had  no  motive  for  interfering  in  politics,  because  the  politi¬ 
cal  defeat  of  a  public  officer’s  friends  would  have  left  his  posi¬ 
tion  the  same  as  before,  and  the  civil  service  not  being  all  of 
one  party,  but  composed  of  persons  appointed  at  different  times 
by  executives  of  different  hues,  would  not  have  acted  together 
as  a  whole.  Those,  however,  whose  bread  and  butter  depend 
on  their  party  may  be  trusted  to  work  for  .  their  party,  to  enlist 
recruits,  look  after  the  organization,  play  electioneering  tricks 
from  which  ordinary  party  spirit  might  recoil.  The  class  of 
professional  politicians  was  therefore  the  first  crop  which  the 
Spoils  System,  the  system  of  using  public  office  as  private  prize 
of  war,  bore.  Bosses  were  the  second  crop.  In  the  old  Scan¬ 
dinavian  poetry  the  special  title  of  the  king  or  chieftain  is  “the 
giver  of  rings.”  He  attracts  followers  and  rewards  the  services, 
whether  of  the  warrior  or  the  skald,  by  liberal  gifts.  So  the 
Boss  wins  and  hold  power  by  the  bestowal  of  patronage.  Places 
are  the  guerdon  of  victory  in  election  warfare ;  he  divides  this 
spoil  before  as  well  as  after  the  battle,  promising  the  higher 
elective  offices  to  the  strongest  among  his  fighting  men,  and 
dispensing  the  minor  appointive  •  offices  which  lie  in  his  own 
gift,  or  that  of  his  lieutenants,  to  combatants  of  less  note  but 
equal  loyalty.  Thus  the  chieftain  consolidates,  extends,  forti¬ 
fies  his  power  by  rewarding  his  supporters.  He  garrisons  the 
outposts  with  his  squires  and  henchmen,  who  are  bound  fast 
to  him  by  the  hope  of  getting  something  more,  and  the  fear  of 
losing  what  they  have.  Most  of  these  appointive  offices  are 
too  poorly  paid  to  attract  able  men ;  but  they  form  a  stepping- 
stone  to  the  higher  ones  obtained  by  popular  election ;  and 
the  desire  to  get  them  and  keep  them  provides  that  numerous 
rank  and  file  which  the  American  system  requires  to  work  the 
Machine.  In  a  country  like  England  office  is  an  object  of 


142 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


desire  to  a  few  prominent  men,  but  only  to  a  few,  because  the 
places  which  are  vacated  on  a  change  of  government  are  less 
than  sixty  in  all,  while  vacancies  in  other  places  happen  only 
by  death  or  promotion.  Hence  an  insignificant  number  of  per¬ 
sons  out  of  the  whole  population  have  a  personal  pecuniary 
interest  in  the  triumph  of  their  party.  In  England,  therefore, 
one  has  what  may  be  called  the  general  officers  and  headquar¬ 
ters  staff  of  an  army  of  professional  politicians,  but  few  subal¬ 
terns  and  no  privates.  And  in  England  many  of  these  general 
officers  are  rich  men,  independent  of  official  salaries.  In 
America  the  privates  are  proportioned  in  number  to  the  officers. 
They  are  a  great  host.  As  nearly  all  live  by  politics,  they  are 
held  together  by  a  strong  personal  motive.  When  their  party 
is  kept  out  of  the  spoils  of  the  Federal  government,  as  the 
Democrats  were  out  from  1861  to  1885,  they  have  a  second 
chance  in  the  State  spoils,  a  third  chance  in  the  city  spoils ; 
and  the  prospect  of  winning  at  least  one  of  these  two  latter  sets 
of  places  maintains  their  discipline  and  whets  their  appetite,  how¬ 
ever  slight  may  be  their  chance  of  capturing  the  Federal  offices. 

It  is  these  spoilsmen  who  have  depraved  and  distorted  the 
mechanism  of  politics.  It  is  they  who  pack  the  primaries  and 
run  the  conventions  so  as  to  destroy  the  freedom  of  popular 
choice,  they  who  contrive  and  execute  the  election  frauds  which 
disgrace  some  States  and  cities,  —  repeating  and  ballot  stuffing, 
obstruction  of  the  polls,  and  fraudulent  countings  in.1 

In  making  every  administrative  appointment  a  matter  of 
party  claim  and  personal  favour,  the  system  has  lowered  the 
general  tone  of  public  morals,  for  it  has  taught  men  to  neglect 
the  interests  of  the  community,  and  made  insincerity  ripen  into 
cynicism.  Nobody  supposes  that  merit  has  anything  to  do  with 
promotion,  or  believes  the  pretext  alleged  for  an  appointment. 
Politics  has  been  turned  into  the  art  of  distributing  salaries  so 
as  to  secure  the  maximum  of  support  from  friends  with  the 
minimum  of  offence  to  opponents.  To  this  art  able  men  have 
been  forced  to  bend  their  minds  :  on  this  Presidents  and  min¬ 
isters  have  spent  those  hours  which  were  demanded  by  the 
real  problems  of  the  country.2  The  rising  politician  must 

1  The  fact  that  in  Canada  the  civil  service  is  permanent  has  doubtless  much 
to  do  with  the  absence  of  such  a  regular  party  Machine  as  the  United  States 

possess. 

2  President  Garfield  said  “one-third  of  the  working  hours  of  senators  and 
representatives  is  scarcely  sufficient  to  meet  the  demands  in  reference  to  the 


CHAP.  LXV 


SPOILS 


143 


think  of  obscure  supporters  seeking  petty  places  as  well  as  of 
those  greater  appointments  by  which  his  knowledge  of  men 
and  his  honesty  deserve  to  be  judged.  It  is  hardly  a  caricature 
when,  in  Mr.  Lowelbs  satire,  the  intending  presidential  candi¬ 
date  writes  to  his  maritime  friend  in  New  England,  — 

“  If  you  git  me  inside  the  White  House, 

Your  head  with  ile  I’ll  kinder  ’nint, 

By  gittin’  you  inside  the  light-house, 

Down  to  the  end  of  Jaalam  pint.” 

After  this,  it  seems  a  small  thing  to  add  that  rotation  in 
office  has  not  improved  the  quality  of  the  civil  service.  Men 
selected  for  their  services  at  elections  or  in  primaries  have  not 
proved  the  most  capable  servants  of  the  public.  As  most  of 
the  posts  they  fill  need  nothing  more  than  such  ordinary  busi¬ 
ness  qualities  as  the  average  American  possesses,  the  mischief 
has  not  come  home  to  the  citizens  generally,  but  it  has  some^ 
times  been  serious  in  the  higher  grades,  such  as  the  depart¬ 
ments  at  Washington  and  some  of  the  greater  custom-houses.1 
Moreover,  the  official  is  not  free  to  attend  to  his  official  duties. 
More  important,  because  more  influential  on  his  fortunes,  is  the 
duty  to  his  party  of  looking  after  its  interests  at  the  election, 
and  his  duty  to  his  chiefs,  the  Boss  and  Ring,  of  seeing  that 
the  candidate  they  favour  gets  the  party  nomination.  Such 
an  official,  whom  democratic  theory  seeks  to  remind  of  his 
dependence  on  the  public,  does  not  feel  himself  bound  to  the 
public,  but  to  the  city  Boss  or  senator  or  congressman  who  has 
procured  his  appointment.  Gratitude,  duty,  service,  are  all 
for  the  patron.  So  far  from  making  the  official  zealous  in  the 
performance  of  his  functions,  insecurity  of  tenure  has  discour¬ 
aged  sedulous  application  to  work,  since  it  is  not  by  such 
application  that  office  is  retained  and  promotion  won.  The 
administration  of  some  among  the  public  departments  in  Fed¬ 
eral  and  city  government  in  more  behind  that  of  private  enter¬ 
prises  than  is  the  case  in  European  countries ;  the  ingenuity 
and  executive  talent  which  the  nation  justly  boasts,  are  least 
visible  in  national  or  municipal  business.  In  short,  the  civil 

appointments  to  office.  .  .  .  With  a  judicious  system  of  civil  service,  the 
business  of  the  departments  could  be  better  done  at  half  the  cost.” 

1  Sometimes  the  evil  was  so  much  felt  that  a  subordinate  of  experience  was 
always  retained  for  the  sake  of  teaching  those  who  came  in  by  political  favour 
how  to  carry  on  the  work. 


144 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


service  is  not  in  America,  and  cannot,  under  the  system  of 
rotation,  become  a  career.  Place-hunting  is  the  career,  and  an 
office  is  not  a  pubilc  trust,  but  a  means  of  requiting  party 
services,  and  also,  under  the  method  of  assessments  previously 
described,  a  source  whence  party  funds  may  be  raised  for  elec¬ 
tion  purposes. 

Some  of  these  evils  were  observed  as  far  back  as  1853,  when 
an  Act  was  passed  by  Congress  requiring  clerks  appointed  to 
the  departments  at  Washington  to  pass  a  qualifying  examina¬ 
tion.1  Neither  this  nor  subsequent  legislative  efforts  in  the 
same  direction  produced  any  improvement,  for  the  men  in 
office  who  ought  to  have  given  effect  to  the  law  were  hostile 
to  it.  Similar  causes  defeated  the  system  of  competitive  ex¬ 
amination,  inaugurated  by  an  Act  of  Congress  in  1871,  when 
the  present  agitation  for  civil  service  reform  had  begun  to  lay 
hold  of  the  public  mind.  Mr.  Hayes  (1877-81)  was  the  first 
President  who  seems  to  have  honestly  desired  to  reform  the 
civil  service,  but  the  opposition  of  the  politicians,  and  the 
indifference  of  Congress,  which  had  legislated  merely  in  defer¬ 
ence  to  the  pressure  of  enlightened  opinion  outside,  proved  too 
much  for  him.  A  real  step  in  advance  was,  however,  made  in 
1883,  by  the  passage  of  the  so-called  Pendleton  Act,  which 
instituted  a  board  of  civil  service  commissioners  (to  be  named 
by  the  President),  directing  them  to  apply  a  system  of  com¬ 
petitive  examinations  to  a  considerable  number  of  offices  in  the 
departments  at  Washington,  and  a  smaller  number  in  other 
parts  of  the  country.  President  Arthur  named  a  good  com¬ 
mission,  and  under  the  rules  framed  by  it  progress  was  made. 
The  action  of  succeeding  Presidents  has  been  matter  of  some 
controversy ;  but  while  admitting  that  less  has  been  done  in 
the  way  of  reform  than  might  have  been  desired,  it  is  no  less 
true  that  much  more  has  been  done  than  it  would  have  been 
safe  to  expect  in  1883.  Both  Mr.  Cleveland  and  Mr.  Roose¬ 
velt  largely  extended  the  scope  of  the  Act.  In  the  so-called 
“  classified  service,”  to  which  the  examination  system  is  applied, 
some  removals  for  political  reasons  have  from  time  to  time 
been  made,  but  the  percentage  of  such  removals  is  far  smaller 
than  in  the  unclassified  service.  Honest  efforts  have  been  made 

1  To  have  made  places  tenable  during  good  behaviour  would  have  been  open 
to  the  objection  that  it  might  prevent  the  dismissal  of  incompetent  men  against 
whom  no  specific  charge  could  be  proved. 


CHAP.  LXV 


SPOILS 


145 


by  recent  Presidents  to  prevent  the  intrusion  of  politics  and  to 
enforce  the  rule  that  civil  servants  in  the  classified  service  shall 
not  take  an  active  part  in  campaigns. 

The  Act  of  1883  originally  applied  to  only  14,000  posts.  It 
has  since  been  so  extended  that  now  out  of  367,794  employees 
in  the  civil  service,  234,940  are  subject  to  competitive  examina¬ 
tion  under  civil  service  rules.  Of  those  not  subject  to  exami¬ 
nation,  9105  are  presidential  appointees,  7202  of  whom  are  first, 
second  and  third  class  postmasters,  37,712  are  fourth  class  post¬ 
masters,  and  the  bulk  of  the  remainder  minor  employees,  largely 
labourers.1  The  salaries  of  those  covered  by  the  Act  amount  to 
very  much  more  than  half  of  the  total  sum  paid  in  salaries  by  the 
government.  Its  moral  effect,  however,  has  been  even  greater 
than  this  proportion  represents,  and  entitles  it  to  the  descrip¬ 
tion  given  of  it  at  the  time  as  “a  sad  blow  to  the  pessimists.” 
Public  sentiment  is  more  and  more  favourable,  and  though  the 
lower  sort  of  “ professionals”  were  incensed  at  so  great  an  inter¬ 
ference  with  their  methods,  and  Congress  now  and  then  (as  in 
the  case  of  the  Census  bill  of  1909)  shows  imperfect  sympathy 
with  the  principle,  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  leading  men  in  both 
parties  seem  now  disposed  to  support  it.  It  strengthens  the 
hands  of  any  President  who  may  desire  reform,  and  has  stimu¬ 
lated  the  civil  service  reform  movement  in  States  and  munici¬ 
palities.  Between  1883  and  1910  seven  States  (New  York,  Mas¬ 
sachusetts,  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Colorado,  New  Jersey  and  Ohio) 
have  adopted  the  merit  system,  which  has  also  been  adopted 
by  nearly  one  hundred  cities.  Nevertheless,  there  remain  a 
great  many  posts,  even  in  the  higher  National  Civil  Service, 
within  the  Spoils  category  which  in  European  countries  would 
be  permanent  non-political  posts. 

Some  time  must  yet  pass  before  the  result  of  these  changes 
upon  the  purification  of  politics  can  be  fairly  judged.  It  is  for 
the  present  enough  to  say  that  while  the  state  of  things  above 
described  was  generally  true  both  of  Federal  and  of  State  and 
city  administration  from  1830  till  1883,  there  is  now  reason  to 
hope  that  the  practice  of  appointing  for  short  terms,  and  of 
refusing  to  reappoint,  or  of  dismissing  in  order  to  fill  vacancies 
with  political  adherents,  has  been  shaken.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted 
that  the  extension  of  examinations  will  tend  more  and  more  to 
exclude  mere  spoilsmen  from  the  public  service. 

1  Report  of  Civil  Service  Commission  for  1909. 


CHAPTER  LXVI 


ELECTIONS  AND  THEIR  MACHINERY 

I  cannot  attempt  to  describe  the  complicated  and  varying 
election  laws  of  the  different  States.  But  the  methods  of  con¬ 
ducting  elections  have  so  largely  influenced  the  development  of 
Machine  politics,  and  the  recent  changes  in  them  have  made 
so  much  stir  and  seem  likely  to  have  such  considerable  results, 
that  the  subject  must  not  pass  unnoticed. 

All  expenses  of  preparing  the  polling  places  and  of  paying 
the  clerks  and  other  election  officers  who  receive  and  count 
the  votes  are  borne  by  the  community,  not  (as  in  Britain)  by 
the  candidates. 

All  elections,  whether  for  city,  State,  or  Federal  offices,  are 
in  all  States  conducted  by  ballot,  which,  however,  was  intro¬ 
duced,  and  was  long  regarded,  not  so  much  as  a  device  for  pre¬ 
venting  bribery  or  intimidation,  but  rather  as  the  quickest  and 
easiest  mode  of  taking  the  votes  of  a  multitude.  Secrecy  had  not 
been  specially  aimed  at,  nor  in  point  of  fact  generally  secured. 

An  election  is  a  far  more  complicated  affair  in  America  than 
in  Europe.  The  number  of  elective  offices  is  greater,  and  as 
terms  of  office  are  shorter,  the  number  of  offices  to  be  voted 
for  in  any  given  year  is  much  greater.  To  save  the  expense 
of  numerous  distinct  pollings,  it  was  long  usual,  though  by  no 
means  universal,  to  take  the  pollings  for  a  variety  of  offices  at 
the  same  time,  that  is  to  say,  to  elect  Federal  officials  (presi¬ 
dential  electors  and  congressmen),  State  officials,  county  offi¬ 
cials,  and  city  officials  on  one  and  the  same  day  and  at  the 
same  polling  booths.  Presidential  electors  are  chosen  only 
once  in  four  years,  congressmen  once  in  two.  But  the  number 
of  State  and  county  and  city  places  to  be  filled  is  so  large  that 
a  voter  seldom  goes  to  the  polling  booth  without  having  to 
cast  his  vote  for  at  least  eight  or  ten  persons,  candidates  for 
different  offices,  and  sometimes  he  may  vote  for  thirty  or  more. 

This  gave  rise  to  the  system  of  slip  tickets.  A  slip  ticket 
is  a  list,  printed  on  a  long  strip  of  paper,  of  the  persons  stand- 

146 


chap,  lx vi  ELECTIONS  AND  THEIR  MACHINERY 


147 


ing  in  the  same  interest,  that  is  to  say,  recommended  by  the 
same  party  or  political  group  for  the  posts  to  be  filled  up  at 
any  election.1  For  many  years,  the  universal  practice  was 
for  each  such  voting  ticket  to  be  printed  and  issued  by  a  party 
organization,  and  to  be  then  distributed  at  the  polling  booths  by 
the  party  agents  to  the  voters  and  placed  by  them  in  the  box. 
The  voter  usually  voted  the  ticket  as  he  received  it,  that  is 
to  say,  he  voted  en  bloc  for  all  the  names  it  contained.  It  was 
indeed  open  to  him  to  modify  it  by  striking  out  certain  names 
(“scratching”)  and  writing  in  others,  or  by  placing  over  a 
name  a  bit  of  paper,  gummed  at  the  back  for  the  purpose 
(called  a  “paster”),  on  which  was  printed  the  name  of  some 
other  candidate.  But  the  always  potent  tendency  to  vote 
the  party  list  as  a  whole  was  naturally  stronger  when  that 
whole  list  found  itself  on  the  same  piece  of  paper  in  the  voter’s 
hands  than  it  would  have  been  had  the  paper  contained  in 
alphabetical  order  the  names  of  all  the  candidates  whomsoever, 
making  it  necessary  to  pick  and  choose  among  them.  This, 
however,  was  the  least  of  the  evils  incident  to  the  system. 
When  (as  often  happened)  the  two  great  parties  had  bad  names 
on  their  respective  State  or  city  tickets,  the  obvious  remedy 
was  the  formation  of  a  “Citizens’”  or  “Independent”  organi¬ 
zation  to  run  better  men.  The  heavy  expense  of  printing  and 
distributing  the  tickets  was  a  serious  obstacle  to  the  making  of 
such  independent  nominations,  while  the  “regular”  ticket  dis¬ 
tributers  did  all  in  their  power  to  impede  the  distribution  of 
these  “independent  tickets,”  and  generally  to  confuse  and  mis¬ 
lead  the  independent  voter.  The  expenses  which  the  regular 
parties  had  to  bear  were  made  by  their  leaders  a  pretext  for 
levying  “election  assessments”  on  candidates,  and  thereby 
(see  ante,  p.  121)  of  virtually  selling  nominations.  And,  finally, 
the  absence  of  secrecy,  for  the  voter  could  be  followed  by 
watchful  eyes  from  the  moment  when  he  received  the  party 
ticket  from  the  party  distributer  till  he  dropped  it  into  the 
box,  opened  a  wide  door  to  bribery  and  intimidation.  A  grow¬ 
ing  sense  of  these  mischiefs  roused  at  length  the  zeal  of  re¬ 
formers.  In  1885  a  bill  for  the  introduction  of  a  really  secret 
ballot  was  presented  to  the  legislature  of  Michigan,  and  in 
1888  such  a  measure,  resembling  in  its  outlines  the  ballot  laws 

1  A  ticket  includes  more  names  or  fewer,  according  to  the  number  of  offices 
to  be  filled,  but  usually  more  than  a  dozen,  and  often  far  more. 


148 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


of  Australia  and  those  of  the  United  Kingdom,  was  enacted  in 
Massachusetts.  The  unprecedented  scale  on  which  money 
was  illegitimately  used  in  the  presidential  election  of  1888  pro¬ 
voked  general  alarm,  and  strengthened  the  hands  of  reformers 
so  much  that  secret,  or,  as  they  are  called,  “  Australian/7  official 
ballot  laws  are  now  in  force  in  all  the  States  except  Georgia  and 
South  Carolina  ;  but  in  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina  the  ballot 
law  is  not  state- wide,  i.e.  applies  to  certain  counties  only.  Mis¬ 
souri  and  New  Jersey  have  half-way  measures  embodying  cer¬ 
tain  features  of  the  Australian  system.1  It  may  cause  surprise 
that  the  Southern  States,  communities  which  lived  in  alarm  at 
the  large  negro  vote,  did  not  sooner  seize  so  simple  a  method  of 
virtually  excluding  the  bulk  of  that  vote,  but  the  reason  is 
doubtless  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  a  secret  ballot,  unac¬ 
companied  by  provisions  for  illiterate  voters,  would  have  ex¬ 
cluded  a  considerable  number  of  whites  also.  However,  these 
two  States  will  probably  ere  long  follow  their  sisters  in  the 
enactment  of  secret  ballot  laws,  and  the  strength  of  the  move¬ 
ment  it  witnessed  by  the  fact  that  in  eleven  States  provisions 
on  the  subject  have  been  embodied  in  the  constitutions. 

The  new  laws  of  these  forty-six  States  are  of  varying  merit. 
Nearly  all  the  laws  provide  for  the  official  printing  of  the  vot¬ 
ing  papers,  for  the  inclusion  of  the  names  of  •  all  candidates 
upon  the  same  paper,  so  that  the  voter  must  himself  place  his 
mark  against  those  he  desires  to  support,  and  for  the  deposit¬ 
ing  of  the  paper  in  the  box  by  the  voter  in  such  manner  as  to 
protect  him  from  observation.  Thus  secrecy  has  been  nearly 
everywhere  secured,  and  while  independent  candidates  have  a 
better  chance,  a  heavy  blow  has  been  struck  at  bribery  and  in¬ 
timidation.  The  practice  of  “ peddling”  the  ballots  at  the 
polling  place  by  the  agents  of  the  parties,  which  had  reached 
portentous  dimensions  in  New  York,  has  in  most  places  disap¬ 
peared,  while  the  extinction  of  the  head  of  expenses  incurred 
for  this  purpose,  as  well  as  for  ballot  printing,  has  diminished 
the  pretext  for  levying  assessments.  Elections  are  far  more 
orderly  than  they  were,  because  more  secret,  and  because  the 
attendant  crowd  of  those  who  peddle  and  hang  about  the 
polls,  disposed  to  turbulence  and  ready  for  intimidation,  has 
been  much  reduced.  And  it  is  an  incidental  gain  that  the 

1  West  Virginia  permits  the  voter  to  choose  between  the  open,  sealed,  or 
secret  ballot. 


chap,  lx vi  ELECTIONS  AND  THEIR  MACHINERY 


149 


most  ignorant  class  of  voters,  who  in  the  North  are  usually 
recent  immigrants,  have  been  in  some  States  deprived  of  their 
votes,  in  others  stimulated  (as  happened  to  the  more  intelligent 
negroes  in  parts  of  the  South)  to  improve  their  education,  and 
fit  themselves  to  vote.  Even  where  provision  is  made  for  the 
voting  of  illiterates,  a  certain  disgrace,  which  citizens  desire 
to  escape,  attaches  to  him  who  is  forced  to  have  recourse  to 
this  provision.  No  one  proposes  to  revert  to  the  old  system, 
nor  has  the  ingenuity  of  artful  politicians  succeeded,  to  any  great 
extent,  in  evading  the  salutary  provisions  of  the  new  statutes. 

So  much  for  what  may  be  called  the  machinery  of  voting. 
There  are,  however,  several  other  questions  that  may  be  asked 
regarding  an  election  system.  One  is,  whether  it  is  honestly 
carried  out  by  the  officials?  To  this  question  no  general 
answer  can  be  given,  because  there  are  the  widest  possible 
differences  between  different  States ;  differences  due  chiefly  to 
the  variations  in  their  election  laws,  but  partly  also  to  the 
condition  of  the  public  conscience.  In  some  States  the  official 
conduct  of  elections  is  now  believed  to  be  absolutely  pure, 
owing,  one  is  told,  to  the  excellence  of  a  minutely  careful  law. 
In  others,  frauds,  such  as  ballot  stuffing  and  false  counting, 
are  said  to  be  common,  not  only  in  city,  but  also  in  State  and 
more  rarely  in  Federal  elections.  I  have  no  data  to  determine 
how  widely  frauds  prevail,  for  their  existence  can  rarely  be  proved, 
and  they  often  escape  detection.  They  are  sometimes  suspected 
where  they  do  not  exist.  It  is  however  clear  that  in  some  States 
they  are  frequent  enough  to  constitute  a  serious  reproach.1 

Another  question  is  :  Does  the  election  machinery  prevent 
intimidation,  bribery,  personation,  repeating,  and  the  other 
frauds  which  the  agents  of  candidates  or  parties  seek  to  perpe- 

1  They  were  specially  frequent,  and  are  not  extinct,  in  some  of  the  Southern 
States,  having  been  there  used  before  recent  amendments  to  the  State  consti¬ 
tutions  had  debarred  the  vast  majority  of  the  negroes  from  the  suffrage.  It 
was  here  that  the  use  of  “tissue  ballots”  was  most  common.  I  was  told  in 
San  Francisco  that  elections  had  become  more  pure  since  the  introduction  of 
glass  ballot  boxes,  which  made  it  difficult  for  the  presiding  officials  to  stock  the 
ballot  box  with  voting  papers  before  the  voting  began  in  the  morning.  After 
the  election  of  1893,  nearly  100  election  officers  in  New  York  City,  about  25 
in  Brooklyn,  and  a  good  many  in  the  smaller  cities  were  indicted  for  offences 
against  the  election  laws,  and  especially  for  permitting  “repeaters”  to  vote, 
for  accompanying  voters  into  the  booth  on  a  false  pretence  of  their  blindness 
or  physical  incapacity,  and  for  cheating  in  the  counting  of  the  votes.  Many 
were  convicted.  Repeating  has  been,  profusely  practised  in  New  York  and  (it 
is  said)  largely  by  professional  criminals,  in  some  subsequent  elections.  How¬ 
ever  the  official  management  of  elections  has  on  the  whole  improved. 


150 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


trate?  Here,  too,  there  are  great  differences  between  one 
State  and  city  and  another,  differences  due  both  to  the  laws 
and  to  the  character  of  the  population.  Of  intimidation  there 
is  now  but  little,  save  in  a  few  cities,  where  roughs,  or  occa¬ 
sionally  even  the  police,  are  said  to  molest  a  voter  supposed  to 
belong  to  the  other  party,  or  to  be  inclined  to  desert  their  own 
party.  But  till  the  enactment  of  the  secret  ballot  laws,  it 
sometimes  happened  that  employers  endeavoured  to  send 
their  workingmen  to  the  polls  in  a  body  in  order  to  secure 
their  votes ;  and  the  dislike  to  this  was  one  of  the  motives 
which  won  popular  favour  for  these  laws.  Repeating  and  per¬ 
sonation  are  not  rare  in  dense  populations,  where  the  agents 
and  officials  do  not,  and  cannot,  know  the  voters’  faces ;  and 
these  frauds  are  sometimes  organized  on  a  grand  scale  by 
bringing  bands  of  roughs  from  one  city  to  another. 

Bribery  is  a  sporadic  disease,  but  often  intense  when  it  occurs. 
Most  parts  of  the  Union  are  pure,  as  pure  as  Scotland,  where  since 
1868  there  has  been  only  one  election  petition  for  alleged  bribery. 
Other  parts  are  no  better  than  the  small  boroughs  of  Southern 
England  were  before  the  Corrupt  Practices  Act  of  1883. 1  No 
place,  however,  not  even  the  poorest  ward  in  New  York  City, 
sinks  below  the  level  of  such  constituencies  as  Yarmouth  or  Sand¬ 
wich  used  to  be  in  England.  Bribery  is  seldom  practised  in  Amer¬ 
ica  in  the  same  way  as  it  used  to  be  at  Rome,  by  distributing 
small  sums  among  a  large  mass  of  poor  electors,  or  even,  as  in 
many  English  boroughs,  among  a  section  of  voters  (not  always  the 
poorest)  known  to  be  venal,  and  accustomed  to  reserve  their  votes 
till  shortly  before  the  close  of  the  poll.  The  American  practice 
has  been  to  give  sums  of  from  $20  to  $50  to  an  active  local  “worker,” 
who  undertakes  to  bring  up  a  certain  number  of  voters,  perhaps 
twenty  or  thirty,  whom  he  “owns  ”  or  can  get  at.  He  is  not 
required  to  account  for  the  money,  and  spends  a  comparatively 
small  part  of  it  in  direct  bribes,  though  something  in  drinks  to 
the  lower  sort  of  elector.  This  kind  of  expenditure  belongs 

1  The  British  general  election  of  1880  gave  rise  to  no  less  than  95  petitions 
impugning  returns  on  the  ground  of  some  form  of  corruption,  and  many  were 
sustained.  After  the  election  of  1886  there  was  not  a  single  petition.  After 
that  of  1892  there  were  ten  petitions  alleging  corrupt  practices,  and  in  three  of 
these  the  election  was  declared  void  on  the  ground  of  such  practices.  More 
recent  elections  have  brought  very  few  petitions,  and  the  boroughs  in  which 
bribery  still  exists  are  probably  less  than  a  dozen.  This  improvement  must, 
however,  be  partly  ascribed  to  the  Redistribution  Act  of  1885,  which  extin¬ 
guished  the  small  boroughs. 


chap,  lxvi  ELECTIONS  AND  THEIR  MACHINERY 


15i 


to  the  category  rather  of  paid  canvassing  than  of  bribery,  yet 
sometimes  the  true  European  species  occurs.  In  a  New  Hamp¬ 
shire  rural  town  not  long  ago,  $10  were  paid  to  each  of  two 
hundred  doubtful  voters.  In  some  districts  of  New  York  the 
friends  of  a  candidate  will  undertake,  in  case  he  is  returned,  to 
pay  the  rent  of  the  poorest  voters  who  occupy  tenement  houses, 
and  the  candidate  subsequently  makes  up  the  amount.1  The 
expenses  of  congressional  and  presidential  elections  are  often 
heavy,  and  though  the  larger  part  goes  in  organization  and 
demonstrations,  meetings,  torchlight  processions,  and  so  forth, 
a  part  is  likely  to  go  in  some  illicit  way.  A  member  of  Con¬ 
gress  for  a  poor  district  in  a  great  city  told  me  that  his  ex¬ 
penses  ran  from  $8000  up  to  $10,000,  which  is  just  about  what  a 
parliamentary  contest  used  to  cost  in  an  English  borough  con¬ 
stituency  of  equal  area.  In  America  the  number  of  voters  in  a 
congressional  district  is  more  than  five  times  as  great  as  in  an 
average  English  constituency,  but  the  official  expenses  of  polling 
booths  and  clerks  are  not  borne  by  the  candidate.  In  a  corrupt 
district  along  the  Hudson  River  above  New  York  I  have  heard  of 
as  much  as  $50,000  being  spent  at  a  single  congressional  election, 
when  in  some  other  districts  of  the  State  the  expenses  did  not  ex¬ 
ceed  $2000.  In  a  presidential  election  great  sums  are  spent  in 
doubtful,  or,  as  they  are  called,  “  pivotal/7  States.  Indiana  was 
“  drenched  with  money  77  in  1880,  much  of  it  contributed  by  great 
corporations,  and  a  large  part  doubtless  went  in  bribery.  What 
part  ever  does  go  it  is  the  harder  to  determine,  because  elections 
are  rarely  impeached  on  this  ground,  both  parties  tacitly  agreeing 
that  bygones  shall  be  bygones.  The  election  of  1888  was  one 
of  the  worst  on  record,  so  large  was  the  expenditure  in  doubtful 
States.  In  that  year  well-informed  Americans  came  to  perceive 
that  bribery  at  elections  was  a  growing  evil  in  their  country, 
though  even  now  they  think  it  less  noxious  than  either  Bossism  or 
election  frauds. 

This  alarm  has  favoured  the  movement  for  the  enactment 
of  laws  against  corrupt  practices.  More  than  half  the  States 

1  At  an  election  in  Brooklyn,  a  number  of  coloured  voters  sat  (literally) 
on  the  fence  in  front  of  the  polling  booths,  waiting  to  be  bought,  but  were 
disappointed,  the  parties  having  agreed  not  to  buy  them.  There  is  a  good  deal 
of  bribery  among  the  coloured  voters  in  some  of  the  cities :  e.g.  in  those  of 
Kentucky  and  Southern  Ohio,  and  in  Philadelphia. 

When  there  is  a  real  issue  before  the  voters,  bribery  diminishes.  In  the 
mayoralty  contest  of  1886,  in  New  York,  the  usually  venal  classes  went  straight 
for  the  Labour  candidate,  and  would  not  be  bought. 


152 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


have  now  passed  such  statutes.  New  lrork  requires  every  can¬ 
didate  and  the  treasurer  of  every  political  committee  to  file  an 
itemized  statement  of  receipts  and  expenditure.  Every  payment 
exceeding  $5  must  be  accounted  for  in  detail ;  and  expenditures 
are  restricted  to  certain  purposes.  The  provisions  vary  from 
State  to  State ;  on  the  whole  they  seem  to  be  working  for  good. 
The  practice,  so  general  in  America,  of  conducting  elections  by  a 
party  committee,  which  makes  its  payments  on  behalf  of  all  the 
candidates  running  in  the  same  interests,  renders  it  more  difficult 
than  it  is  in  Britain  to  fix  a  definite  limit  to  the  expenditure, 
either  by  a  candidate  himself  or  upon  the  conduct  of  the  election. 
However,  some  of  the  new  laws  attempt  this,  fixing  a  low  scale  for 
“campaign  expenditures/’  and  imposing  severe  penalties  on  the 
receiver  as  well  as  giver  of  any  bribe,  whether  to  vote  or  to  re¬ 
frain  from  voting,  a  form  in  which  bribery  seems  to  be  pretty 
frequent.  Othei  but  much  lighter  penalties  are  imposed  on  the 
practice  of  treating.  It  seems  probable  that  the  blow  struck  at 
electoral  corruption  by  the  secret  ballot  laws  will  be  followed  up 
by  a  general  limitation  of  expenditures.  Another  important 
advance  has  been  made  by  a  federal  law  which  requires  the 
publication  of  the  sums  received  by  party  Committees  in  Federal 
elections,  and  by  another  which  seeks  to  end  the  pernicious 
habit  into  which  large  corporations  had  fallen  of  making  con¬ 
tributions,  usually  kept  secret,  to  party  campaign  expenditure. 

On  the  whole  the  shadows  have  not  darkened ;  the  presidential 
election  of  1908  cost  less  than  preceding  contests  had  done  for 
many  years.  The  Republican  National  Committee  eturned  its 
total  receipts  at  $1,655,518,  while  those  of  the  Democratic  National 
Committee  were  $620,644.  These  figures,  however,  do  not  include 
the  sums  received  and  expended  by  State  committees,  part  of 
which  went  to  the  conduct  of  the  National  campaign. 

It  is  always  difficult  to  estimate  the  exact  value  of  laws 
which  propose  to  effect  by  mechanical  methods  reforms  which 
in  themselves  are  largely  moral.  This  much,  however,  may  be 
said,  that  while  in  all  countries  there  is  a  proportion  (varying  from 
age  to  age  and  country  to  country)  of  good  men  who  will  act 
honourably  whatever  the  law,  and  similarly  a  proportion  of  bad 
men  who  will  try  to  break  or  evade  the  best  laws,  there  is  also  a 
considerable  number  of  men  standing  between  these  two  classes, 
whose  tendency  to  evil  is  not  too  strong  to  be  repressed  by  law, 
and  in  whom  a  moral  sense  is  sufficiently  present  to  be  capable 


chap,  lx vi  ELECTIONS  AND  THEIR  MACHINERY 


153 


of  stimulation  and  education  by  a  good  law.  Although  it  is  true 
that  you  cannot  make  men  moral  by  a  statute,  you  can  arm  good 
citizens  with  weapons  which  improve  their  chances  in  the  unceas¬ 
ing  conflict  with  the  various  forms  in  which  political  dishonesty 
appears.  The  value  of  weapons,  however,  depends  upon  the  energy 
of  those  who  use  them.  These  improved  Ballot  acts  and  Corrupt 
Practices  acts  need  to  be  vigorously  enforced,  for  the  disposition, 
of  which  there  have  been  some  signs,  to  waive  the  penalties  they 
impose,  and  to  treat  election  frauds  and  other  similar  offences  as 
trivial  matters,  would  go  far  to  nullify  the  effect  to  be  expected 
from  the  statutes. 

Strong  arguments  have  been  adduced  in  favour  of  another 
reform  in  election  laws,  viz.,  the  trial  of  contested  elections,  not, 
as  now,  by  the  legislative  body  to  which  the  candidate  claims 
to  have  been  chosen,  but  by  a  court  of  law.  The  determinations 
of  a  legislature  are  almost  invariably  coloured  by  party  feeling, 
and  are  usually  decided  by  a  party  majority  in  favour  of  the  con¬ 
testant  whose  admission  would  increase  their  strength.  Hence 
they  obtain  little  respect,  while  corrupt  or  illegal  practices  do  not 
receive  their  due  condemnation  in  the  avoidance  of  the  election 
they  have  tainted.  Against  these  considerations  there  must  be 
set  the  danger  that  the  judges  who  try  such  cases  may  sometimes 
show,  or  be  thought  to  show,  political  partisanship,  and  that  the 
credit  of  the  bench  may  thus  suffer.  The  experience  of  England, 
where  disputed  parliamentary  elections  have  since  1867  been  tried 
by  judges  of  the  superior  courts,  and  municipal  elections  since  1883 
by  county  court  judges,  does  not  wholly  dispose  of  this  apprehen¬ 
sion  ;  for  it  happens  every  now  and  then  that  judges  are  accused 
of  partiality,  or  at  least  of  an  unconscious  bias.  Still,  British 
opinion  prefers  the  present  system  to  the  old  one  under  which 
Committees  of  the  House  of  Commons  tried  election  petitions. 
In  the  United  States  the  validity  of  the  election  of  an  executive 
officer  sometimes  comes  before  the  courts,  and  the  courts,  as 
a  rule,  decide  such  cases  with  fairness.  The  balance  of  reason 
and  authority  seems  to  lie  with  those  who,  like  ex-Speaker  Reed, 
have  advocated  the  change.  It  was  proposed  as  a  constitutional 
amendment  by  the  legislature  of  New  York  to  the  voters  in  1892, 
but  rejected.  Latterly  it  seems  to  have  dropped  out  of  sight. 

Not  satisfied,  however,  with  the  purification  of  election  methods, 
some  few  reformers  go  further,  and  have  proposed  to  render  the 
ballot  box  a  more  complete  representation  of  the  will  of  the  people 


154 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


by  making  voting  compulsory.  The  idea  is  not  quite  new;  in 
some  Greek  states  citizens  were  compelled  to  attend  the  Assembly  ; 
similar  provisions  were  to  be  found  in  parts  of  the  United  States 
in  last  century,  while  in  modern  Switzerland  several  cantons  fine 
electors  who  fail  to  vote  at  elections  or  when  laws  are  proposed 
under  a  referendum.  The  Swiss  evidence  as  to  the  merits  of  the 
plan  is  not  uniform.  In  St.  Gallen,  for  instance,  where  it  was  intro¬ 
duced  so  far  back  as  1835,  it  seems  to  have  worked  well,  while 
in  Solothurn  it  proved  ineffective,  and  was  ultimately  abolished. 
On  the  whole,  however,  the  effect  would  seem  to  have  been  to  bring 
out  a  comparatively  heavy  vote,  sometimes  reaching  83  and  even 
84  per  cent  of  the  registered  electors,  though  it  deserves  to  be 
noticed  that  the  cantons  in  which  the  plan  exists  are,  speaking 
generally,  those  in  which  political  life  is  anyhow  most  active.1 
In  the  United  States,  however,  abstention  from  voting  does 
not  appear  to  be  a  very  serious,  and  certainly  is  not  a  growing, 
evil.  City  and  State  elections  sometimes  fail  to  draw  even  three- 
fourths  of  the  voters  to  the  polls ;  but  in  the  presidential  election 
of  1880,  a  year  coinciding  with  that  of  the  national  census,  and 
therefore  suitable  for  investigation,  84  per  cent  of  the  qualified 
voters  in  the  whole  United  States  actually  tendered  their  votes, 
while  of  the  remaining  16  per  cent  fully  three-fourths  can  be  ac¬ 
counted  for  by  illness,  old  age,  necessary  causes  of  absence,  and,  in 
the  case  of  the  Southern  negroes,  intimidation,  leaving  not  more 
than  4  per  cent  out  of  the  total  number  of  voters  who  may  seem  to 
have  stayed  away  from  pure  indifference.^  This  was  a  good  result 
as  compared  with  Germany,  or  with  the  United  Kingdom,  where 
77  per  cent  is  considered  a  pretty  high  proportion  to  secure, 
though  at  some  recent  British  elections  the  figure  has  gone  above 
80  per  cent.  In  the  presidential  election  of  1892  the  total  number 
of  votes  cast  showed  only  about  half  the  increase  on  1888  which 
the  estimated  growth  of  population  ought  to  have  given.  This 
abstention,  however,  may  have  been  largely  due  not  to  indiffer¬ 
ence,  but  to  an  unwillingness  in  one  party  to  support  the  party 
candidate.  In  the  election  of  1900  the  percentages  varied  much 
in  different  States,  but  do  not  seem  to  have  reached  on  an  aver¬ 
age,  80  per  cent.  In  1904  the  total  popular  vote  was  less  than  in 

1 1  quote  from  a  paper  by  M.  Simon  Deploige  in  the  Belgian  Revue  Generate 
for  March,  1893. 

The  plan  is  now  b6ing  tried  in  Belgium. 

2  The  subject  is  examined  with  care  and  acuteness  by  Professor  A.  B.  Hart 
in  his  Practical  Essays  on  American  Government. 


chap,  lxvi  ELECTIONS  AND  THEIR  MACHINERY 


155 


1900.  The  increased  proportion  to  the  population  of  aliens  and 
disfranchised  negroes  makes  it  difficult  to  form  an  estimate. 

The  plan  of  compelling  men  to  vote  on  pain  of  being  fined  or 
incurring  some  disability  is  not  likely  to  be  adopted,  and  one  of 
the  arguments  against  it  is  indicated  by  the  cause  suggested  for 
the  abstentions  of  1892.  It  is  not  desirable  to  deprive  electors 
^displeased  by  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  of  the  power  of  pro¬ 
testing  against  him  by  declining  to  vote  at  all.  At  present,  when 
bad  nominations  are  made,  independent  voters  can  express  their 
disapproval  by  refusing  to  vote  for  these  candidates.  Were  vot¬ 
ing  compulsory,  they  would  probably,  so  strong  is  party  spirit, 
vote  for  these  bad  men  rather  than  for  their  opponents,  not  to 
add  that  the  opponents  might  be  equally  objectionable.  Thus 
the  power  of  party  leaders  and  of  the  Machine  generally  might  be 
increased.  I  doubt,  however,  whether  such  a  law  as  suggested 
could,  if  enacted,  be  effectively  enforced ;  and  it  is  not  well  to  add 
another  to  the  list  of  half-executed  statutes. 

The  abuse  of  the  right  of  appointing  election  officers  can 
hardly  be  called  a  corrupt  practice;  yet  it  has  in  some  places, 
and  notably  in  New  York  City,  caused  serious  mischiefs.  There 
elections  were  for  a  time  under  the  control  of  the  Police  Board, 
but  this  plan  gave  rise  to  great  abuses,  and  now  elections  have 
by  statute  been  placed  in  charge  of  a  Special  Board  of  four  Com¬ 
missioners,  two  of  whom  must  be  Republicans,  two  Democrats, 
there  being  also  in  each  district  four  election  inspectors,  again 
two  Republicans  and  two  Democrats,  with  a  ballot  clerk  from  each 
party.1  The  selection  of  shops  or  other  buildings  as  polling  places 
is  made  by  the  Board  on  the  recommendation  of  the  parties,  each 
being  allowed  a  half  share. 

The  particular  form  of  evil  here  described,  now  checked  in 
some  States,  still  flourishes  like  a  green  bay  tree  in  others.  But 
on  the  whole,  as  will  have  been  gathered  from  this  chapter,  the 
record  of  recent  progress  is  encouraging,  and  not  least  encourag¬ 
ing  in  this,  that  the  less  honest  politicians  themselves  have  been 
forced  to  accept  and  pass  measures  of  reform  which  public 
opinion,  previously  apathetic  or  ignorant,  had  been  aroused  by 
a  few  energetic  voices  to  demand. 


1  This  statutory  recognition  of  party  as  a  qualification  for  office  is  not  un¬ 
usual  in  America,  having  been  found  necessary  to  ensure  an  approach  to  equality 
of  distribution  between  the  parties  of  the  posts  of  election  officers,  for  the  fair¬ 
ness  of  whose  action  it  was  essential  that  there  should  be  some  sort  of  guarantee. 


CHAPTER  LXVII 


CORRUPTION 

No  impression  regarding  American  politics  is  more  generally 
diffused  in  Europe  than  that  contained  in  the  question  which 
the  traveller  who  has  returned  from  the  United  States  becomes 
so  weary  of  being  asked,  “ Isn’t  everybody  corrupt  there?”  It 
is  an  impression  for  which  the  Americans  themselves,  with  their 
airy  way  of  talking  about  their  own  country,  their  fondness  for 
broad  effects,  their  enjoyment  of  a  good  story  and  humorous 
pleasure  in  exaggerations  generally,  are  largely  responsible. 
European  visitors  who,  generally  belonging  to  the  wealthier 
classes,  are  generally  reactionary  in  politics,  and  glad  to  find 
occasion  for  disparaging  popular  government,  eagerly  catch  up 
and  repeat  the  stories  they  are  told  in  New  York  or  San  Fran¬ 
cisco.  European  readers  take  literally  the  highly  coloured 
pictures  of  some  American  novels  and  assume  that  the  descrip¬ 
tions  there  given  of  certain  men  and  groups  “ inside  politics” 
—  descriptions  legitimate  enough  in  a  novel  —  hold  true  of  all 
men  and  groups  following  that  unsavoury  trade.  Europeans, 
moreover,  and  Englishmen  certainly  not  less  than  other  Euro¬ 
peans,  have  a  useful  knack  of  forgetting  their  own  shortcomings 
when  contemplating' those  of  their  neighbours ;  so  you  may  hear 
men  wax  eloquent  over  the  depravity  of  transatlantic  politicians 
who  will  sail  very  near  the  wind  in  giving  deceptive  pledges  to 
their  own  constituents,  who  will  support  flagrant  jobs  done  on 
behalf  of  their  own  party,  who  will  accept  favours  from,  and 
dine  with,  and  receive  at  their  own  houses,  financial  speculators 
and  members  of  the  legislature  whose  aims  are  just  as  base,  and 
whose  standard  is  just  as  low  as  those  of  the  worst  congressman 
that  ever  came  to  push  his  fortune  in  Washington. 

I  am  sensible  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  estimating  the 
amount  of  corruption  that  prevails  in  the  United  States.  If  a 
native  American  does  not  know  —  as  few  do  —  how  deep  it  goes 
nor  how  widely  it  is  spread,  much  less  can  a  stranger.  I  have, 

156 


CHAP.  LX VII 


CORRUPTION 


157 


however,  submitted  the  impressions  I  formed  to  the  judgment 
of  some  fair-minded  and  experienced  American  friends,  and  am 
assured  by  them  that  these  impressions  are  substantially  correct ; 
that  is  to  say,  that  they  give  a  view  of  the  facts  such  as  they 
have  themselves  formed  from  an  observation  incomparably 
wider  than  that  of  a  European  traveller  could  be. 

The  word  “ corruption”  needs  to  be  analyzed.1  It  is  used  to 
cover  several  different  kinds  of  political  unsoundness. 

One  sense,  the  most  obvious,  is  the  taking  or  giving  of  money 
bribes.  Another  sense  is  the  taking  or  giving  of  bribes  in  kind, 
e.g.  the  allotment  of  a  certain  quantity  of  stock  or  shares  in  a 
company,  or  of  an  interest  in  a  profitable  contract,  or  of  a  land 
grant.  The  offence  is  essentially  the  same  as  where  a  money 
bribe  passes,  but  to  most  people  it  does  not  seem  the  same, 
partly  because  the  taking  of  money  is  a  more  unmistakable 
selling  of  one’s  self,  partly  because  it  is  usually  uncertain  how 
the  bribe  given  in  kind  will  turn  out,  and  a  man  excuses  him¬ 
self  by  thinking  that  its  value  will  depend  on  how  he  develops 
the  interest  he  has  obtained.  A  third  sense  of  the  word  in¬ 
cludes  the  doing  of  a  job,  e.g.  promising  a  contractor  that  he 
shall  have  the  clothing  of  the  police  or  the  cleaning  of  the 
city  thoroughfares  in  return  for  his  political  support;  giving 
official  advertisements  to  a  particular  newspaper  which  puffs 
you ;  promising  a  railroad  president,  whose  subscription  to 
party  funds  is  hoped  for,  to  secure  the  defeat  of  a  bill  seeking 
to  regulate  the  freight  charges  of  his  road  or  threatening  its 
land  grants.  These  cases  shade  off  into  those  of  the  last  pre¬ 
ceding  group,  but  they  seem  less  black,  because  the  act  done  is 
one  which  would  probably  be  done  anyhow  by  some  one  else 
from  no  better  motive,  and  because  the  turpitude  consists  not 
in  getting  a  private  gain,  but  in  misusing  a  public  position  to 
secure  a  man’s  own  political  advancement.  Hence  the  virtue 
that  will  resist  a  bribe  will  often  succumb  to  these  tempta¬ 
tions. 

There  is  also  the  sense  in  which  the  bestowal  of  places  of 
power  and  profit  from  personal  motives  is  said  to  be  a  corrupt 
exercise  of  patronage.  Opinion  has  in  all  countries  been  lenient 

1  The  term  “graft”  has  within  the  present  century  established  itself  as  that 
which  technically  describes  the  corrupt  taking  of  money  by  public  officials, 
and  its  frequent  use  testifies  not  to  a  spread  of  the  malady,  but  rather  to  the 
growing  sensitiveness  of  the  public  conscience  and  the  more  earnest  efforts  to 
abate  the  evil. 


158 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


to  such  action  when  the  place  is  given  as  a  reward  of  party 
services,  but  the  line  between  a  party  and  a  personal  service 
cannot  be  easily  drawn. 

Then,  lastly,  one  sometimes  hears  the  term  stretched  to  cover 
insincerity  in  professions  of  political  faith.  To  give  pledges 
and  advocate  measures  which  one  inwardly  dislikes  and  deems 
opposed  to  the  public  interest  is  a  form  of  misconduct  which 
seems  far  less  gross  than  to  sell  one’s  vote  or  influence,  but  it 
may  be,  in  a  given  instance,  no  less  injurious  to  the  State. 

Although  these  two  latter  sets  of  cases  do  not  fall  within  the 
proper  meaning  and  common  use  of  the  word  “  corruption,”  it 
seems  worth  while  to  mention  them,  because  derelictions  of 
duty  which  a  man  thinks  trivial  in  the  form  with  which  cus¬ 
tom  has  made  him  familiar  in  his  own  country,  where  perhaps 
they  are  matter  for  merriment,  shock  him  when  they  appear 
in  a  different  form  in  another  country.  They  get  mixed  up  in 
his  mind  with  venality,  and  are  cited  to  prove  that  the  country 
is  corrupt  and  its  politicians  profligate.  A  European  who  does 
not  blame  a  minister  for  making  a  man  governor  of  a  colony 
because  he  has  done  some  back-stairs  parliamentary  work,  will 
be  shocked  at  seeing  in  New  York  some  one  put  into  the  cus¬ 
tom-house  in  order  that  he  may  organize  primaries  in  the 
district  of  the  congressman  who  has  got  him  the  place.  Eng¬ 
lish  members  of  Parliament  condemn  the  senator  who  moves 
a  resolution  intended  to  “ placate”  the  Irish  vote,  while  they 
forget  their  own  professions  of  ardent  interest  in  schemes 
which  they  think  economically  unsound  but  likely  to  rouse  the 
flagging  interest  of  the  agricultural  labourer.  Distinguishing 
these  senses  in  which  the  word  “ corruption”  is  used,  let  us 
attempt  to  inquire  how  far  it  is  chargeable  on  the  men  who 
compose  each  of  the  branches  of  the  American  Federal  and 
State  government. 

No  President  has  ever  been  seriously  charged  with  pecuniary 
corruption.  The  Presidents  have  been  men  very  different  in 
their  moral  standard,  and  sometimes  neither  scrupulous  nor 
patriotic,  but  money  or  money’s  worth  they  have  never  touched 
for  themselves,  great  as  the  temptations  must  have  been  to 
persons  with  small  means  and  heavy  expenses.  They  have 
doubtless  often  made  bad  appointments  from  party  motives, 
have  sought  to  strengthen  themselves  by  the  use  of  their  pat¬ 
ronage,  have  talked  insincerely  and  tolerated  jobs;  but  all 


CHAP.  LXVII 


CORRUPTION 


159 


these  things  have  also  been  done  within  the  last  thirty  years 
by  sundry  English,  French,  and  Italian  prime  ministers,  some 
of  whom  have  since  been  canonized. 

The  standard  of  honour  maintained  by  the  Presidents  has 
not  always  been  maintained  by  the  leading  members  of  their 
administrations,  several  of  whom  were,  though  none  in  recent 
years,  suspected  of  complicity  in  railroad  jobs,  and  even  in 
frauds  upon  the  revenue.  They  may  not  have,  probably  they 
did  not,  put  any  part  of  the  plunder  into  their  own  pockets, 
but  they  have  winked  at  the  misdeeds  of  their  subordinates, 
and  allowed  the  party  funds  to  be  replenished,  not  by  direct 
malversation,  yet  by  rendering  services  to  influential  individuals 
or  corporations  which  a  strict  sense  of  public  duty  would  have 
forbidden.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  there 
seems  to  be  no  case  since  the  war  —  although  there  was  a  bad 
case  in  President  Buchanan’s  Cabinet  just  before  the  war  — 
in  which  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  has  received  money,  or  its 
equivalent,  as  the  price  of  either  an  executive  act  or  an  appoint¬ 
ment,  while  inferior  officials,  who  have  been  detected  in  so  doing 
(and  this  occasionally  happens),  have  been  dismissed  and  dis¬ 
graced.1 

Next,  as  to  Congress.  It  is  particularly  hard  to  discover  the 
truth  about  Congress,  for  few  of  the  abundant  suspicions  ex¬ 
cited  and  accusations  brought  against  senators  or  members  of 
the  House  have  been,  or  could  have  been,  sifted  to  the  bottom. 
Among  nearly  five  hundred  men  there  will  be  the  clean  and 
the  unclean.  The  opportunities  for  private  gain  are  large,  the 
chances  of  detection  small ;  few  members  keep  their  seats  for 
five  or  six  successive  congresses,  and  one-third  are  changed 
every  two  years,  so  the  temptation  to  make  hay  while  the  sun 
shines  is  all  the  stronger. 

There  are  several  forms  which  temptation  takes  in  the  Fed¬ 
eral  legislature.  One  is  afforded  by  the  position  a  member 
holds  on  a  committee.  All  bills  and  many  resolutions  are 
referred  to  some  one  of  the  committees,  and  it  is  in  the  com¬ 
mittee-room  that  their  fate  is  practically  decided.  In  a  small 
body  each  member  has  great  power,  and  the  exercise  of  power 


1  The  so-called  Whiskey  Ring  of  1875  and  the  Star  Route  gang  of  a  later 
time  are  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  instances  of  malpractices  in  the  civil 
service.  Some  gross  instances  of  misconduct  on  the  part  of  minor  officers  in 
the  New  York  Custom  Office  were  discovered  in  1909. 


160 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


(as  observed  already)  1  is  safeguarded  by  little  responsibility. 
He  may  materially  advance  a  bill  promoted  by  an  influential 
manufacturer,  or  financier,  or  railroad  president.  He  may 
obstruct  it.  He  may  help,  or  may  oppose,  a  bill  directed  against 
a  railroad  or  other  wealthy  corporation,  which  has  something 
to  gain  or  lose  from  Federal  legislation.2  No  small  part  of  the 
business  of  Congress  is  what  would  be  called  in  England  pri¬ 
vate  business ;  and  although  the  individual  railroads  which 
come  directly  into  relation  with  the  Federal  government  are 
not  numerous,  —  the  great  transcontinental  lines  which  have 
received  land  grants  or  other  subventions  are  the  most  impor¬ 
tant,  —  questions  affecting  these  roads  have  frequently  come  up 
and  have  involved  large  amounts  of  money.  The  tariff  on  im¬ 
ports  opens  another  enormous  sphere  in  which  legislative  inter¬ 
vention  affects  private  pecuniary  interests ;  for  it  makes  all 
the  difference  to  many  sets  of  manufacturers  whether  duties  on 
certain  classes  of  goods  are  raised,  or  maintained,  or  lowered. 
Hence  the  doors  of  Congress  are  besieged  by  a  whole  army  of 
commercial  or  railroad  men  and  their  agents,  to  whom,  since 
they  have  come  to  form  a  sort  of  profession,  the  name  of  Lob- 
.  byists  is  given.3  Many  congressmen  are  personally  interested, 
and  lobby  for  themselves  among  their  colleagues  from  the 
vantage-ground  of  their  official  positions. 

Thus  a  vast  deal  of  solicitation  and  bargaining  goes  on. 
Lobbyists  offer  considerations  for  help  in  passing  a  bill  which 
is  desired  or  in  stopping  a  bill  which  is  feared.  Two  members, 
each  of  whom  has  a  bill  to  get  through,  or  one  of  whom  desires 
to  prevent  his  railroad  from  being  interfered  with  while  the 
other  wishes  the  tariff  on  an  article  which  he  manufactures 
kept  up,  make  a  compact  by  which  each  aids  the  other.  This 
is  Log-rolling :  You  help  me  to  roll  my  log,  which  is  too  heavy 
for  my  unaided  strength,  and  I  help  you  to  roll  yours.  Some¬ 
times  a  member  brings  in  a  bill  directed  against  some  railroad 
or  other  great  corporation,  merely  in  order  to  levy  blackmail 

1  See  Chapter  XV.  in  Vol.  I.  on  the  Committees  of  Congress. 

2 1  remember  to  have  heard  of  the  governor  of  a  Western  Territory  who, 
when  he  came  East,  used  to  borrow  money  from  the  head  of  a  great  railway 
which  traversed  his  Territory,  saying  he  would  oblige  the  railway  when  it 
found  occasion  to  ask  him.  His  power  of  obliging  included  the  right  to  veto 
bills  passed  by  the  Territorial  legislature.  This  governor  was  an  ex-Boss  of 
an  Eastern  State  whom  his  party  had  provided  for  by  bestowing  the  governor¬ 
ship  on  him. 

3  See  ante,  Note  (B)  to  Chapter  XVI.  in  Appendix  to  Vol.  I. 


CHAP.  LX VII 


CORRUPTION 


161 


upon  it.  This  is  technically  called  a  Strike.  An  eminent  rail¬ 
road  president  told  me  that  for  some  years  a  certain  senator 
regularly  practised  this  trick.  When  he  had  brought  in  his 
bill  he  came  straight  to  New  York,  called  at  the  railroad  offices, 
and  asked  the  president  what  he  would  give  him  to  withdraw 
the  bill.  That  the  Capitol  and  the  hotels  at  Washington  are 
a  nest  of  such  intrigues  and  machinations,  while  Congress  is 
sitting,  is  admitted  on  all  hands ;  but  how  many  of  the  mem¬ 
bers  are  tainted,  no  one  can  tell.  Sometimes  when  money 
passes,  it  goes,  not  to  the  member  of  Congress  himself,  but  to 
some  Boss  who  can  and  does  put  pressure  on  him.  Sometimes, 
again,  a  lobbyist  will  demand  a  sum  for  the  purpose  of  bribing 
a  member  who  is  really  honest,  and,  having  ascertained  that 
the  member  is  going  to  vote  in  the  way  desired,  will  keep  the 
sum  in  his  own  pocket.  Bribery  often  takes  the  form  of  a 
transfer  of  stocks  or  shares,  nor  have  even  free  passes  on  rail¬ 
roads  been  scorned  by  some  of  the  more  needy  legislators. 
The  abuse  on  this  head  had  grown  so  serious  that  the  bestowal 
of  passes  was  forbidden  [on  inter-State  lines]  by  Federal  statute 
in  1887,  and  is  now  forbidden  by  the  constitutions  of  many 
States.1  In  1883  portions  of  a  correspondence  in  the  years 
1876-78  between  Mr.  Huntington,  one  of  the  proprietors  and 
directors  of  the  Central  (now  Southern)  Pacific  Railroad,  who 
then  represented  that  powerful  corporation  at  Washington,  and 
one  of  his  agents  in  California,  were  published ;  and  from  these 
it  appeared  that  the  company,  whose  land  grants  were  frequently 
threatened  by  hostile  bills,  and  which  was  exposed  to  the  com¬ 
petition  of  rival  enterprises,  which  (because  they  were  to  run 
through  Territories)  Congress  was  asked  to  sanction,  defended 
itself  by  constant  dealings  with  senators  and  representatives  — 
dealings  in  the  course  of  which  it  offered  money  and  bonds  to 
those  whose  support  it  needed.2 


1  All  lines  traversing  the  territory  of  more  than  one  State  are  subject  to 
the  power  of  Congress  to  “regulate  commerce.”  As  to  free  passes,  see  the 
instructive  remarks  of  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission  in  their  First 
Report.  The  grant  by  the  State  of  free  passes  on  railways  to  members  of  the 
Chambers  has  led  to  abuses  in  Italy. 

2  Mr.  Huntington  comments  freely  on  the  character  of  various  members  of 
both  Houses,  and  describes  not  only  his  own  operations,  but  those  of  Mr.  Scott, 
his  able  and  active  opponent,  who  had  the  great  advantage  of  being  able  to 
command  passes  on  some  railways  running  out  of  Washington.  In  one  letter 
he  uses  a  graphic  and  characteristic  metaphor:  “Scott  has  switched  off  (i.e.  off 
the  Central  Pacific  track  and  on  to  his  own  railroad  track)  Senators  S.  and  W., 

M 


162 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


It  does  not  seem,  from  what  one  hears  on  the  spot,  that 
money  is  often  given,  or,  I  should  rather  say,  it  seems  that  the 
men  to  whom  it  is  given  are  few  in  number.  But  considera¬ 
tions  of  some  kind  pretty  often  pass,1  so  that  corruption  in 
both  the  first  and  second  of  the  above  senses  must  be  admitted 
to  exist  and  to  affect  a  portion,  though  only  a  small  portion,  of 
Congress.2  A  position  of  some  delicacy  is  occupied  by  eminent 
lawyers  who  sit  in  Congress  and  receive  retainers  from  power¬ 
ful  corporations  whose  interests  may  be  affected  by  congres¬ 
sional  legislation,  retainers  for  which  they  are  often  not  expected 
to  render  any  forensic  service.3  There  are  various  ways  in  which 
members  of  Congress  can  use  their  position  to  advance  their 
personal  interests.  They  have  access  to  the  executive,  and 
can  obtain  favours  from  it ;  not  so  much  because  the  executive 
cares  what  legislation  they  pass,  for  it  has  little  to  do  with 
legislation,  but  that  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  are  on  their 
promotion,  and  anxious  to  stand  well  with  persons  whose  influ¬ 
ence  covers  any  considerable  local  area,  who  may  perhaps  be 
even  able  to  control  the  delegation  of  a  State  in  a  nominating 
convention.  Hence  a  senator  or  congressman  may  now  and 
then  sway  the  executive  towards  a  course  it  would  not  other¬ 
wise  have  taken,  and  the  resulting  gain  to  himself,  or  to  some 
person  who  has  invoked  his  influence,  may  be  an  illicit  gain, 
probably  not  in  the  form  of  money,  but  as  a  job  out  of  which 
something  may  be  made.  Again,  it  has  been  hitherto  an  impor¬ 
tant  part  of  a  member’s  duty  to  obtain  places  for  his  constitu¬ 
ents  in  the  Federal  civil  service.  There  are  still  many  such 
places  not  subject  to  the  civil  service  rules.  Here  there  has  lain 
a  vast  field,  if  not  for  pecuniary  gain,  for  appointments  are  not 


but  you  know  they  can  be  switched  back  with  the  proper  arrangements  when 
they  are  wanted.” 

The.  Report  of  the  U.  S.  Pacific  Railway  Commission  says  of  these  transac¬ 
tions,  ‘‘There  is  no  room  for  doubt  that  a  large  portion  of  the  sum  of  $4,818,000 
was  used  for  the  purpose  of  influencing  legislation  and  of  preventing  the  pas¬ 
sage  of  measures  deemed  to  be  hostile  to  the  interests  of  the  company,  and  for 
the  purpose  of  influencing  elections.”  —  Report,  p.  84. 

1  The  president  of  a  great  Western  Railroad  told  me  that  congressmen  used 
to  come  to  the  company’s  office  to  buy  its  land,  and  on  seeing  the  price-list 
would  say,  ‘‘But  isn’t  there  a  discount?  Surely  you  can  give  the  land  cheaper 
to  a  friend.  You  know  I  shall  be  your  friend  in  Congress,”  and  so  forth. 

2  Among  the  investigations  which  disclosed  the  existence  of  bribery  among 
members  of  Congress,  the  most  prominent  since  that  of  1856-57  are  those  of  the 
Credit  Mobilier  and  the  Pacific  Mail  cases. 

3  See  Vol.  I.,  p.  121,  note. 


CHAP.  LX VII 


CORRUPTION 


163 


sold,  yet  for  the  gratification  of  personal  and  party  interests. 
Nor  does  the  mischief  stop  with  the  making  of  inferior  appoint¬ 
ments,  for  the  habit  of  ignoring  public  duty  which  is  formed 
blunts  men’s  sense  of  honour,  and  makes  them  more  apt  to  yield 
to  some  grosser  form  of  temptation.  Similar  causes  produced 
similar  effects  during  last  century  in  England,  and  it  is  said 
that  the  French  legislature  now  suffers  from  the  like  malady, 
members  of  the  Chamber  being  incessantly  occupied  in  wheed¬ 
ling  or  threatening  the  Executive  into  conferring  places  and 
decorations  upon  their  constituents. 

The  rank  and  file  of  the  Federal  civil  service  attain  a  level 
of  integrity  as  high  as  that  of  England  or  Germany.  The 
State  civil  service  is  comparatively  small,  and  in  most  States 
one  hears  little  said  against  it ;  yet  cases  of  defaulting  State 
treasurers  are  not  uncommon.  Taking  one  part  of  the  coun¬ 
try  with  another,  a  citizen  who  has  business  with  a  govern¬ 
ment  department,  such  as  the  customs  or  excise,  or  with  a 
State  treasurer’s  office,  or  with  a  poor  law  or  school  authority, 
has  as  much  expectation  of  finding  honest  men  to  deal  with 
as  he  has  of  finding  trustworthy  agents  to  conduct  a  piece 
of  private  commercial  business.  Instances  of  dishonesty  are 
more  noticed  when  they  occur  in  a  public  department,  but 
they  seem  to  be  little  (if  at  all)  more  frequent.1 

It  is  hard  to  form  a  general  judgment  regarding  the  State 
legislatures,  because  they  differ  so  much  among  themselves. 
Those  of  Massachusetts,  Vermont,  and  several  of  the  North¬ 
western  States,  such  as  Michigan,  are  pure,  i.e.  the  members 
who  would  take  a  bribe  are  but  few,  and  those  who  would 
push  through  a  job  for  some  other  sort  of  consideration  a  com¬ 
paratively  small  fraction  of  the  whole.2  Even  in  the  North-west, 
however,  a  wealthy  man  has  great  advantages  in  securing  a  Fed¬ 
eral  senatorship  at  the  hands  of  the  legislature.  Some  States, 
including  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  have  so  bad  a  name 
that  people  are  surprised  when  a  good  act  passes,  and  a  strong 
governor  is  kept  constantly  at  work  vetoing  bills  corruptly 
obtained.  Several  causes  have  contributed  to  degrade  the  legis¬ 
lature  of  New  York  State.  The  Assembly  having  but  150  mem- 

1  There  have,  however,  been  some  serious  cases  of  malpractice  in  the  Cus¬ 
toms  at  the  seaports. 

2  The  new  Western  legislatures  vary  greatly  from  time  to  time.  Sometimes 
they  are  quite  pure ;  the  next  election  under  some  demagogic  impulse  may 
bring  in  a  crowd  of  mischievous  adventurers. 


164 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


bers,  and  the  Senate  51,  each  member  is  worth  buying.  There 
are  in  the  State,  besides  New  York,  several  considerable  ring- 
governed  cities  whence  bad  members  come.  There  are  also 
immensely  powerful  corporations,  such  as  the  great  railroads 
which  traverse  it  on  their  way  to  the  West.  Great  corporations 
are  everywhere  the  bane  of  State  politics,  for  their  management 
is  secret,  being  usually  in  the  hands  of  one  or  two  capitalists, 
and  their  wealth  is  so  large  that  they  can  offer  bribes  at  which 
ordinary  virtue  grows  pale.  They  have,  moreover,  in  many 
cases  this  excuse,  that  it  is  only  by  the  use  of  money  they  can 
ward  off  the  attacks  constantly  made  upon  them  by  demagogues 
or  blackmailers.  The  Assembly  includes  many  honest  men, 
and  a  few  rich  men  who  do  not  need  a  douceur,  but  the  propor¬ 
tion  of  tainted  men  is  large  enough  to  pollute  the  whole  lump. 
Of  what  the  bribe-taker  gets  he  keeps  a  part  for  himself,  using 
the  rest  to  buy  the  doubtful  votes  of  purchasable  people ;  to 
others  he  promises  his  assistance  when  they  need  it,  and  when 
by  such  log-rolling  he  has  secured  a  considerable  backing,  he 
goes  to  the  honest  men,  among  whom,  of  course,  he  has  a  con¬ 
siderable  acquaintance,  puts  the  matter  to  them  in  a  plausible 
way,  —  they  are  probably  plain  farmers  from  the  rural  dis¬ 
tricts, —  and  so  gains  his  majority.  Each  great  corporation 
keeps  an  agent  at  Albany,  the  capital  of  the  State,  who  has 
authority  to  buy  off  the  promoters  of  hostile  bills,  and  to  em¬ 
ploy  the  requisite  professional  lobbyists.  Such  a  lobbyist,  who 
may  or  may  not  be  himself  a  member,  bargains  for  a  sum 
down,  $5000  or  $10,000,  in  case  he  succeeds  in  getting  the  bill 
in  question  passed  or  defeated,  as  the  case  may  be ;  and  when 
the  session  ends  he  comes  for  his  money,  and  no  questions  are 
asked.  This  sort  of  thing  now  goes  on,  or  has  lately  gone  on, 
in  several  other  States,  though  nowhere  on  so  grand  a  scale. 
Virginia,  Maryland,  California,  Illinois,  Missouri,  are  all  more 
or  less  impure;  Louisiana,  under  the  influence  of  its  lottery 
company  (now  happily  at  an  end),  was  even  worse  than  New 
YMrk.1  But  the  lowest  point  was  reached  in  some  of  the  Southern 
States  shortly  after  the  war,  when,  the  negroes  having  received 
the  suffrage,  the  white  inhabitants  were  still  excluded  as  rebels, 
and  the  executive  government  was  conducted  by  Northern 

1  The  New  York  legislature  has  been  believed  to  have  improved  of  late  years, 
and  probably  may  be  improving,  though  a  grave  case  of  corruption  was  un¬ 
earthed  in  1909-10. 


CHAP.  LXVII 


CORRUPTION 


165 


carpet-baggers  under  the  protection  of  Federal  troops.  In 
some  States  the  treasury  was  pilfered;  huge  State  debts  were 
run  up ;  negroes  voted  farms  to  themselves ;  all  kinds  of  rob¬ 
bery  and  jobbery  went  on  unchecked.  South  Carolina,  for 
instance,  was  a  perfect  Tartarus  of  corruption,  as  much  below 
the  Hades  of  Illinois  or  Missouri  as  the  heaven  of  ideal  purity 
is  above  the  ordinary  earth  of  Boston  and  Westminster.1  In  its 
legislature  them  was  an  old  darkey,  jet  black  and  with  vener¬ 
able  white  hair,  a  Methodist  preacher,  and  influential  among 
his  brother  statesmen,  who  kept  a  stall  for  legislation,  where 
he  dealt  in  statutes  at  prices  varying  from  $100  to  $40Q.  Since 
those  days  there  has  been  a  peaceful  revolution  for  the  better 
at  the  South,  but  some  of  its  legislative  bodies  have  still  much 
leeway  to  make  up. 

Of  city  governments  I  have  spoken  in  previous  chapters. 
They  are  usually  worse  when  the  population  exceeds  100,000, 
and  includes  a  large  proportion  of  recent  immigrants.  They 
are  generally  pure  in  smaller  places,  that  is  to  say,  nearly  as 
pure  as  those  of  an  average  English,  French,  or  German  city. 

The  form  which  corruption  usually  takes  in  the  populous 
cities  is  the  grant  at  a  wholly  inadequate  price  of  “ franchises” 
(especially  monopolies  in  the  use  of  public  thoroughfares),  — 
a  frequent  and  scandalous  practice,2  —  the  jobbing  of  contracts, 
and  the  bestowal  of  places  upon  personal  adherents,  both  of 
them  faults  not  unknown  in  large  European  municipalities,  and 
said  to  be  specially  rife  in  Paris,  though  no  rifer  than  under  Louis 
Napoleon,  when  the  reconstruction  of  the  city  under  Prefect 
Haussman  provided  unequalled  opportunities  for  the  enrich¬ 
ment  of  individuals  at  the  public  expense.  English  small 
local  authorities,  and  even,  though  much  more  rarely,  town 
councils,  do  some  quiet  jobbery.  No  European  city  has,  how¬ 
ever,  witnessed  scandals  approaching  those  of  New  York, 
where  the  public  was  in  1869-70  robbed  on  a  vast  scale,  and 
accounts  were  systematically  cooked  to  conceal  the  thefts,3  or 
the  malversations  that  occurred  in  connection  with  the  Phila¬ 
delphia  City  Hall  and  with  the  erection  of  the  Pennsylvania 
State  Capitol  at  Harrisburg. 

1  'Ybaaov  evepO’  A iSecv  oaov  ovpavbs  ear  curb  yalrjs. 

2  A  notorious  case  was  the  sale  by  the  New  York  aldermen  of  the  right  to 
lay  a  tramway  in  Broadway.  Nearly  the  whole  number  were  indicted,  and 
some  were  punished  by  imprisonment. 

3  See  Chapter  LXXXVIII.  post. 


166 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


On  a  review  of  the  whole  matter,  the  following  conclusions 
may  be  found  not  very  wide  of  the  truth. 

Bribery  exists  in  Congress,  but  is  confined  to  a  few  members, 
say  five  per  cent  of  the  whole  number.  It  is  more  common  in 
the  legislatures  of  a  few,  but  only  a  few,  States,  practically  ab¬ 
sent  from  the  higher  walks  of  the  Federal  civil  service,  rare 
among  the  chief  State  officials,  not  frequent  among  the  lower 
officials,  unknown  among  the  Federal  judges,  rare  among  State 
judges.1 

The  taking  of  other  considerations  than  money,  such  as  a 
share  in  a  lucrative  contract,  or  a  railway  pass,  or  a  “good 
thing”  to  be  secured  for  a  friend,  prevails  among  legislators  to 
a  somewhat  larger  extent.  Being  less  coarsely  palpable  than 
the  receipt  of  money,  it  is  thought  more  venial.  One  may 
roughly  conjecture  that  from  fifteen  to  twenty  per  cent  of  the 
members  of  Congress  and  perhaps  rather  more  of  an  average 
State  legislature  would  allow  themselves  to  be  influenced  by 
inducements  of  this  kind. 

Malversation  of  public  funds  occurs  occasionally  in  cities,  less 
frequently  among  Federal  or  State  officers. 

Jobbery  of  various  kinds,  i.e.  the  misuse  of  a  public  position 
for  the  benefit  of  individuals,  is  not  rare,  and  in  large  cities 
common.  It  is  often  disguised  as  a  desire  to  render  some  ser¬ 
vice  to  the  party,  and  the  same  excuse  is  sometimes  found  for 
a  misappropriation  of  public  money. 

Patronage  is  usually  dispensed  with  a  view  to  party  considera¬ 
tions  or  to  win  personal  support.  But  this  remark  is  equally 
true  of  England  and  France,  the  chief  difference  being  that 
owing  to  the  short  terms  and  frequent  removals  the  quantity 
of  patronage  is  relatively  greater  in  the  United  States. 

If  this  is  not  a  bright  picture,  neither  is  it  so  dark  as  that 
which  most  Europeans  have  drawn,  and  which  the  loose  lan¬ 
guage  of  many  Americans  sanctions.  What  makes  it  seem 
dark  is  the  contrast  between  the  deficiencies  which  the  govern¬ 
ment  shows  in  this  respect,  and  the  excellence,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  the  frame  of  the  Constitution,  on  the  other,  of  the  tone  and 
sentiment  of  the  people.  The  European  reader  may,  however, 

1  Senators  are  often  charged  with  buying  themselves  into  the  Senate ;  but, 
so  far  as  I  could  ascertain,  it  does  not  often  happen  that  a  candidate  for  the 
Senate  directly  bribes  members  of  the  State  legislature,  though  frequently  he 
makes  heavy  contributions  to  the  party  election  fund,  used  to  defray  the  elec¬ 
tion  expenses  of  the  members  of  the  party  dominant  in  the  State  legislature. 


CHAP.  LXVII 


CORRUPTION 


167 


complain  that  the  picture  is  vague  in  its  outlines.  I  cannot 
make  it  more  definite.  The  facts  are  not  easy  to  ascertain,  and 
it  is  hard  to  say  what  standard  one  is  to  apply  to  them.  In  the 
case  of  America  men  are  inclined  to  apply  a  rigid  standard, 
because  she  is  a  republic,  professing  to  have  made  a  new  de¬ 
parture  in  politics,  and  setting  before  her  a  higher  ideal  than 
most  European  monarchies.  Yet  it  must  be  remembered  that 
in  a  new  and  large  county,  where  the  temptations  are  enormous 
and  the  persons  tempted  have  many  of  them  no  social  position 
to  forfeit,  the  conditions  are  not  the  most  favourable  to  virtue. 
If,  recognizing  the  fact  that  the  path  of  the  politician  is  in  all 
countries  thickly  set  with  snares,  we  leave  ideals  out  of  sight 
and  try  America  by  the  average  concrete  standard  of  Europe, 
we  shall  find  that  while  her  legislatures  fall  much  below  the 
level  of  purity  maintained  in  England  and  Germany,  and  also 
below  that  of  France  and  Italy,  the  body  of  her  higher  Federal 
officials,  in  spite  of  the  evils  flowing  from  an  uncertain  tenure, 
is  not,  in  point  of  integrity,  at  this  moment  markedly  inferior 
to  the  administrations  of  most  European  countries.  This  is 
perhaps  less  generally  true  of  most  of  the  State  officials ;  and 
it  certainly  cannot  be  said  of  those  who  administer  the  business 
of  the  larger  cities,  for  the  standard  of  purity  has  there  sunk 
to  a  point  lower  than  that  which  the  municipalities  of  any 
European  country  show. 


CHAPTER  LXVIII 


THE  WAR  AGAINST  BOSSDOM 

It  must  not  be  supposed  the  inhabitants  of  ring-ruled  cities 
tamely  submit  to  their  tyrants.  The  Americans  are  indeed, 
what  with  their  good  nature  and  what  with  the  preoccupation 
of  the  most  active  men  in  their  private  business,  a  long-suffering 
people.  But  patience  has  its  limits,  and  when  a  Ring  has  pushed 
paternal  government  too  far,  an  insurrection  may  break  out. 
Rings  have  generally  the  sense  to  scent  the  coming  storm,  and  to 
avert  it  by  making  two  or  three  good  nominations,  and  promising 
a  reduction  of  taxes.  Sometimes,  however,  they  hold  on  their 
course  fearless  and  shameless,  and  then  the  storm  breaks  upon 
them. 

There  are  several  forms  which  a  reform  movement  or  other 
popular  rising  takes.  The  recent  history  of  great  cities  supplies 
examples  of  each.  The  first  form  is  an  attack  upon  the  pri¬ 
maries.1  They  are  the  key  of  a  Ring’s  position,  and  when  they 
have  been  captured  their  batteries  can  be  turned  against  the 
Ring  itself.  When  an  assault  upon  the  bosses  is  resolved  upon, 
the  first  thing  is  to  form  a  committee.  It  issues  a  manifesto 
calling  on  all  good  citizens  to  attend  the  primaries  of  their  respec¬ 
tive  wards,  and  there  vote  for  delegates  opposed  to  the  Ring.  The 
newspapers  take  the  matter  up,  and  repeat  the  exhortation.  As 
each  primary  is  held,  on  the  night  fixed  by  the  ward  committee 
of  the  regular  (that  is  the  Ring)  organization,  some  of  the  reform¬ 
ers  appear  at  it,  and  propose  a  list  of  delegates,  between  whom 
and  the  Ring’s  list  a  vote  of  the  members  of  the  primary  is  taken. 
This  may  succeed  in  some  of  the  primaries,  but  rarely  in  a  majority 
of  them ;  because  (as  explained  in  a  previous  chapter)  the  rolls 
seldom  or  never  include  the  whole  party  voters  of  the  ward,  having 

1  The  remarks  that  follow  must  be  taken  subject  to  the  alterations  recently 
introduced,  in  many  States,  by  the  new  primary  laws.  I  allow  these  remarks 
to  stand  because  they  describe  what  existed  before  those  laws,  and  still  exist  in 
States  that  have  not  adopted  them. 


168 


CHAP,  lxviii  THE  WAR  AGAINST  BOSSDOM 


169 


been  prepared  by  the  professionals  in  their  own  interest.  Some¬ 
times  only  one-fourth  or  one-fifth  of  the  voters  are  on  the  primary 
roll,  and  these  are  of  course  the  men  on  whom  the  Ring  can  rely. 
Hence,  even  if  the  good  citizens  of  the  district,  obeying  the  call 
of  patriotism  and  the  Reform  Committee,  present  themselves 
at  the  primary,  they  may  find  so  few  of  their  number  on  the  roll 
that  they  will  be  outvoted  by  the  ringsters.  But  the  most  serious 
difficulty  is  the  apathy  of  the  respectable,  steady-going  part  of 
the  population  to  turn  out  in  sufficient  numbers.  They  have  their 
engagements  of  business  or  pleasure  to  attend  to,  or  it  is  a  snowy 
night  and  their  wives  persuade  them  to  stay  indoors.  The  well- 
conducted  men  of  small  means  are  an  eminently  domestic  class, 
who  think  they  do  quite  enough  for  the  city  and  the  nation  if  they 
vote  at  the  polls.  It  is  still  more  difficult  to  induce  the  rich  to 
interest  themselves  in  confessedly  disagreeable  work.  They  find 
themselves  at  a  primary  in  strange  and  uncongenial  surroundings. 
Accustomed  to  be  treated  with  deference  in  their  counting-house 
or  manufactory,  they  are  jostled  by  a  rough  crowd,  and  find  that 
their  servants  or  workmen  are  probably  better  known  and  more 
influential  than  they  are  themselves.  They  recognize  by  sight 
few  of  the  persons  present,  for,  in  a  city,  acquaintance  does  not  go 
by  proximity  of  residence,  and  are  therefore  at  a  disadvantage  for 
combined  action,  whereas  the  professional  politicians  are  a  regi¬ 
ment  where  every  private  in  each  company  knows  his  fellow- 
private  and  obeys  the  officers.  Hence,  the  best,  perhaps  the  only 
chance  of  capturing  a  primary  is  by  the  action  of  a  group  of  active 
young  men  who  will  take  the  trouble  of  organizing  the  movement 
by  beating  up  the  members  of  the  party  who  reside  in  the  district, 
and  bearding  the  local  bosses  in  the  meeting.  It  is  a  rough  and 
toilsome  piece  of  work,  but  young  men  find  a  compensation  in  the 
fun  which  is  to  be  had  out  of  the  fight ;  and  when  a  victory  is  won, 
theirs  is  the  credit.  To  carry  a  few  primaries  is  only  the  first  step. 
The  contest  has  to  be  renewed  in  the  convention,  where  the  odds 
are  still  in  favour  of  the  professionals,  who  “  know  the  ropes  ”  and 
may  possibly  outwit  even  a  majority  of  Reform  delegates.  The 
managing  committee  is  in  their  hands  and  they  can  generally 
secure  a  chairman  in  their  interests.  Experience  has  accord¬ 
ingly  shown  that  this  method  of  attacking  the  Machine  very 
rarely  succeeds;  and  though  the  duty  of  attending  the  pri¬ 
maries  continues  to  be  preached,  the  advice  shares  the  fate  of 
most  sermons.  Once  in  a  way,  the  respectable  voter  will  rouse 


170 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


himself,  but  he  cannot  be  trusted  to  continue  to  do  so  year  after 
year.  He  is  like  those  citizen-soldiers  of  ancient  Greece  who 
would  turn  out  for  a  summer  inroad  into  the  enemy’s  country, 
but  refused  to  keep  the  field  through  the  autumn  and  winter. 

A  second  expedient,  which  may  be  tried  instead  of  the  first, 
or  resorted  to  after  the  first  has  been  tried  and  failed,  is  to  make 
an  independent  list  of  nominations  and  run  a  separate  set  of  can¬ 
didates.  If  this  strategy  be  resolved  on,  the  primaries  are  left 
unheeded;  but  when  the  election  approaches,  a  committee  is 
formed  which  issues  a  list  of  candidates  for  some  or  all  of  the  vacant 
offices  in  opposition  to  the  “  regular  ”  list  issued  by  the  party 
convention,  and  conducts  the  agitation  on  their  behalf.  This 
saves  all  trouble  in  primaries  or  conventions,  but  involves  much 
trouble  in  elections,  because  a  complete  campaign  corps  has  to  be 
organized,  and  a  campaign  fund  raised.1  Aloreover,  the  average 
voter,  not  having  followed  politics  closely  enough  to  comprehend 
his  true  duty  and  interest,  and  yielding  to  his  established  party 
habits,  inclines,  especially  in  State  and  Federal  elections,  to  vote 
the  “  regular  ticket.”  He  starts  with  a  certain  prejudice  against 
those  who  are  “  troubling  Israel  ”  by  dividing  the  party,  because 
he  sees  that  in  all  probability  the  result  will  be  not  to  carry  the 
Independent  ticket,  but  to  let  in  the  candidates  of  the  opposite 
party.  Hence  the  bolting  Independents  can  rarely  hope  to  carry 
with  them  enough  of  their  own  party  to  enable  them  to  win  the 
election.  The  result  of  their  action  will  rather  be  to  bring  in  the 
candidates  of  the  other  side,  who  may  be  no  better  than  the  men 
on  the  ticket  of  their  own  Ring.  Accordingly,  reformers  have 
become  reluctant  to  take  this  course,  for  though  it  has  the  merit  of 
relieving  their  feelings,  it  exposes  them  to  odium,  involves  great 
labour,  and  effects  nothing  more  than  may  be  obtained  by  one  or 
other  of  the  two  methods  which  I  have  next  to  describe. 

The  third  plan  is  to  abstain  from  voting  for  the  names  on  your 
party  ticket  to  which  you  object.  This  is  Scratching.  You  are 

1  “To  run  an  anti-machine  candidate  for  mayor  it  is  necessary  to  organize 
a  new  machine  at  an  expense  of  from  $60,000  to  $100,000  (£12,000  to  £20,000), 
with  a  chance  of  his  being  ‘sold  out’  then  by  the  men  who  are  hired  to  dis¬ 
tribute  his  ballots.’’  —  Mr.  J.  R.  Bishop  in  a  paper  on  “Money  in  City  Elec¬ 
tions,”  written  in  1887.  Now  that  the  new  laws  of  nearly  all  States  provide  for 
official  voting  papers,  the  last-mentioned  risk  has  disappeared,  but  the  expense 
of  getting  up  a  new  election  organization  is  still  heavy.  Some  one  has  said  that 
the  difference  between  running  as  a  regular  candidate  and  running  on  your  own 
account  as  an  independent  candidate,  is  like  the  difference  between  travelling 
by  railway  and  making  a  new  railway  of  your  own  to  travel  by. 


chap,  lxviii  THE  WAR  AGAINST  BOSSDOM 


171 


spared  the  trouble  of  running  candidates  of  your  own,  but  your 
abstention,  if  the  parties  are  nearly  balanced,  causes  the  defeat 
of  the  bad  candidates  whom  your  own  party  puts  forward,  and 
brings  in  those  of  the  other  party.  This  is  a  good  plan  when  you 
want  to  frighten  a  Ring,  and  yet  cannot  get  the  more  timid  re¬ 
formers  to  go  the  length  of  voting  either  an  independent  ticket 
or  the  ticket  of  the  other  party.  It  is  employed  when  a  ring 
ticket  is  not  bad  all  through,  but  contains  some  fair  names  min¬ 
gled  with  some  names  of  corrupt  or  dangerous  men.  You  scratch 
the  latter  and  thereby  cause  their  defeat ;  the  others,  receiving  the 
full  strength  of  the  party,  are  carried. 

If,  however,  indignation  against  a  dominant  Ring  has  risen 
so  high  as  to  overcome  the  party  predilections  of  ordinary  citi¬ 
zens,  if  it  is  desired  to  administer  condign  and  certain  punish¬ 
ment  to  those  who  have  abused  the  patience  of  the  people,  the 
reformers  will  take  a  more  decided  course.  They  urge  their 
friends  to  vote  the  ticket  of  the  opposite  party,  either  entire  or  at 
least  all  the  better  names  on  it,  thus  ensuring  its  victory.  This 
is  an  efficient  method,  but  a  desperate  one,  for  you  put  into 
power  a  Ring  of  the  party  which  you  have  been  opposing  all 
your  life,  and  whose  members  are  possibly  quite  as  corrupt  as 
those  of  the  Ring  which  controls  your  own  party.  The  gain  you 
look  for  is  not  therefore  the  immediate  gain  of  securing  better 
city  government,  but  the  ultimate  gain  of  raising  the  general 
practice  of  politics  by  the  punishment  of  evil  doers.  Hence,  when¬ 
ever  there  is  time  to  do  so,  the  best  policy  is  for  the  reformers  to 
make  overtures  to  the  opposite  party,  and  induce  them  by  the 
promise  of  support  to  nominate  better  candidates  than  they  would 
have  nominated  if  left  to  themselves.  A  group  of  Bolters,  afraid 
of  being  called  traitors  to  their  party,  will  shrink  from  this  course  ; 
and  if  they  are  weak  in  numbers,  their  approaches  may  be  repulsed 
by  the  opposition.  But  the  scheme  is  always  worth  trying,  and 
has  several  times  been  crowned  with  success.  By  it  the  reforming 
party  among  the  Democrats  of  Baltimore  once  managed  to  defeat 
their  Ring  in  an  election  of  judges.  They  settled  in  conference 
with  the  Republicans  a  non-partisan  ticket,  which  gave  the  Re¬ 
publicans  (who  were  a  minority)  a  better  share  of  the  bench  than 
they  could  have  got  by  fighting  alone,  and  which  substituted 
respectable  Democrats  for  the  objectionable  names  on  the  regular 
Democratic  ticket.  A  similar  combination  of  the  reform  Re¬ 
publicans  in  Philadelphia  with  the  Democrats,  who  in  that  city 


172 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


are  in  a  permanent  minority,  led  to  the  defeat  of  the  Republican 
Gas  Ring  (whereof  more  in  a  later  chapter).  This  method  has  the 
advantage  of  saving  expense,  because  the  Bolters  can  use  the  exist¬ 
ing  machinery  of  the  opposite  party,  which  organizes  the  meetings 
and  circulates  the  literature.  It  is  on  the  whole  the  most  promis¬ 
ing  strategy,  but  needs  tact  as  well  as  vigour  on  the  part  of  the 
Independent  leaders.  Nor  will  the  opposite  party  always  accept 
the  proffered  help.  Sometimes  it  fears  the  gifts  of  the  Greeks. 
Sometimes  it  hopes  to  win  unhelped,  and  therefore  will  not 
sacrifice  any  of  its  candidates  to  the  scruples  of  the  reformers. 
Sometimes  its  chiefs  dislike  the  idea  of  reform  so  heartily  as  to 
prefer  defeat  at  the  hands  of  a  Ring  of  the  other  party  to  a  vic¬ 
tory  which  might  weaken  the  hold  of  professionals  upon  the 
Machine  and  lead  to  a  general  purification  of  politics.  * 

If  the  opposite  party  refuses  the  overtures  of  the  reformers 
who  are  ‘  kicking  ”  against  their  own  Machine,  or  will  not  purify 
the  ticket  sufficiently  to  satisfy  them,  there  remains  the  chance 
of  forming  a  third  party  out  of  the  best  men  of  both  the  regular 
organizations,  and  starting  a  third  set  of  candidates.  This  is  an 
extension  and  improvement  of  the  second  of  the  four  enumerated 
methods,  and  has  the  greater  promise  of  success  because  it  draws 
votes  from  both  parties  instead  of  from  one  only.  It  has  been 
frequently  employed  of  late  years  in  cities,  generally  of  the  second 
order,  by  running  what  is  called  a  “  Citizens’  Ticket.” 

Of  course  Bolters  who  desert  their  own  party  at  a  city  elec¬ 
tion  do  not  intend  permanently  to  separate  themselves  from  it. 
Probably  they  will  vote  its  ticket  at  the  next  State  or  presidential 
election.  Their  object  is  to  shake  the  power  of  their  local  Boss, 
and  if  they  cannot  overthrow  the  Ring,  at  least  to  frighten  it  into 
better  behaviour.  This  they  often  effect.  After  the  defeat  of 
some  notorious  candidates,  the  jobs  are  apt  to  be  less  flagrant. 
But  such  repentances  are  like  those  of  the  sick  wolf  in  the  fable, 
and  experience  proves  that  when  the  public  vigilance  has  been  re¬ 
laxed,  the  ringsters  of  both  parties  return  to  their  wallowing  in  the 
mire. 

The  difficulties  of  getting  good  citizens  to  maintain  a  steady 
war  against  the  professionals  have  been  found  so  great,  and  in 
particular  the  attempt  to  break  their  control  of  the  primaries 
has  so  often  failed,  that  remedies  have  been  sought  in  legislation. 
Not  a  few  States  extended  the  penalties  attached  to  bribery  and 
frauds  at  public  elections  to  similar  offences  committed  at  pri- 


CHAP,  lxviii  THE  WAR  AGAINST  BOSSDOM 


173 


maries  and  nominating  conventions,  deeming  these  acts  to  be, 
as  in  fact  they  are,  scarcely  less  hurtful  to  the  community  when 
practised  at  purely  voluntary  and  private  gatherings  than  when 
employed  at  elections,  seeing  that  the  average  electors  follow  the 
regular  nomination  like  so  many  sheep  :  it  is  the  candidate’s  party 
label,  not  his  own  character,  that  is  voted  for.  And  now,  as  al¬ 
ready  observed,  by  the  laws  regulating  primaries  passed  in  almost 
every  State,  bribery  or  any  sort  of  fraud  practised  at  a  primary 
election  is  made  an  offence  punishable  as  if  it  was  a  final  election.1 
Similar  provisions  protect  the  delegate  to  a  convention  from  the 
candidate,  the  candidate  from  the  delegate,  and  the  party  from 
both.  Miimesota  led  the  way  by  a  set  of  stringent  regulations, 
making  the  annulment  or  destruction  of  any  ballots  cast  at  a  party 
meeting  held  for  the  purpose  of  choosing  either  candidates  or 
delegates,  or  the  wrongfully  preventing  persons  from  voting  who 
are  entitled  to  vote,  or  personation,  or  “  any  other  fraud  or  wrong 
tending  to  defeat  or  affect  the  result  of  the  election,”  a  misde¬ 
meanour  punishable  by  a  fine  not  exceeding  $3000,  or  three 
years  imprisonment,  or  both  penalties  combined.2  Europeans  are 
surprised  that  legislation  should  not  only  recognize  parties,  but 
should  actually  attempt  to  regulate  the  internal  proceedings  of  a 
political  party  at  a  perfectly  voluntary  gathering  of  its  own  mem¬ 
bers,  a  gathering  whose  resolutions  no  one  is  bound  to  obey  or 
regard  in  any  way.  But  it  was  because  the  Machine  had  succeeded 
in  nullifying  the  freedom  of  the  voter  that  statutes  were  framed  to 
protect  even  his  voluntary  action  as  a  member  of  a  party.  That 
such  a  plan  should  be  tried  is  a  phenomenon  to  be  seriously  pon¬ 
dered  by  those  who  are  accustomed  to  point  to  America  as  the 
country  where  the  principle  of  leaving  things  alone  has  worked 
most  widely  and  usefully ;  and  it  is  the  strongest  evidence  of  the 
immense  vigour  of  these  party  organizations,  and  of  the  author¬ 
ity  their  nominations  exert,  that  reformers,  foiled  in  the  effort  to 
purify  them  by  appeals  to  the  conscience  and  public  spirit  of  the 
voter  himself,  should  have  been  driven  to  invoke  the  arm  of  the 
law. 

The  struggle  between  the  professional  politicians  and  the 
reformers  has  been  going  on  in  the  great  cities,  with  varying 
fortune,  ever  since  1870.  As  illustrations  of  the  incidents  that 

1  See  note  on  Primary  Laws  to  Chapter  LX.  ante. 

2  Statutes  of  Minnesota  of  1887,  Chapter  IV.  §§  99-105.  It  is  significant  that 
these  sections  apply  only  to  cities  of  5000  inhabitants  or  upwards. 


174 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


mark  it  will  be  found  in  subsequent  chapters,  I  will  here  say 
only  that  in  the  onslaughts  on  the  rings,  which  most  elections 
bring  round,  the  reformers,  though  they  seldom  capture  the 
citadel,  often  destroy  some  of  the  outworks,  and  frighten  the 
garrison  into  a  more  cautious  and  moderate  use  of  their  power. 
After  an  election  in  which  an  “  Independent  ticket  ”  has  received 
considerable  support,  the  bosses  are  disposed  to  make  better  nomi¬ 
nations,  and,  as  an  eminent  New  York  professional  (Mr.  Fernando 
Wood)  said,  “to  pander  a  little  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  commun¬ 
ity.”  Every  campaign  teaches  the  reformers  where  the  enemy’s 
weak  points  lie,  and  gives  them  more  of  that  technical  skill  which 
has  hitherto  been  the  strength  of  the  professionals.  It  is  a  warfare 
of  volunteers  against  disciplined  troops,  but  the  volunteers,  since 
they  are  fighting  for  the  taxpayers  at  large,  would  secure  so  great  a 
preponderance  of  numbers,  if  they  could  but  move  the  whole  body 
of  respectable  citizens,  that  their  triumph  will  evidently  depend 
in  the  long  run  upon  their  own  constancy  and  earnestness.  If 
their  zeal  does  not  flag ;  if  they  do  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  dis¬ 
heartened  by  frequent  repulses;  if,  not  relying  too  absolutely 
on  any  one  remedy,  they  attack  the  enemy  at  every  point,  using 
every  social  and  educational  as  well  as  legal  appliance,  the  example 
of  their  disinherited  public  spirit,  as  well  as  the  cogency  of  their 
arguments,  cannot  fail  to  tell  on  the  voters ;  and  no  Boss,  however 
adroit,  no  Ring,  however  strongly  entrenched,  will  be  able  to  with¬ 
stand  them.  The  war,  however,  will  not  be  over  when  the  enemy 
has  been  routed.  Although  much  may  be  done  by  legislative 
remedies,  such  as  new  election  laws,  new  provisions  against  cor¬ 
ruption,  a  reconstruction  of  the  frame  of  city  government,  and  a 
purification  of  the  civil  service,  there  are  certain  internal  and,  so 
to  speak,  natural  causes  of  mischief,  the  removal  of  which  will  need 
patience  and  unremitting  diligence.  In  great  cities  —  for  it  is 
throughout  chiefly  of  cities  that  we  have  to  think  —  a  large 
section  of  the  voters  will,  for  many  years  to  come,  be  compara¬ 
tively  ignorant  of  the  methods  of  free  government  which  they  are 
set  to  work.  They  will  be  ignorant  even  of  their  own  interests, 
failing  to  perceive  that  wasteful  expenditure  injures  those  who  do 
not  pay  direct  taxes,  as  well  as  those  who  do.  Retaining  some  of 
the  feelings  which  their  European  experience  has  tended  to  pro¬ 
duce,  they  will  distrust  appeals  coming  from  the  best-educated 
classes,  and  be  inclined  to  listen  to  loose-tongued  demagogues. 
Once  they  have  joined  a  party,  they  will  vote  at  the  bidding  of  its 


CHAP,  lxviii  THE  WAR  AGAINST  BOSSDOM 


175 


local  leaders,  however  personally  unworthy.1  While  this  section 
remains  numerous,  rings  and  bosses  will  always  have  materials 
ready  to  their  hands.  There  is,  however,  reason  to  expect  that 
with  the  progress  of  time  this  section  will  become  relatively  smaller. 
And  even  now,  large  as  it  is,  it  could  be  overthrown  and  Bossclom 
extirpated,  were  the  better  citizens  to  maintain  unbroken  through 
a  series  of  elections  that  unity  and  vigour  of  action  of  which  they 
have  at  rare  moments,  and  under  the  impulse  of  urgent  duty, 
shown  themselves  capable.  In  America,  as  everywhere  else  in 
the  world,  the  commonwealth  suffers  more  often  from  apathy  or 
shortsightedness  in  the  richer  classes,  who  ought  to  lead,  than  from 
ignorance  or  recklessness  in  the  humbler  classes,  who  are  generally 
ready  to  follow  when  they  are  wisely  and  patriotically  led. 

1  Says  Mr.  Roosevelt:  “Voters  of  the  labouring  class  in  the  cities  are  very 
emotional :  they  value  in  a  public  man  what  we  are  accustomed  to  consider 
virtues  only  to  be  taken  into  account  when  estimating  private  character.  Thus 
if  a  man  is  open-handed  and  warm-hearted,  they  consider  it  as  being  a  fair 
offset  to  his  being  a  little  bit  shaky  when  it  comes  to  applying  the  eighth  com¬ 
mandment  to  affairs  of  State.  In  the  lower  wards  (of  New  York  City),  where 
there  is  a  large  vicious  population,  the  condition  of  politics  is  often  fairly  ap¬ 
palling,  and  the  [local]  boss  is  generally  a  man  of  grossly  immoral  public  and 
private  character.  In  these  wards  many  of  the  social  organizations  with 
which  the  leaders  are  obliged  to  keep  on  good  terms  are  composed  of  criminals 
or  of  the  relatives  and  associates  of  criminals.  .  .  .  The  president  of  a  power¬ 
ful  semi-political  association  was  by  profession  a  burglar,  the  man  who  re¬ 
ceived  the  goods  he  stole  was  an  alderman.  Another  alderman  was  elected 
while  his  hair  was  still  short  from  a  term  in  the  State  prison.  A  school  trustee 
had  been  convicted  of  embezzlement  and  was  the  associate  of  criminals.”  — 
Century  Magazine  for  Nov.,  1886. 


CHAPTER  LXIX 


NATIONAL  NOMINATING  CONVENTIONS 

In  every  American  election  there  are  two  acts  of  (^hoice,  two 
periods  of  contest.  The  first  is  the  selection  of  the  candidate 
from  within  the  party  by  the  party;  the  other  is  the  struggle 
between  the  parties  for  the  post.  Frequently  the  former  of 
these  is  more  important,  more  keenly  fought  over,  than  the 
latter,  for  there  are  many  districts  in  which  the  predominance 
of  one  party  is  so  marked  that  its  candidate  is  sure  of  success, 
and  therefore  the  choice  of  a  candidate  is  virtually  the  choice 
of  the  officer  or  representative. 

Preceding  chapters  have  described  the  machinery  which  exists 
for  choosing  and  nominating  a  candidate.  The  process  was 
similar,  and,  subject  to  the  variations  introduced  by  the  recent 
primary  laws,  is  still  similar  in  every  State  of  the  Union,  and 
through  all  elections  to  office,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest, 
from  that  of  common  councilman  for  a  city  ward  up  to  that  of 
President  of  the  United  States.  But,  of  course,  the  higher  the 
office,  and  the  larger  the  area  over  which  the  election  extends, 
the  greater  are  the  efforts  made  to  secure  the  nomination,  and 
the  hotter  the  passions  it  excites.  The  choice  of  a  candidate  for 
the  presidency  is  so  striking  and  peculiar  a  feature  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  system  that  it  deserves  a  full  examination. 

Like  most  political  institutions,  the  system  of  nominating 
the  President  by  a  popular  convention  is  the  result  of  a  long 
process  of  evolution. 

In  the  first  two  elections,  those  of  1789 1  and  1792,  there  was 
no  need  for  nominations  of  candidates,  because  the  whole  nation 

1  The  President  is  now  always  chosen  on  the  Tuesday  after  the  first  Monday 
in  the  November  of  an  even  year,  whose  number  is  a  multiple  of  four  (e.g.  1880, 
1884,  1888),  and  comes  into  office  in  the  spring  following;  but  the  first  election 
was  held  in  the  beginning  of  1789,  because  the  Constitution  had  been  then  only 
just  adopted. 


176 


chap,  lxix  NATIONAL  NOMINATING  CONVENTIONS  177 


wished  and  expected  George  Washington  to  be  elected.  So  too, 
when  in  1796  Washington  declared  his  retirement,  the  dominant 
feeling  of  one  party  was  for  John  Adams,  that  of  the  other  for 
Thomas  Jefferson,  and  nobody  thought  of  setting  out  formally 
what  was  so  generally  understood. 

In  1800,  however,  the  year  of  the  fourth  election,  there  was 
somewhat  less  unanimity.  The  prevailing  sentiment  of  the  Fed¬ 
eralists  went  for  re-electing  Adams,  and  the  small  conclave  of 
Federalist  members  of  Congress  which  met  to  promote  his  in¬ 
terest  was  deemed  scarcely  necessary.  The  (Democratic)  Re¬ 
publicans,  however,  while  united  in  desiring  to  make  Jefferson 
President,  hesitated  as  to  their  candidate  for  the  vice-presidency, 
and  a  meeting  of  Republican  members  of  Congress  was  therefore 
called  to  recommend  Aaron  Burr  for  this  office.  It  was  a  small 
meeting  and  a  secret  meeting,  but  it  is  memorable,  not  only  as  the 
first  congressional  caucus,  but  as  the  first  attempt  to  arrange  in 
any  way  a  party  nomination. 

In  1804  a  more  regular  gathering  for  the  same  purpose  was 
held.  All  the  Republican  members  of  Congress  were  summoned 
to  meet;  and  they  unanimously  nominated  Jefferson  for  Presi¬ 
dent,  and  George  Clinton  of  New  York  for  Vice-President.  So 
in  1808  nearly  all  the  Republican  majority  in  both  Houses  of 
Congress  met  and  formally  nominated  Madison  and  Clinton. 
The  same  course  was  followed  in  1812,  and  again  in  1816.  But 
the  objections  which  were  from  the  first  made  to  this  action  of  the 
party  in  Congress,  as  being  an  arrogant  usurpation  of  the  rights 
of  the  people,  —  for  no  one  dreamed  of  leaving  freedom  to  the 
presidential  electors,  —  gained  rather  than  lost  strength  on  each 
successive  occasion,  so  much  so  that  in  1820  the  few  who  met  made 
no  nomination,1  and  in  1824,  out  of  the  Democratic  members  of 
both  Houses  of  Congress  summoned  to  the  “nominating  caucus/1 
as  it  was  called,  only  sixty-six  attended,  many  of  the  remainder 
having  announced  their  disapproval  of  the  practice.2  The  nominee 
of  this  caucus  came  in  only  third  at  the  polls,  and  this  failure  gave 
the  coup  de  grace  to  a  plan  which  the  levelling  tendencies  of  the 
time,  and  the  disposition  to  refer  everything  to  the  arbitrament 

1  It  was  not  absolutely  necessary  to  have  a  nomination,  because  there  was 
a  general  feeling  in  favour  of  re-electing  Monroe.  The  sentiments  which  sug¬ 
gested  ‘rotation’  in  office  as  proper  for  less  important  posts  did  not  include 
places  of  such  importance  as  those  of  President  or  State  Governor. 

2  The  whole  number  was  then  261,  nearly  all  Democratic  Republicans,  for 
the  Federalist  party  had  been  for  some  time  virtually  extinct. 

N 


178 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


of  the  masses,  would  in  any  case  have  soon  extinguished.  No  con¬ 
gressional  caucus  was  ever  again  held  for  the  choice  of  candi¬ 
dates. 

A  new  method,  however,  was  not  at  once  discovered.  In  1828 
Jackson  was  recommended  as  candidate  by  the  legislature  of 
Tennessee  and  by  a  number  of  popular  gatherings  in  different 
places,  while  his  opponents  accepted,  without  any  formal  nomi¬ 
nation,  the  then  President,  J.  Q.  Adams,  as  their  candidate.  In 
1831,  however,  assemblies  were  held  by  two  great  parties  (the 
Anti-Masons  and  the  National  Republicans,  afterwards  called 
Whigs)  consisting  of  delegates  from  most  of  the  States;  and 
each  of  these  conventions  nominated  its  candidates  for  the  presi¬ 
dency  and  vice-presidency.  A  third  “  national  convention  ”  of 
young  men,  which  met  in  1832,  adopted  the  Whig  nominations, 
and  added  to  them  a  series  of  ten  resolutions,  constituting  the 
first  political  platform  ever  put  forth  by  a  nominating  body.  The 
friends  of  Jackson  followed  suit  by  holding  their  national  con¬ 
vention  which  nominated  him  and  Van  Buren.  For  the  election 
of  1836,  a  similar  convention  was  held  by  the  Jacksonian  Demo¬ 
crats,  none  by  their  opponents.  But  for  that  of  1840,  national 
conventions  of  delegates  from  nearly  all  the  States  were  held 
by  both  Democrats  and  Whigs,  as  well  as  by  the  (then  young  and 
very  small)  party  of  the  Abolitionists.  This  precedent  has  been 
followed  in  every  subsequent  contest,  so  that  the  national  nomi¬ 
nating  conventions  of  the  great  parties  are  now  as  much  a  part  of 
the  regular  machinery  of  politics  as  are  the  rules  which  the  Con¬ 
stitution  itself  prescribes  for  the  election.  The  establishment  of 
the  system  coincides  with  and  represents  the  complete  social 
democratization  of  politics  in  Jackson’s  time.  It  suits  both  the 
professionals,  for  whom  it  finds  occupation,  and  whose  power  it 
secures,  and  the  ordinary  citizen  who,  not  having  leisure  to  at¬ 
tend  to  politics,  likes  to  think  that  his  right  of  selecting  candi¬ 
dates  is  recognized  by  committing  the  election  to  delegates 
whom  he  is  entitled  to  vote  for.  But  the  s}rstem  was  soon  seen 
to  be  liable  to  fall  under  the  control  of  selfish  intriguers  and  there¬ 
fore  prejudicial  to  the  chances  of  able  and  independent  men.  As 
early  as  1844  Calhoun  refused  to  allow  his  name  to  be  submitted 
to  a  nominating  convention,  observing  that  he  would  never  have 
joined  in  breaking  down  the  old  congressional  caucus  had  he 
foreseen  that  its  successor  would  prove  so  much  more  pernicious. 

Thus  from  1789  till  1800  there  were  no  formal  nominations; 


chap,  lxix  NATIONAL  NOMINATING  CONVENTIONS  179 


from  1800  till  1824,  nominations  were  made  by  congressional 
caucuses ;  from  1824  till  1840,  nominations  irregularly  made  by 
State  legislatures  and  popular  meetings  were  gradually  ripening 
towards  the  method  of  a  special  gathering  of  delegates  from  the 
whole  country.  This  last  plan  has  held  its  ground  from  1840 
till  the  present  day,  and  is  so  exactly  conformable  to  the  political 
habits  of  the  people  that  it  is  not  likely  soon  to  disappear. 

Its  perfection,  however,  was  not  reached  at  once.  The  early 
conventions  were  to  a  large  extent  mass  meetings.1  The  later 
and  present  ones  are  regularly-constituted  representative  bodies, 
composed  exclusively  of  delegates,  each  of  whom  has  been  duly 
elected  at  a  party  meeting  in  his  own  State,  and  brings  with 
him  his  credentials.  It  would  be  tedious  to  trace  in  further  detail 
the  process  whereby  the  present  system  was  created,  so  I  shall  be 
content  with  sketching  its  outline  as  it  now  stands. 

The  Constitution  provides  that  each  State  shall  choose  as  many 
presidential  electors  as  it  has  persons  representing  it  in  Congress, 
i.e.  two  electors  to  correspond  to  the  two  senators  from  each  State, 
and  as  many  more  as  the  State  sends  members  to  the  House  of 
Representatives.  Thus  Delaware  and  Idaho  have  each  three 
electoral  votes,  because  they  have  each  only  one  representative 
besides  their  two  senators.  New  York  has  thirty-nine  electoral 
votes;  two  corresponding  to  its  two  senators,  thirty-seven  cor¬ 
responding  to  its  thirt}r-seven  representatives  in  the  House. 

Now  in  the  nominating  convention  each  State  is  allowed  twice 
as  many  delegates  as  it  has  electoral  votes,  e.g.  Delaware  and 
Idaho  have  each  six  delegates,  New  York  has  seventy-eight.  The 
delegates  are  chosen  by  local  conventions  in  their  several  States, 
viz.  two  for  each  congressional  district  by  the  party  convention 
of  that  district,  and  four  for  the.  whole  State  (called  delegates-at- 
large)  by  the  State  convention.  As  each  convention  is  composed 
of  delegates  from  primaries,  it  is  the  composition  of  the  primaries 
which  determines  that  of  the  local  conventions,  and  the  composi¬ 
tion  of  the  local  conventions  which  determines  that  of  the  national. 
To  every  delegate  there  is  added  a  person  called  his  “  alternate,” 
chosen  by  the  local  convention  at  the  same  time,  and  empowered 
to  replace  him  in  case  he  cannot  be  present  in  the  national  con- 

1  In  1856  the  first  Republican  convention,  which  nominated  Fremont,  was 
rather  a  mass  meeting  than  a  representative  body,  for  in  many  States  there 
was  not  a  regular  organization  of  the  new  party.  So  was  the  seceding  Repub¬ 
lican  convention  which  met  at  Cincinnati  in  1872  and  nominated  Greeley. 


180 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


vention.  If  the  delegate  is  present  to  vote,  the  alternate  is  silent ; 
if  from  any  cause  the  delegate  is  absent,  the  alternate  steps  into 
his  shoes. 

Respecting  the  freedom  of  the  delegate  to  vote  for  whom  he 
will,  there  have  been  differences  both  of  doctrine  and  of  prac¬ 
tice.  A  local  convention  or  State  convention  may  instruct  its 
delegates  which  aspirant 1  shall  be  their  first  choice,  or  even,  in 
case  he  cannot  be  carried,  for  whom  their  subsequent  votes 
shall  be  cast.  Such  instructions  are  frequently^  given,  and  still 
more  frequently  implied,  because  a  delegate  is  often  chosen 
expressly  as  being  the  supporter  of  one  or  other  of  the  aspirants 
whose  names  are  most  prominent.  But  the  delegate  is  not 
absolutely  bound  to  follow  his  instructions.  He  may  vote  even 
on  the  first  ballot  for  some  other  aspirant  than  the  one  desired 
by  his  own  local  or  State  convention.  Much  more,  of  course, 
may  he,  though  not  so  instructed,  change  his  vote  when  it  is 
plain  that  that  aspirant  will  not  succeed.  His  vote  is  always 
a  valid  one,  even  when  given  in  the  teeth  of  his  instructions; 
but  how  far  he  will  be  held  censurable  for  breaking  them  de¬ 
pends  on  a  variety  of  circumstances.  His  motives  may  be  cor¬ 
rupt  ;  perhaps  something  has  been  given  him.  They  may  be 
pardonable ;  a  party  chief  may  have  put  pressure  on  him,  or  he 
may  desire  to  be  on  the  safe  side,  and  go  with  the  majority. 
They  may  be  laudable ;  he  really  seeks  to  do  the  best  for  the 
party,  or  has  been  convinced  by  facts  lately  brought  to  his 
knowledge  that  the  man  for  whom  he  is  instructed  is  unworthy. 
Where  motives  are  doubtful,  it  may  be  charitable,  but  it  is  not 
safe,  to  assume  that  they  are  of  the  higher  order.  Each  “  State 
delegation  ”  has  its  chairman,  and  is  expected  to  keep  together 
during  the  convention.  It  usually  travels  together  to  the  place 
of  meeting ;  takes  rooms  in  the  same  hotel ;  has  a  recognized 
headquarters  there ;  sits  in  a  particular  place  allotted  to  it  in 
the  convention  hall ;  holds  meetings  of  its  members  during  the 
progress  of  the  convention  to  decide  on  the  course  which  it  shall 
from  time  to  time  take.  These  meetings,  if  the  State  be  a  large 
and  doubtful  one,  excite  great  interest,  and  the  sharp-eared 
reporter  prowls  round  them,  eager  to  learn  how  the  votes  will  go. 
Each  State  delegation  votes  by  its  chairman,  who  announces  how 


1 1  use  throughout  the  term  “aspirant”  to  denote  a  competitor  for  the  nomi¬ 
nation,  reserving  the  term  “candidate”  for  the  person  nominated  as  the  party’s 
choice  for  the  presidency. 


chap,  lxix  NATIONAL  NOMINATING  CONVENTIONS  181 


his  delegates  vote  ;  but  if  his  report  is  challenged,  the  roll  of  dele¬ 
gates  is  called,  and  they  vote  individually.  Whether  the  votes  of 
a  State  delegation  shall  be  given  solid  for  the  aspirant  whom  the 
majority  of  the  delegation  favours,  or  by  the  delegates  individually 
according  to  their  preferences,  is  a  point  which  has  excited  bitter 
controversy.  The  present  practice  of  the  Republican  party  (so 
settled  in  1876  and  again  in  1880)  allows  the  delegates  to  vote 
individually,  even  when  they  have  been  instructed  by  a  State 
convention  to  cast  a  solid  vote.  The  Democratic  party,  on  the 
other  hand,  sustains  any  such  instruction  given  to  the  delegation, 
and  records  the  vote  of  all  the  State  delegates  for  the  aspirant 
whom  the  majority  among  them  approve.  This  is  the  so-called 
Unit  Rule.  If,  however,  the  State  convention  has  not  imposed 
the  unit  rule,  the  delegates  vote  individually. 

For  the  sake  of  keeping  up  party  life  in  the  Territories  and 
in  the  Federal  District  of  Columbia,  delegates  from  them  have 
been  admitted  to  the  national  convention,  although  the  Terri¬ 
tories  and  District  (and  of  course  the  transmarine  possessions) 
had  no  votes  in  a  presidential  election.  Such  delegates  still 
attend  from  Hawaii  and  Alaska  and  the  District ;  and  even 
from  Puerto  Rico  and  the  Philippine  Islands.  Delegations  of 
States  which  are  known  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  opposite  party, 
and  whose  preference  of  one  aspirant  to  another  will  not  really 
tell  upon  the  result  of  the  presidential  election,  are  admitted  to 
vote  equally  with  the  delegations  of  the  States  sure  to  go  for  the 
party  which  holds  the  convention.1  This  arrangement  is  justified 
on  the  ground  that  it  sustains  the  interest  and  energy  of  the 
party  in  States  where  it  is  in  a  minority.  But  it  permits  the 
choice  to  be  determined  by  districts  whose  action  will  in  no  wise 
affect  the  election  itself,  and  the  delegates  from  these  districts 
are  apt  to  belong  to  a  lower  class  of  politicians,  and  to  be 
swayed  by  more  sordid  motives  than  those  who  come  from  States 
where  the  party  holds  a  majority.2 

1  In  the  Republican  national  convention  of  1908  an  attempt  was  made  to 
reduce  the  number  of  delegates  from  the  States  where  the  party  is  weak  by  pro¬ 
posing  that  every  State  should  have  four  delegates-at-large  and  one  additional 
delegate  for  every  10,000  Republican  votes  polled  at  the  last  preceding  presi¬ 
dential  election.  This  plan,  which  would  have  greatly  reduced  the  representa¬ 
tion  in  the  convention  of  nearly  all  the  Southern  States,  was  rejected  by  a  vote 
of  506  to  470. 

2  Although  the  large  majority  of  the  delegates  in  the  conventions  of  the 
two  great  parties  belong  to  the  class  of  professional  politicians,  there  is  always 
a  minority  of  respectable  men  who  do  not  belong  to  that  class,  but  have 


182 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


So  much  for  the  composition  of  the  national  convention :  we 
may  now  go  on  to  describe  its  proceedings. 

It  is  held  in  the  summer  immediately  preceding  a  presidential 
election,  usually  in  June  or  July,  the  election  falling  in  Novem¬ 
ber.  A  large  city  is  always  chosen,  in  order  to  obtain  adequate 
hotel  accommodation,  and  easy  railroad  access.  Formerly, 
conventions  were  commonly  held  in  Baltimore  or  Philadelphia, 
but  since  the  centre  of  population  has  shifted  to  the  Mississippi 
valley,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  Denver,  Minneapolis,  ancb  especially 
Chicago,  have  become  the  favourite  spots. 

Business  begins  by  the  “  calling  of  the  convention  to  order  ” 
by  the  chairman  of  the  National  Party  committee.  Then  a 
temporary  chairman  is  nominated,  and,  if  opposed,  voted  on; 
the  vote  sometimes  giving  an  indication  of  the  respective  strength 
of  the  factions  present.  Then  the  secretaries  and  the  clerks  are 
appointed,  and  the  rules  which  are  to  govern  the  business  are 
adopted.  After  this,  the  committees,  including  those  on  creden¬ 
tials  and  resolutions,  are  nominated,  and  the  convention  adjourns 
till  their  report  can  be  presented. 

The  next  sitting  usually  opens,  after  the  customary  prayer, 
with  the  appointment  of  the  permanent  chairman,  who  inaugu¬ 
rates  the  proceedings  with  a  speech.  Then  the  report  of  the 
committee  on  resolutions  (if  completed)  is  presented.  It  con¬ 
tains  what  is  called  the  platform,  a  long  series  of  resolutions 
embodying  the  principles  and  programme  of  the  party,  which  has 
usually  been  so  drawn  as  to  conciliate  every  section,  and  avoid  or 
treat  with  prudent  ambiguity  those  questions  on  which  opinion 
within  the  party  is  divided.  Any  delegate  who  objects  to  a  reso¬ 
lution,  can  move  to  strike  it  out  or  amend  it ;  but  it  is  generally 
“  sustained  ”  in  the  shape  it  has  received  from  the  practised 
hands  of  the  committee. 

Next  follows  the  nomination  of  aspirants  for  the  post  of  party 
candidate.  The  roll  of  States  is  called,  and  when  a  State  is 
reached  to  which  an  aspirant  intended  to  be  nominated  belongs,  a 
prominent  delegate  from  that  State  mounts  the  platform,  and 
proposes  him  in  a  speech  extolling  his  merits,  and  sometimes 
indirectly  disparaging  the  other  aspirants.  Another  delegate 
seconds  the  nomination,  sometimes  a  third  follows;  and  then 

obtained  the  post  owing  to  their  interest  in  seeing  a  strong  and  honest  candi¬ 
date  chosen.  The  great  importance  of  the  business  draws  persons  of  talent 
and  experience  from  most  parts  of  the  country. 


chap,  lxix  NATIONAL  NOMINATING  CONVENTIONS  183 


the  roll-call  goes  on  till  all  the  States  have  been  despatched,  and 
all  the  aspirants  nominated.1  The  average  number  of  nomina¬ 
tions  is  seven  or  eight ;  it  rarely  exceeds  twelve.2  In  1908  there 
were  only  eight  at  the  Republican,  three  at  the  Democratic,  con¬ 
vention,  and  it  was  well  understood  in  each  case  that  only  one 
person  had  a  chance  of  success. 

Thus  the  final  stage  is  reached,  for  which  all  else  has  been 
but  preparation  —  that  of  balloting  between  the  aspirants. 
The  clerks  call  the  roll  of  States  from  Alabama  to  Wyoming 
and  as  each  is  called  the  chairman  of  its  delegation  announces 
the  votes,  e.g.  six  for  A,  five  for  B,  three  for  C,  unless,  of  course, 
under  the  unit  rule,  the  whole  vote  is  cast  for  that  one  aspirant 
whom  the  majority  of  the  delegation  supports.  When  all  have 
voted,  the  totals  are  made  up  and  announced.  If  one  competi¬ 
tor  has  an  absolute  maj  ority  of  the  whole  number  voting,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  Republican  rule,  a  majority  of  two-thirds  of  the  number 
voting,  according  to  the  Democratic  rule,  he  has  been  duly  chosen, 
and  nothing  remains  but  formally  to  make  his  nomination  unani¬ 
mous.  If,  however,  as  has  happened  often,  no  one  obtains  the 
requisite  majority,  the  roll  is  called  again,  in  order  that  individual 
delegates  and  delegations  (if  the  unit  rule  prevails)  may  have 
the  opportunity  of  changing  their  votes ;  and  the  process  is  re¬ 
peated  until  some  one  of  the  aspirants  put  forward  has  received 
the  required  number  of  votes.  Sometimes  many  roll-calls  take 
place.  In  1852  the  Democrats  nominated  Franklin  Pierce  on  the 
forty-ninth  ballot,  and  the  Whigs  General  Scott  on  the  fifty-third. 
In  1880,  thirty-six  ballots  were  taken  before  General  Garfield 
was  nominated.  But,  in  1835,  Martin  Van  Buren;  in  1844, 
Henry  Clay ;  in  1868  and  1872,  Ulysses  S.  Grant ;  in  1888  Mr. 
Cleveland,  were  unanimously  nominated,  the  three  former  by 
acclamation,  the  latter  on  the  first  ballot.  In  1884  Mr.  Blaine 
was  nominated  by  the  Republicans  on  the  fourth  ballot,  Mr. 
Cleveland  by  the  Democrats  on  the  second ;  in  1888,  Mr.  Har¬ 
rison  on  the  eighth.  In  1896  Mr.  McKinley  was  nominated 
on  the  first  ballot  and  Mr.  Bryan  on  the  fifth.  In  1892  both 
Mr.  Harrison  (then  President)  and  Mr.  Cleveland  were  nominated 
on  the  first  ballot,  each  of  them  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 


1  Nominations  may,  however,  be  made  at  any  subsequent  time. 

2  However,  in  the  Republican  convention  of  1888,  fourteen  aspirants  were 
nominated  at  the  outset,  six  of  whom  were  voted  for  on  the  last  ballot.  Votes 
were  given  at  one  or  other  of  the  ballotings  for  nineteen  aspirants  in  all. 


184 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


Similarly  in  1904  both  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  Mr.  Parker  and  in  1908 
both  Mr.  Taft  and  Mr.  Bryan  were  each  of  them  nominated  on 
the  first  ballot.  Thus  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  voting  is 
over  in  an  hour  or  two,  while  at  other  times  it  may  last  for  days. 

When  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  has  been  thus  found,  the 
convention  proceeds  to  similarly  determine  its  candidate  for  the 
vice-presidency.  The  inferiority  of  the  office,  and  the  exhaustion 
which  has  by  this  time  overcome  the  delegates,  make  the  second 
struggle  a  less  exciting  and  protracted  one.  Frequently  one  of  the 
defeated  aspirants  is  consoled  by  this  minor  nomination,  espe¬ 
cially  if  he  has  retired  at  the  nick  of  time  in  favour  of  the  rival  who 
has  been  chosen.  The  work  of  the  convention  is  then  complete,1 
and  votes  of  thanks  to  the  chairman  and  other  officials  conclude 
the  proceedings.  The  two  nominees  are  now  the  party  candi¬ 
dates,  entitled  to  the  support  of  the  party  organizations  and  of 
loyal  party  men  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  Union. 

Entitled  to  that  support,  but  not  necessarily  sure  to  receive 
it.  Even  in  America,  party  discipline  cannot  compel  an  indi¬ 
vidual  voter  to  cast  his  ballot  for  the  party  nominee.  All  that 
the  convention  can  do  is  to  recommend  the  candidate  to  the  party ; 
all  that  opinion  can  do  is  to  brand  as  a  Kicker  or  Bolter  whoever 
breaks  away;  all  that  the  local  party  organization  can  do  is  to 
strike  the  Bolter  off  its  lists.  But  how  stands  it,  the  reader  will 
ask,  with  the  delegates  who  have  been  present  in  the  convention, 
have  had  their  chance  of  carrying  their  man,  and  have  been 
beaten  ?  are  they  not  held  absolutely  bound  to  support  the  candi¬ 
date  chosen  ? 

This  is  a  question  which  has  excited  much  controversy.  The 
constant  impulse  and  effort  of  the  successful  majority  have  been 
to  impose  such  an  obligation  on  the  defeated  minority,  and  the 
chief  motive  which  has  prevented  it  from  being  invariably  for¬ 
mally  enforced  by  a  rule  or  resolution  of  the  convention  has  been 
the  fear  that  it  might  precipitate  hostilities,  might  induce  men 
of  independent  character,  or  strongly  opposed  to  some  particular 
aspirant,  to  refuse  to  attend  as  delegates,  or  to  secede  early  in 
the  proceedings  when  they  saw  that  a  person  whom  they  dis¬ 
approved  was  likely  to  win. 

At  the  Republican  national  convention  at  Chicago  in  June, 
1880,  an  attempt  was  successfully  made  to  impose  the  obligation 

1  Except  for  the  idle  formality  of  appointing  a  committee  to  notify  to  the 
candidate  his  selection. 


chap,  lxix  NATIONAL  NOMINATING  CONVENTIONS  185 


by  the  following  resolution,  commonly  called  the  “  Ironclad 
Pledge” :  — 

“  That  every  member  of  this  convention  is  bound  in  honour 
to  support  its  nominee,  whoever  that  nominee  may  be,  and  that 
no  man  should  hold  his  seat  here  who  is  not  ready  so  to  agree.” 

This  was  carried  by  716  votes  to  3.  But  at  the  Republican 
national  convention  at  Chicago  in  June,  1884,  when  a  similar 
resolution  was  presented,  the  opposition  developed  was  strong 
enough  to  compel  its  withdrawal ;  and  in  point  of  fact,  several 
conspicuous  delegates  at  that  convention  strenuously  opposed 
its  nominee  at  the  subsequent  presidential  election,  themselves 
voting,  and  inducing  others  to  vote,  for  the  candidate  of  the 
Democratic  party. 


CHAPTER  LXX 


THE  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 

We  have  examined  the  composition  of  a  national  convention 
and  the  normal  order  of  business  in  it.  The  more  difficult  task 
remains  of  describing  the  actual  character  and  features  of  such 
an  assembly,  the  motives  which  sway  it,  the  temper  it  displays, 
the  passions  it  elicits,  the  wiles  by  which  its  members  are  lured 
or  driven  to  their  goal. 

A  national  convention  has  two  objects,  the  formal  declaration 
of  the  principles,  views,  and  practical  proposals  of  the  party, 
and  the  choice  of  its  candidates  for  the  executive  headship  of 
the  nation. 

Of  these  objects  the  former  has  in  critical  times,  such  as  the 
two  elections  preceding  the  Civil  War,  been  of  great  importance. 
In  the  Democratic  convention  at  Charleston  in  1860,  a  debate 
on  resolutions  led  to  a  secession,  and  to  the  break-up  of  the 
Democratic  party,1  and  in  1896  there  were  contests  in  both 
Conventions  over  the  treatment  to  be  given  to  the  currency 
question,  the  struggle  being  especially  warm  among  the  Demo¬ 
crats.  So  in  1908  a  short  but  significant  debate  arose  in  the 
Republican  convention  over  amendments  of  a  “  radical  ” 
character.  But,  with  such  occasional  exceptions  as  last  herein¬ 
before  mentioned,  the  adoption  of  platforms,  drafted  in  a  vague 
and  pompous  style  by  the  committee,  has  of  late  years  been 
almost  a  matter  of  form.  Some  observations  on  these  enuncia¬ 
tions  of  doctrine  will  be  found  in  another  chapter.2 

The  second  object  is  of  absorbing  interest  and  importance, 
because  the  presidency  is  the  great  prize  of  politics,  the  goal  of 

1  The  national  conventions  of  those  days  were  much  smaller  than  now,  nor 
were  the  assisting  spectators  so  numerous. 

2  Chapter  LXXXIII.  The  nearest  English  parallel  to  an  American  “plat¬ 
form”  is  to  be  found  in  the  addresses  to  their  respective  constituencies  issued 
at  a  general  election  by  the  Prime  Minister  (if  a  member  of  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons)  and  the  leader  of  the  Opposition.  Such  addresses,  however,  do  not  for¬ 
mally  bind  the  whole  party,  as  an  American  platform  does. 

186 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


187 


every  statesman’s  ambition.  The  President  can  by  his  veto 
stop  legislation  adverse  to  the  wishes  of  the  party  he  represents. 
The  President  is  the  supreme  dispenser  of  patronage. 

One  may  therefore  say  that  the  task  of  a  convention  is  to 
choose  the  party  candidate.  And  it  is  a  task  difficult  enough 
to  tax  all  the  resources  of  the  host  of  delegates  and  their  leaders. 
Who  is  the  man  fittest  to  be  adopted  as  candidate?  Not  even 
a  novice  in  politics  will  suppose  that  it  is  the  best  man,  i.e.  the 
wisest,  strongest,  and  most  upright.  Plainly,  it  is  the  man  most 
likely  to  ’win,  the  man  who,  to  use  the  technical  term,  is  most 
“  available.”  What  a  party  wants  is  not  a  good  President  but  a 
good  candidate.  The  party  managers  have  therefore  to  look  out 
for  the  person  likely  to  gain  most  support,  and  at  the  same  time 
excite  least  opposition.  Their  search  is  rendered  more  trouble¬ 
some  by  the  fact  that  many  of  them,  being  themselves  either 
aspirants  or  the  close  allies  of  aspirants,  are  not  disinterested, 
and  are  distrusted  by  their  fellow-searchers. 

Many  things  have  to  be  considered.  The  ability  of  a  states¬ 
man,  the  length  of  time  he  has  been  before  the  people,  his 
oratorical  gifts,  his  “ magnetism,”  his  family  connections,  his 
face  and  figure,  the  purity  of  his  private  life,  his  “ record”  (the 
chronicle  of  his  conduct)  as  regards  integrity  —  all  these  are 
matters  needing  to  be  weighed.  Account  must  be  taken  of  the 
personal  jealousies  and  hatreds  which  a  man  has  excited.  To 
have  incurred  the  enmity  of  a  leading  statesman,  of  a  power¬ 
ful  Boss  or  Ring,  even  of  an  influential  newspaper,  is  serious. 
Several  such  feuds  may  be  fatal. 

Finally,  much  depends  on  the  State  whence  a  possible  candi¬ 
date  comes.  Local  feeling  leads  a  State  to  support  one  of  its 
own  citizens ;  it  increases  the  vote  of  his  own  party  in  that 
State,  and  reduces  the  vote  of  the  opposite  party.  Where  the 
State  is  decidedly  of  one  political  colour,  e.g.  so  steadily  Re¬ 
publican  as  Vermont,  so  steadily  Democratic  as  Maryland,  this 
consideration  is  weak,  for  the  choice  of  a  Democratic  candidate 
from  the  former,  or  of  a  Republican  candidate  from  the  latter, 
would  not  make  the  difference  of  the  State’s  vote.  It  is  there¬ 
fore  from  a  doubtful  State  that  a  candidate  may  with  most  ad¬ 
vantage  be  selected ;  and  the  larger  the  doubtful  State,  the 
better.  California,  with  her  ten  electoral  votes,  is  just  worth 
“ placating”;  Indiana,  with  her  fifteen  votes,  more  so;  New 
York,  with  her  thirty-nine  votes,  most  so  of  all.  Hence  an 


188 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


aspirant  who  belongs  to  a  great  and  doubtful  State  is  prima 
facie  the  most  eligible  candidate. 

Aspirants  hoping  to  obtain  the  party  nomination  from  a 
national  convention  may  be  divided  into  three  classes,  the  two 
last  of  which,  as  will  appear  presently,  are  not  mutually  exclu¬ 
sive,  viz. :  — 

.j* 

Favourites.  Dark  Horses.  Favourite  Sons. 

A  Favourite  is  always  a  politician  well  known  over  the  Union, 
and  drawing  support  from  all  or  most  of  its  sections.  He  may 
be  a  man  who  has  distinguished  himself  in  Congress,  or  in  some 
high  executive  post,  or  in  the  politics  of  some  State  so  large 
that  its  politics  are  matter  of  knowledge  and  interest  to  the 
whole  nation.  He  is  usually  a  person  of  conspicuous  gifts, 
whether  as  a  speaker,  or  a  party  manager,  or  an  admini¬ 
strator.  The  drawback  to  him  is  that  in  making  friends  he  has 
also  made  enemies. 

A  Dark  Horse  is  a  person  not  very  widely  known  in  the 
country  at  large,  but  known  rather  for  good  than  for  evil.  He 
has  probably  sat  in  Congress,  been  useful  on  committees,  and 
gained  some  credit  among  those  who  dealt  with  him  in  Wash¬ 
ington.  Or  he  has  approved  himself  a  safe  and  assiduous 
party  man  in  the  political  campaigns  of  his  own  and  neighbour¬ 
ing  States,  yet  without  reaching  national  prominence.  Some¬ 
times  he  is  a  really  able  man,  but  without  the  special  talents 
that  win  popularity.  Still,  speaking  generally,  the  note  of  the 
Dark  Horse  is  respectability,  verging  on  colourlessness ;  and 
he  is  therefore  a  good  sort  of  person  to  fall  back  upon  when 
able  but  dangerous  Favourites  have  proved  impossible.  That 
native  mediocrity  rather  than  adverse  fortune  has  prevented 
him  from  winning  fame  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  Dark 
Horses  who  have  reached  the  White  House,  if  they  have  seldom 
turned  out  bad  Presidents,  have  even  more  seldom  turned  out 
distinguished  ones. 

A  Favourite  Son  is  a  politician  respected  or  admired  in  his 
own  State,  but  little  regarded  beyond  it.  He  may  not  be,  like 
the  Dark  Horse,  little  known  to  the  nation  at  large,  but  he  has 
not  fixed  its  eye  or  filled  its  ear.  He  is  usually  a  man  who  has 
sat  in  the  State  legislature ;  filled  with  credit  the  post  of  State 
governor;  perhaps  gone  as  senator  or  representative  to  Wash¬ 
ington,  and  there  approved  himself  an  active  promoter  of  local 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


189 


interests.  Probably  he  possesses  the  qualities  which  gain  local 
popularity,  —  geniality,  activity,  sympathy  with  the  dominant 
sentiment  and  habits  of  his  State ;  or  while  endowed  with  gifts 
excellent  in  their  way,  he  has  lacked  the  audacity  and  tenacity 
which  push  a  man  to  the  front  through  a  jostling  crowd.  More 
rarely  he  is  a  demagogue  who  has  raised  himself  by  flattering 
the  masses  of  his  State  on  some  local  questions,  or  a  skilful 
handler  of  party  organizations  who  has  made  local  bosses  and 
spoilsmen  believe  that  their  interests  are  safe  in  his  hands. 
Anyhow,  his  personality  is  such  as  to  be  more  effective  with 
neighbours  than  with  the  nation,  as  a  lamp  whose  glow  fills  the 
side  chapel  of  a  cathedral  sinks  to  a  spark  of  light  when  carried 
into  the  nave. 

A  Favourite  Son  may  be  also  a  Dark  Horse;  that  is  to  say, 
he  may  be  well  known  in  his  own  State,  but  so  little  known  out 
of  it  as  to  be  an  unlikely  candidate.  But  he  need  not  be.  The 
types  are  different,  for  as  there  are  Favourite  Sons  whom  the 
nation  knows  bub  does  not  care  for,  so  there  are  Dark  Horses 
whose  reputation,  such  as  it  is,  has  not  been  made  in  State 
affairs,  and  who  rely  very  little  on  State  favour. 

There  are  seldom  more  than  two,  never  more  than  three 
Favourites  in  the  running  at  the  same  convention.  Favourite 
Sons  are  more  numerous  —  it  is  not  uncommon  to  have  four  or 
five,  or  even  six,  though  perhaps  not  all  these  are  actually 
started  in  the  race.  The  number  of  Dark  Horses  is  practically 
unlimited,  because  many  talked  of  beforehand  are  not  actually 
started,  while  others  not  considered  before  the  convention  begins 
are  discovered  as  it  goes  on.  This  happened  in  the  leading  and 
most  instructive  case  of  James  A.  Garfield,  who  was  not  voted 
for  at  all  on  the  first  ballot  in  the  Republican  convention  of 
1880,  and  had,  on  no  ballot  up  to  the  thirty-fourth,  received 
more  than  two  votes.  On  the  thirty-sixth  1  he  was  nominated 
by  399.  So,  in  1852,  Pierce  was  scarcely  known  to  the  people 
when  he  was  sprung  on  the  convention.  So,  in  1868,  Horatio 
Seymour,  who  had  been  so  little  thought  of  as  a  candidate  that 
he  was  chairman  of  the  Democratic  convention,  was  first  voted 
for  on  the  twenty-second  ballot.  He  refused  to  be  nominated,  but 
was  induced  to  leave  the  chair  and  nominated  on  that  very  ballot. 

To  carry  the  analysis  farther,  it  may  be  observed  that  four 

1  In  1860  the  Democratic  convention  at  Charleston  nominated  Mr.  Douglas 
on  the  fifty-seventh  ballot. 


190 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


sets  of  motives  are  at  work  upon  those  who  direct  or  vote  in  a 
convention,  acting  with  different  degrees  of  force  on  different 
persons.  There  is  the  wish  to  carry  a  particular  aspirant. 
There  is  the  wish  to  defeat  a  particular  aspirant,  a  wish  some¬ 
times  stronger  than  any  predilection.  There  is  the  desire  to 
get  something  for  one’s  self  out  of  the  struggle  —  e.g.  by  trading 
one’s  vote  or  influence  for  the  prospect  of  a  Federal  office. 
There  is  the  wish  to  find  the  man  who,  be  he  good  or  bad,  friend 
or  foe,  will  give  the  party  its  best  chance  of  victory.  These 
motives  cross  one  another,  get  mixed,  vary  in  relative  strength 
from  hour  to  hour  as  the  convention  goes  on  and  new  possi¬ 
bilities  are  disclosed.  To  forecast  their  joint  effect  on  the 
minds  of  particular  persons  and  sections  of  a  party  needs  wide 
knowledge  and  eminent  acuteness.  To  play  upon  them  is  a 
matter  of  the  finest  skill. 

The  proceedings  of  a  nominating  convention  can  be  best 
understood  by  regarding  the  three  periods  into  which  they  fall : 
the  transactions  which  precede  the  opening  of  its  sittings ;  the 
preliminary  business  of  passing  rules  and  resolutions  and  de¬ 
livering  the  nominating  speeches ;  and,  finally,  the  balloting. 

A  President  has  scarcely  been  elected  before  the  newspapers 
begin  to  discuss  his  probable  successor.  Little,  however,  is 
done  towards  the  ascertainment  of  candidates  till  about  a  year 
before  the  next  election,  when  the  factions  of  the  chief  aspir¬ 
ants  prepare  to  fall  into  line,  newspapers  take  up  their  parable 
in  favour  of  one  or  other,  and  bosses  begin  the  work  of  “  sub¬ 
soiling,”  i.e.  manipulating  primaries  and  local  convention  so 
as  to  secure  the  choice  of  such  delegates  to  the  next  national 
convention  as  they  desire.  In  most  of  the  conventions  which 
appoint  delegates,  the  claims  of  the  several  aspirants  are  can¬ 
vassed,  and  the  delegates  chosen  are  usually  chosen  in  the 
interest  of  one  particular  aspirant.  The  newspapers,  with  their 
quick  sense  of  what  is  beginning  to  stir  men’s  thoughts,  redouble 
their  advocacy,  and  the  “boom”  of  one  or  two  of  the  proba¬ 
ble  favourites  is  thus  fairly  started.  Before  the  delegates  leave 
their  homes  for  the  national  convention,  most  of  them  have 
fixed  on  their  candidate,  many  having  indeed  received  positive 
instructions  as  to  how  their  vote  shall  be  cast.  All  appears  to 
be  spontaneous,  but  in  reality  both  the  choice  of  particular  men 
as  delegates,  and  the  instructions  given,  are  usually  the  result 
of  untiring  underground  work  among  local  politicians,  directed, 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


191 


or  even  personally  conducted,  by  two  or  three  skilful  agents 
and  emissaries  of  a  leading  aspirant,  or  of  the  knot  which  seeks 
to  run  him.  Sometimes  the  result  of  the  convention  turns  on 
the  skill  shown  in  sending  up  “ handpicked”  delegates. 

Four  or  five  days  before  the  day  fixed  for  the  opening  of  the 
convention  the  delegations  begin  to  flock  into  the  city  where  it 
is  to  be  held.  Some  come  attended  by  a  host  of  friends  and 
camp-followers,  and  are  received  at  the  depot  (railway  termi¬ 
nus)  by  the  politicians  of  the  city,  with  a  band  of  music  and 
an  admiring  crowd.  Thus  Tammany  Hall,  the  famous  Demo¬ 
cratic  club  of  New  York  City,  came  six  hundred  strong  to 
Chicago  in  July,  1884,  filling  two  special  trains.1  A  great  crowd 
met  it  at  the  station,  and  it  marched,  following  its  Boss,  from 
the  cars  to  its  headquarters  at  the  Palmer  House,  in  procession, 
each  member  wearing  his  badge,  just  as  the  retainers  of  Earl 
Warwick  the  King-maker  used  to  follow  him  through  the 
streets  of  London  with  the  Bear  and  Ragged  Staff  upon  their 
sleeves.  Less  than  twenty  of  the  six  hundred  were  delegates ; 
the  rest  ordinary  members  of  the  organization,  who  had  accom¬ 
panied  to  give  it  moral  and  vocal  support.2 

Before  the  great  day  dawns  many  thousands  of  politicians, 
newspaper  men,  and  sight-seers  have  filled  to  overflowing  every 
hotel  in  the  city,  and  crowded  the  main  thoroughfares  so  that 
the  street  cars  can  scarcely  penetrate  the  throng.  It  is  like  a 
mediaeval  pilgrimage,  or  the  mustering  of  a  great  army.  When 
the  chief  delegations  have  arrived,  the  work  begins  in  earnest. 
Not  only  each  large  delegation,  but  the  faction  of  each  leading 
aspirant  to  the  candidacy,  has  its  headquarters,  where  the 
managers  hold  perpetual  session,  reckoning  up  their  numbers, 
starting  rumours  meant  to  exaggerate  their  resources  and  dis¬ 
hearten  their  opponents,  organizing  raids  upon  the  less  experi¬ 
enced  delegates  as  they  arrive.  Some  fill  the  entrance  halls 
and  bars  of  the  hotels,  talk  to  the  busy  reporters,  extemporize 
meetings  with  tumultuous  cheering  for  their  favourite.  The 
common  “worker ”  is  good  enough  to  raise  the  boom  by  these 
devices.  Meanwhile,  the  more  skilful  leaders  begin  (as  it  is 
expressed)  to  “plough  around”  among  the  delegations  of  the 

1  The  Boss  of  Tammany  was  an  object  of  special  curiosity  to  the  crowd, 
being  the  most  illustrious  professional  in  the  whole  United  States. 

2  The  two  other  Democratic  organizations  which  then  existed  in  New  York 
City,  the  County  Democracy  and  Irving  Hall,  came  each  in  force  —  the  one  a 
regiment  of  five  hundred,  the  other  of  two  hundred. 


192 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


newer  Western  and  Southern  States,  usually  (at  least  among 
the  Republicans)  more  malleable,  because  they  come  from 
regions  where  the  strength  of  the  factions  supporting  the  vari¬ 
ous  aspirants  is  less  accurately  known,  and  are  themselves 
more  easily  “ captured”  by  bold  assertions  or  seductive  prom¬ 
ises.  Sometimes  an  expert  intriguer  will  “ break  into”  one  of 
these  wavering  delegations,  and  make  havoc  like  a  fox  in  a  hen¬ 
roost.  “ Missionaries ”  are  sent  out  to  bring  over  individuals; 
embassies  are  accredited  from  one  delegation  to  another  to 
endeavour  to  arrange  combinations  by  coaxing  the  weaker 
party  to  drop  its  own  aspirant,  and  add  its  votes  to  those  of 
the  stronger  party.  All  is  conducted  with. perfect  order  and 
good-humour,  for  the  least  approach  to  violence  would  recoil 
upon  its  authors ;  and  the  only  breach  of  courtesy  is  where  a 
delegation  refuses  to  receive  the  ambassadors  of  an  organization 
whose  evil  fame  has  made  it  odious. 

It  is  against  etiquette  for  the  aspirants  themselves  to  appear 
upon  the  scene,1  whether  from  some  lingering  respect  for  the 
notion  that  a  man  must  not  ask  the  people  to  choose  him,  but 
accept  the  proffered  honour,  or  on  the  principle  that  the  attor¬ 
ney  who  conducts  his  own  case  has  a  fool  for  a  client.  But 
from  Washington,  if  he  is  an  official  or  a  senator,  or  perhaps 
from  his  own  home  in  some  distant  State,  each  aspirant  keeps 
up  hourly  communication  with  his  managers  in  the  convention 
city,  having  probably  a  private  telegraph  or  telephone  wire  laid 
on  for  the  purpose.  Not  only  may  officials,  including  the  Presi¬ 
dent  himself,  become  aspirants,  but  Federal  office-holders  may 
be,  and  very  largely  are,  delegates,  especially  among  the  South¬ 
ern  Republicans  when  that  party  is  in  power.2  They  have  the 
strongest  personal  interest  in  the  issue  ;  and  the  heads  of  depart 
ments  can,  by  promises  of  places,  exert  a  potent  influence.  One 
hears  in  America,  just  as  one  used  to  hear  in  France  under 
Louis  Napoleon  or  Marshal  McMahon,  of  the  “  candidate  of  the 
Administration.” 

As  the  hour  when  the  convention  is  to  open  approaches,  each 
faction  strains  its  energy  to  the  utmost.  The  larger  delega- 

1  Oddly  enough,  the  only  English  parallel  to  this  delicate  reserve  is  to  bo 
found  in  the  custom  which  forbids  a  candidate  for  the  representation  in  Par¬ 
liament  of  the  University  of  Oxford  to  approach  the  University  before  or  dur¬ 
ing  the  election. 

2  Not  to  add  that  many  Southern  Republican  delegates  are  supposed  to  be 
purchasable. 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


193 


tions  hold  meetings  to  determine  their  course  in  the  event  of 
the  man  they  chiefly  favour  proving  “ unavailable.”  Confer¬ 
ences  take  place  between  different  delegations.  Lists  are  pub¬ 
lished  in  the  newspapers  of  the  strength  of  each  aspirant. 
Sea  and  land  are  compassed  to  gain  one  influential  delegate, 
who  “owns”  other  delegates.  If  he  resists  other  persuasions, 
he  is  “switched  on”  to  the  private  wire  of  some  magnate  at 
Washington,  who  “talks  to  him,”  and  suggests  inducements 
more  effective  than  those  he  has  hitherto  withstood.  The  air 
is  thick  with  tales  of  plots  and  treasons,  so  that  no  politician 
trusts  his  neighbour,  for  rumour  spares  none. 

At  length  the  period  of  expectation  and  preparation  is  over, 
and  the  summer  sun  rises  upon  the  fateful  day  to  which  every 
politician  in  the  party  has  looked  forward  for  three  years. 
Long  before  the  time  (usually  11  a.m.)  fixed  for  the  beginning 
of  business,  every  part  of  the  hall,  erected  specially  for  the 
gathering  —  a  hall  often  large  enough  to  hold  from  ten  to  fif¬ 
teen  thousand  persons  —  is  crowded.1  The  delegates  —  who 
in  1908  were  979  in  the  Republican  convention  and  998  in  the 
Democratic  —  are  a  mere  drop  in  the  ocean  of  faces.  Eminent 
politicians  from  every  State  of  the  Union,  senators  and  repre¬ 
sentatives  from  Washington  not  a  few,  journalists  and  re¬ 
porters,  ladies,  sight-seers  from  distant  cities,  as  well  as  a 
swarm  of  partisans  from  the  city  itself,  press  in,  some  sem¬ 
blance  of  order  being  kept  by  the  sergeant-at-arms  and  his 
marshals.  Some  wear  devices,  sometimes  the  badge  of  their 
State,  or  of  their  organization ;  sometimes  the  colours  or  em¬ 
blem  of  their  favourite  aspirant.  Each  State  delegation  has 
its  allotted  place  marked  by  the  flag  of  the  State  floating  from 
a  pole,  or  a  board  bearing  its  name  raised  aloft ;  but  leaders 
may  be  seen  passing  from  one  group  to  another,  while  the  spec¬ 
tators  listen  to  the  band  playing  popular  airs,  and  cheer  any 
well-known  figure  that  enters. 

When  the  assembly  is  “called  to  order,”  a  prayer  is  offered 
—  each  day's  sitting  begins  with  a  prayer  by  some  clergyman 
of  local  eminence,2  the  susceptibilities  of  various  denominations 

1  Admission  is  of  course  by  ticket,  and  the  prices  given  for  tickets  to  those 
who,  having  obtained  them,  sell  them,  run  high,  up  to  $30,  or  even  $50. 

2 1  have  heard  in  such  a  prayer  thanks  returned  to  the  Almighty  for  having 
secured  the  nomination  of  a  particular  candidate  at  a  previous  sitting  of  the 
convention  and  the  request  preferred  that  He  would  make  sure  the  election  of 
that  candidate. 


o 


194 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


being  duly  respected  in  the  selection  —  and  business  proceeds 
according  to  the  order  described  in  last  chapter.  First  come 
the  preliminaries,  appointment  of  committees  and  chairmen, 
then  the  platform,  and  on  the  second  *>r  third  day,  the  nomi¬ 
nations  and  balloting,  the  latter  sometimes  extending  over 
several  days.  There  is  usually  both  a  forenoon  and  an  after¬ 
noon  session. 

A  European  is  astonished  to  see  nearly  one  thousand  men 
prepare  to  transact  the  two  most  difficult  pieces  of  business  an 
assembly  can  undertake,  the  solemn  consideration  of  their 
principles,  and  the  selection  of  the  person  they  wish  to  place  at 
the  head  of  the  nation,  in  the  sight  and  hearing  of  twelve  or 
fourteen  thousand  other  men  and  women.  Observation  of  what 
follows  does  not  lessen  the  astonishment.  The  convention  pre¬ 
sents  in  sharp  contrast  and  frequent  alternation,  the  two  most 
striking  features  of  Americans  in  public  —  their  orderliness  and 
their  excitability.  Everything  is  done  according  to  strict  rule, 
with  a  scrupulous  observance  of  small  formalities  which  Euro¬ 
pean  meetings  would  ignore  or  despise.  Points  of  order  almost 
too  fine  for  a  parliament  are  taken,  argued,  decided  on  by  the 
Chair,  to  whom  every  one  bows.  Yet  the  passions  that  sway 
the  multitude  are  constantly  bursting  forth  in  storms  of  cheer¬ 
ing  or  hissing  at  an  allusion  to  a  favourite  aspirant  or  an  obnox¬ 
ious  name,  and  five  or  six  speakers  may  take  the  floor  together, 
shouting  and  gesticulating  at  each  other  till  the  chairman  ob¬ 
tains  a  hearing  for  one  of  them.  Of  course  it  depends  on  the 
chairman  whether  or  no  the  convention  sinks  into  a  mob.  A 
chairman  with  a  weak  voice,  or  a  want  of  prompt  decision,  or  a 
suspicion  of  partisanship,  may  bring  the  assembly  to  the  verge 
of  disaster,  and  it  has  more  than  once  happened  that  when  the 
confusion  that  prevailed  would  have  led  to  an  irregular  vote 
which  might  have  been  subsequently  disputed,  the  action  of  the 
manager  acting  for  the  winning  horse  has,  by  waiving  some  point 
of  order  or  consenting  to  an  adjournment,  saved  the  party  from 
disruption.  Even  in  the  noisiest  scenes  good  sense,  with  a  feel¬ 
ing  for  the  need  of  fair  play  —  fair  play  according  to  the  rules 
of  the  game,  which  do  not  exclude  some  dodges  repugnant  to 
an  honourable  man  —  will  often  reassert  itself,  and  pull  back 
the  vehicle  from  the  edge  of  the  precipice. 

The  chief  interest  of  the  earlier  proceedings  lies  in  the  in¬ 
dications  which  speeches  and  votings  give  of  the  relative 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


195 


strength  of  the  factions.  Sometimes  a  division  on  the  choice 
of  a  chairman,  or  on  the  adoption  of  a  rule,  reveals  the  ten¬ 
dencies  of  the  majority,  or  of  influential  leaders,  in  a  way 
which  sends  the  chances  of  an  aspirant  swiftly  up  or  down  the 
barometer  of  opinion.  So  when  the  nominating  speeches  come, 
it  is  not  so  much  their  eloquence  that  helps  a  nominee  as  the 
warmth  with  which  the  audience  receives  them,  the  volume  of 
cheering  and  the  length  of  time,  perhaps  an  hour  or  more,  during 
which  the  transport  lasts.  As  might  be  guessed  from  the  size 
of  the  audience  which  he  addresses,  an  orator  is  expected  to 
“soar  into  the  blue  empyrean”  at  once.  The  rhetoric  is  usually 
pompous  and  impassioned,  but  few  are  those  who  can  make 
themselves  heard  by  the  whole  of  the  multitude.  To  read  a 
speech,  even  a  short  speech,  from  copious  notes,  is  neither 
irregular  nor  rare. 

While  forenoon  and  evening,  perhaps  even  late  evening,  are 
occupied  with  the  sittings  of  the  convention,  canvassing  and 
intrigue  go  on  more  briskly  than  ever  during  the  rest  of  the 
day  and  night.  Conferences  are  held  between  delegations 
anxious  to  arrange  for  a  union  of  forces  on  one  candidate.1 
Divided  delegations  hold  meetings  of  their  own  members,  meet¬ 
ings  often  long  and  stormy,  behind  closed  doors,  outside  which 
a  curious  crowd  listens  to  the  angry  voices  within,  and  snatches 
at  the  reports  which  the  dispersing  members  give  of  the  result. 
Sometimes  the  whole  issue  of  the  convention  hinges  on  the 
action  of  the  delegates  of  a  great  State,  which,  like  New  York, 
under  the  unit  rule,  can  throw  seventy-eight  votes  into  the 
trembling  scale.  It  has  even  happened,  although  this  is  against 
a  well-settled  custom,  that  a  brazen  aspirant  himself  goes  the 
round  of  several  delegations  and  tries  to  harangue  them  into 
supporting  him. 

Sometimes  it  is  well  known  beforehand  whom  the  Conven¬ 
tion  will  nominate.  One  aspirant  may  be  so  generally  popular 
with  the  whole  party  that  the  delegates  have  nothing  to  do 
but  register  a  foregone  conclusion.  Or  it  may  happen  that  the 

1  In  the  Democratic  convention  of  1884  it  was  understood  that  the  choice 
of  Mr.  Cleveland,  the  leading  Favourite,  would  depend  on  the  action  of  the 
delegation  of  New  York  State,  not  only,  however,  because  it  cast  the  largest 
vote,  but  because  it  was  his  own  State,  and  because  it  was  already  foreseen 
that  the  presidential  election  would  turn  on  the  electoral  vote  of  New  York. 
Thus  the  struggle  in  the  convention  came  to  be  really  a  duel  between  Mr. 
Cleveland  and  the  Boss  of  Tammany,  with  whom  Mr.  Cleveland  had  at  an 
earlier  period  in  his  career  “locked  horns.” 


196 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


leaders  of  the  party  have  reached  an  agreement  which  a  ma¬ 
jority  of  the  delegates  can  be  relied  on  to  carry  out.  Such 
cases,  however,  have  hitherto  been  infrequent,  and  in  what 
follows  I  describe  the  more  usual  phenomenon  of  a  struggle 
between  contending  factions  and  aspirants  prolonged  until  the 
moment  comes  for  the  convention  to  decide. 

As  it  rarely  happens  that  any  aspirant  is  able  to  command  at 
starting  a  clear  majority  of  the  whole  convention,  the  object  of 
his  friends  is  to  arrange  a  combination  whereby  he  may  gather 
from  the  supporters  of  other  aspirants  votes  sufficient  to  make 
up  the  requisite  majority,  be  it  two-thirds,  according  to  the  Dem¬ 
ocratic  rule,  or  a  little  more  than  a  half,  according  to  the  Repub¬ 
lican.  Let  us  take  the  total  number  of  votes  at  1000  —  a  trifle 
above  the  figure  in  1908.  There  are  usually  two  aspirants  com¬ 
manding  each  from  280  to  350,  one  or  two  others  with  from  50  to 
120,  and  the  rest  with  much  smaller  figures,  20  to  40  each.  A  com¬ 
bination  can  succeed  in  one  of  two  ways  :  (a)  One  of  the  stronger 
aspirants  may  pick  up  votes,  sometimes  quickly,  sometimes  by 
slow  degrees,  from  the  weaker  candidates,  sufficient  to  overpower 
the  rival  Favourite ;  ( b )  Each  of  the  strongest  aspirants  may 
hold  his  forces  so  well  together  that  after  repeated  ballotings  it 
becomes  clear  that  neither  can  win  against  the  resistance  of  the 
other.  Neither  faction  will,  however,  give  way,  because  there 
is  usually  bitterness  between  them,  because  each  would  feel 
humiliated,  and  because  each  aspirant  has  so  many  friends  that 
his  patronage  will  no  more  than  suffice  for  the  clients  to  whom 
he  is  pledged  already.  Hence  one  or  other  of  the  baffled  Favour¬ 
ites  suddenly  transfers  the  votes  he  commands  to  some  one 
of  the  weaker  men,  who  then  so  rapidly  “ develops  strength” 
that  the  rest  of  the  minor  factions  go  over  to  him,  and  he  obtains 
the  requisite  majority.1  Experience  has  so  well  prepared  the 
tacticians  for  one  or  other  of  these  issues  that  the  game  is 
always  played  with  a  view  to  them.  The  first  effort  of  the 
managers  of  a  Favourite  is  to  capture  the  minor  groups  of 
delegates  who  support  one  or  other  of  the  Favourite  Sons  and 
Dark  Horses.  Not  till  this  proves  hopeless  do  they  decide  to 

1  Suppose  A  and  B,  Favourites,  to  have  each  330  votes.  After  some  ballot¬ 
ings,  A’s  friends,  perceiving  they  cannot  draw  enough  of  the  votes  commanded 
by  C,  D,  and  F  (who  have  each  70),  and  of  G  and  H  (who  have  each  30),  to  win, 
give  their  330  votes  to  F.  This  gives  him  so  considerable  a  lead  that  C,  D, 
and  G  go  over  to  him  on  the  next  ballot ;  he  has  then  570,  and  either  wins  at 
once  (Republican  rule)  or  will  win  next  ballot  (Democratic  rule). 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


197 


sell  themselves  as  dear  as  they  can  by  taking  up  and  carrying 
to  victory  a  Dark  Horse  or  perhaps  even  a  Favourite  Son, 
thereby  retaining  the  pleasure  of  defeating  the  rival  Favourite, 
while  at  the  same  time  establishing  a  claim  for  themselves  and 
their  faction  on  the  aspirant  whom  they  carry.1 

It  may  be  asked  why  a  Dark  Horse  often  prevails  against 
the  Favourites,  seeing  that  either  of  the  latter  has  a  much  larger 
number  of  delegates  in  his  favour.  Ought  not  the  wish  of  a 
very  large  group  to  have  so  much  weight  with  the  minor  groups 
as  to  induce  them  to  come  over  and  carry  the  man  whom  a 
powerful  section  of  the  party  obviously  desires?  The  reason 
why  this  does  not  happen  is  that  a  Favourite  is  often  as  much 
hated  by  one  strong  section  as  he  is  liked  by  another,  and  if  the 
hostile  section  is  not  strong  enough  to  keep  him  out  by  its  un¬ 
aided  vote,  it  is  sure  to  be  able  to  do  so  by  transferring  itself 
to  some  other  aspirant.  Moreover,  a  Favourite  has  often  less 
chance  with  the  minor  groups  than  a  Dark  Horse  may  have. 
He  has  not  the  charm  of  novelty.  His  “ins  and  outs’ ’  are 
known ;  the  delegations  weighed  his  merits  before  they  left 
their  own  State,  and  if  they,  or  the  State  convention  that  in¬ 
structed  them,  decided  against  him  then,  they  are  slow  to  adopt 
him  now.  They  have  formed  a  habit  of  “antagonizing”  him, 
whereas  they  have  no  hostility  to  some  new  and  hitherto  incon¬ 
spicuous  aspirant. 

Let  us  now  suppose  resolutions  and  nominating  speeches 
despatched,  and  the  curtain  raised  for  the  third  act  of  the  con¬ 
vention.  The  chairman  raps  loudly  with  his  gavel,2  announcing 
the  call  of  States  for  the  vote.  A  hush  falls  on  the  multitude, 
a  long  deep  breath  is  drawn,  tally  books  are  opened  and  pencils 
grasped,  while  the  clerk  reads  slowly  the  names  of  State  after 
State.  As  each  is  called,  the  chairman  of  its  delegation  rises 
and  announces  the  votes  it  gives,  bursts  of  cheering  from  each 
faction  in  the  audience  welcoming  the  votes  given  to  the  object 
of  its  wishes.  Inasmuch  as  the  disposition  of  most  of  the  dele- 


1  It  will  be  understood  that  while  the  Favourites  and  Favourite  Sons  are 
before  the  convention  from  the  first,  some  of  the  Dark  Horses  may  not  appear 
as  aspirants  till  well  on  in  the  balloting.  They  may  be  persons  who  have 
never  been  thought  of  before  as  possible  candidates.  There  is  therefore  always 
a  great  element  of  exciting  uncertainty. 

2  The  gavel  is  a  sort  of  auctioneer’s  hammer  used  by  a  chairman  to  call  the 
attention  of  the  meeting  to  what  he  is  saying  or  to  restore  order.  That  used 
at  a  national  convention  is  often  made  of  pieces  of  wood  from  every  state. 


198 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


gates  has  become  known  beforehand,  not  only  to  the  managers, 
but  to  the  public  through  the  press,  jthe  loudest  welcome  is 
given  to  a  delegate  or  delegation  whose  vote  turns  out  better 
than  had  been  predicted. 

In  the  first  scene  of  this  third  and  decisive  act  the  Favourites 
have,  of  course,  the  leading  parts.  Their  object  is  to  produce 
an  impression  of  overwhelming  strength,  so  the  whole  of  this 
strength  is  displayed,  unless,  as  occasionally  happens,  an  astute 
manager  holds  back  a  few  votes.  This  is  also  the  bright  hour 
of  the  Favourite  Sons.  Each  receives  the  vote  of  his  State,  but 
each  usually  finds  that  he  has  little  to  expect  from  external 
help,  and  his  friends  begin  to  consider  into  what  other  camp 
they  had  better  march  over.  The  Dark  Horses  are  in  the  back¬ 
ground,  nor  is  it  yet  possible  to  say  which  (if  any)  of  them 
will  come  to  the  front. 

The  first  ballot  seldom  decides  much,  yet  it  gives  a  new 
aspect  to  the  battle-field,  for  the  dispositions  of  some  groups  of 
voters  who  had  remained  doubtful  is  now  revealed,  and  the 
managers  of  each  aspirant  are  better  able  to  tell,  from  the  way 
in  which  certain  delegations  are  divided,  in  what  quarters  they 
are  most  likely  to  gain  or  lose  votes  on  the  subsequent  ballots. 
They  whisper  hastily  together,  and  try,  in  the  few  moments 
they  have  before  the  second  ballot  is  upon  them,  to  prepare 
some  new  line  of  defence  or  attack. 

The  second  ballot,  taken  in  the  same  way,  sometimes  reveals 
even  more  than  the  first.  The  smaller  and  more  timid  delega¬ 
tions,  smitten  with  the  sense  of  their  weakness,  despairing  of 
their  own  aspirant,  and  anxious  to  be  on  the  winning  side,  begin 
to  give  way ;  or  if  this  does  not  happen  on  the  second  ballot, 
it  may  do  so  on  the  third.  Rifts  open  in  their  ranks,  individ¬ 
uals  or  groups  of  delegates  go  over  to  one  of  the  stronger  can¬ 
didates,  some  having  all  along  meant  to  do  so,  and  thrown  their 
first  vote  merely  to  obey  instructions  received  or  fulfil  the  letter 
of  a  promise  given.  The  gain  of  even  twenty  or  thirty  votes 
for  one  of  the  leading  candidates  over  his  strength  on  the  pre¬ 
ceding  ballot  so  much  inspirits  his  friends,  and  is  so  likely  to 
bring  fresh  recruits  to  his  standard,  that  a  wily  manager  will 
often,  on  the  first  ballot,  throw  away  some  of  his  votes  on  a 
harmless  antagonist  that  he  may  by  rallying  them  increase  the 
total  of  his  candidate  on  the  second,  and  so  convey  the  impres¬ 
sion  of  growing  strength. 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


199 


The  breathing  space  between  each  ballot  and  that  which 
follows  is  used  by  the  managers  for  hurried  consultations. 
Aides-de-camp  are  sent  to  confirm  a  wavering  delegation,  or  to 
urge  one  which  has  been  supporting  a  now  hopeless  aspirant 
to  seize  this  moment  for  dropping  him  and  coming  over  to  the 
winning  standard.  Or  the  aspirant  himself,  who,  hundreds  of 
miles  away,  sits  listening  to  the  click  of  the  busy  wires,  or  the 
half-heard  lispings  of  a  “  long  distance  ”  telephone,  is  told  how 
matters  stand,  and  asked  to  advise  forthwith  what  course  his 
friends  shall  take.  Forthwith  it  must  be,  for  the  next  ballot 
is  come,  and  may  give  the  battle-field  a  new  aspect,  promising 
victory  or  presaging  irretrievable  defeat. 

Any  one  who  has  taken  part  in  an  election,  be  it  the  election 
of  a  pope  by  cardinals,  or  a  town-clerk  by  a  city  council,  of  a 
fellow  by  the  dons  of  a  college,  of  a  schoolmaster  by  the  board 
of  trustees,  of  a  pastor  by  a  congregation,  knows  how  much 
depends  on  generalship.  In  every  body  of  electors  there  are 
men  who  have  no  minds  of  their  own ;  others  who  cannot  make 
up  their  minds  till  the  decisive  moment,  and  are  determined  by 
the  last  word  or  incident ;  others  whose  wavering  inclination 
yields  to  the  pressure  or  follows  the  example  of  a  stronger  col¬ 
league.  There  are  therefore  chances  of  running  in  by  surprise 
an  aspirant  whom  few  may  have  desired,  but  still  fewer  have 
positively  disliked,  chances  specially  valuable  when  contro¬ 
versy  has  spent  itself  between  two  equally  matched  competi¬ 
tors,  so  that  the  majority  are  ready  to  jump  at  a  new  suggestion. 
The  wary  tactician  awaits  his  opportunity;  he  improves  the 
brightening  prospects  of  his  aspirant  to  carry  him  with  a  run 
before  the  opposition  is  ready  with  a  counter  move ;  or  if  he 
sees  a  strong  antagonist,  he  invents  pretexts  for  delay  till  he 
has  arranged  a  combination  by  which  that  antagonist  may  be 
foiled.  Sometimes  he  will  put  forward  an  aspirant  destined 
to  be  abandoned,  and  reserve  till  several  votings  have  been 
taken  the  man  with  whom  he  means  to  win.  All  these  arts  are 
familiar  to  the  convention  manager,  whose  power  is  seen  not 
merely  in  the  dealing  with  so  large  a  number  of  individuals 
and  groups  whose  dispositions  he  must  grasp  and  remember, 
but  in  the  cool  promptitude  with  which  he  decides  on  his  course 
amid  the  noise  and  passion  and  distractions  of  twelve  thou¬ 
sand  shouting  spectators.  Scarcely  greater  are  the  faculties  of 
combination  and  coolness  of  head  needed  by  a  general  in  the 


200 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


midst  of  a  battle,  who  has  to  bear  in  mind  the  position  of  every 
one  of  his  own  corps  and  to  divine  the  'positions  of  those  of  the 
enemy’s  corps  which  remain  concealed,  who  must  vary  his 
plan  from  hour  to  hour  according  to  the  success  or  failure  of 
each  of  his  movements  and  the  new  facts  that  are  successively 
disclosed,  and  who  does  all  this  under  the  roar  and  through  the 
smoke  of  cannon. 

One  balloting  follows  another  till  what  is  called  “the  break” 
comes.  It  comes  when  the  weaker  factions,  perceiving  that  the 
men  of  their  first  preference  cannot  succeed,  transfer  their  votes 
to  that  one  among  the  aspirants  whom  they  like  best,  or  whose 
strength  they  see  growing.  When  the  faction  of  one  aspirant 
has  set  the  example,  others  are  quick  to  follow,  and  thus  it  may 
happen  that  after  thirty  or  forty  ballots  have  been  taken  with 
few  changes  of  strength  as  between  the  two  leading  competitors, 
a  single  ballot,  once  the  break  has  begun,  and  the  column  of  one 
or  both  of  these  competitors  has  been  “staggered,”  decides  the 
battle. 

If  one  Favourite  is  much  stronger  from  the  first  than  any 
other,  the  break  may  come  soon  and  come  gently,  i.e.  each  ballot 
shows  a  gain  for  him  on  the  preceding  ballot,  and  he  marches 
so  steadily  to  victory  that  resistance  is  felt  to  be  useless.  But 
if  two  well-matched  rivals  have  maintained  the  struggle  through 
twenty  or  thirty  ballots,  so  that  the  long  strain  has  wrought  up 
all  minds  to  unwonted  excitement,  the  break,  when  it  comes, 
comes  with  fierce  intensity,  like  that  which  used  to  mark  the 
charge  of  the  Old  Guard.  The  defeat  becomes  a  rout.  Bat¬ 
talion  after  battalion  goes  over  to  the  victors,  while  the  van¬ 
quished,  ashamed  of  their  candidate,  try  to  conceal  themselves 
by  throwing  away  their  colours  and  joining  in  the  cheers  that 
acclaim  the  conqueror.  In  the  picturesquely  technical  language 
of  politicians,  it  is  a  Stampede. 

To  stampede  a  convention  is  the  steadily  contemplated  aim 
of  every  manager  who  knows  he  cannot  win  on  the  first  ballot.1 
He  enjoys  it  as  the  most  dramatic  form  of  victory,  he  values  it 

1  To  check  stampeding,  the  Republican  convention  of  1876  adopted  a  rule 
providing  that  the  roll-call  of  States  should  in  no  case  be  dispensed  with.  This 
makes  surprise  and  tumult  less  dangerous.  (See  Stanwood’s  useful  History 
of  Presidential  Elections.)  With  the  same  view,  the  Republican  convention 
of  1888  ruled  that  no  vote  given  on  any  balloting  should  be  changed  before  the 
end  of  that  balloting.  The  impulse  to  “jump  on  the  band-waggon”  is  strong 
in  moments  of  excitement. 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


201 


because  it  evokes  an  enthusiasm  whose  echo  reverberates  all 
over  the  Union,  and  dilates  the  party  heart  with  something  like 
that  sense  of  supernatural  guidance  which  Rome  used  to  have 
when  the  cardinals  chose  a  pope  by  the  sudden  inspiration  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  Sometimes  it  comes  of  itself,  when  various 
delegations,  smitten  at  the  same  moment  by  the  sense  that  one 
of  the  aspirants  is  destined  to  conquer,  go  over  to  him  all  at 
once.1  Sometimes  it  is  due  to  the  action  of  the  aspirant  him¬ 
self.  In  1880  Mr.  Blaine,  who  was  one  of  the  two  leading 
Favourites,  perceiving  that  he  could  not  be  carried  against  the 
resistance  of  the  Grant  men,  suddenly  telegraphed  to  his  friends 
to  transfer  their  votes  to  General  Garfield,  till  then  a  scarcely 
considered  candidate.  In  1884  General  Logan,  also  by  tele¬ 
graph,  turned  over  his  votes  to  Mr.  Blaine  between  the  third 
and  fourth  ballot,  thereby  assuring  the  already  probable  triumph 
of  that  Favourite. 

When  a  stampede  is  imminent,  only  one  means  exists  of 
averting  it,  —  that  of  adjourning  the  convention  so  as  to  stop 
the  panic  and  gain  time  for  a  combination  against  the  winning 
aspirant.  A  resolute  manager  always  tries  this  device,  but  he 
seldom  succeeds,  for  the  winning  side  resists  the  motion  for 
adjournment,  and  the  vote  which  it  casts  on  that  issue  is  prac¬ 
tically  a  vote  for  its  aspirant,  against  so  much  of  “  the  field  ” 
as  has  any  fight  left  in  it.  This  is  the  most  critical  and  exciting 
moment  of  the  whole  battle.  A  dozen  speakers  rise  at  once, 
some  to  support,  some  to  resist  the  adjournment,  some  to  pro¬ 
test  against  debate  upon  it,  some  to  take  points  of  order,  few 
of  which  can  be  heard  over  the  din  of  the  howling  multitude. 
Meanwhile  the  managers  who  have  kept  their  heads  rush 
swiftly  about  through  friendly  delegations,  trying  at  this  su¬ 
preme  moment  to  rig  up  a  combination  which  may  resist  the 
advancing  tempest.  Tremendous  efforts  are  made  to  get  the 
second  Favourite’s  men  to  abandon  their  chief  and  “  swing  into 
line”  for  some  Dark  Horse  or  Favourite  Son,  with  whose  votes 
they  may  make  head  till  other  factions  rally  to  them. 

“In  vain,  in  vain,  the  all-consuming  hour 
Relentless  falls  —  ” 

1  Probably  a  Dark  Horse,  for  the  Favourite  Sons,  having  had  their  turn  in 
the  earlier  ballotings,  have  been  discounted,  and  are  apt  to  excite  more  jealousy 
among  the  delegates  of  other  States. 


202 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


The  battle  is  already  lost,  the  ranks  are  broken  and  cannot  be 
rallied,  nothing  remains  for  brave  men  but  to  cast  their  last 
votes  against  the  winner  and  fall  gloriously  around  their  still 
waving  banner.  The  motion  to  adjourn  is  defeated,  and  the 
next  ballot  ends  the  strife  with  a  hurricane  of  cheering  for  the 
chosen  leader.  Then  a  sudden  calm  falls  on  the  troubled  sea. 
What  is  done  is  done,  and  whether  done  for  good  or  for  ill,  the 
best  face  must  be  put  upon  it.  Accordingly,  the  proposer  of  one 
of  the  defeated  aspirants  moves  that  the  nomination  be  made 
unanimous,  and  the  more  conspicuous  friends  of  other  aspirants 
hasten  to  show  their  good-humour  and  their  loyalty  to  the  party 
as  a  whole  by  seconding  this  proposition.  Then,  perhaps,  a 
gigantic  portrait  of  the  candidate,  provided  by  anticipation,  is 
hoisted  up,  a  signal  for  fresh  enthusiasm,  or  a  stuffed  eagle  is 
carried  in  procession  round  the  hall. 

Nothing  further  remains  but  to  nominate  a  candidate  for  the 
vice-presidency,  a  matter  of  small  moment  now  that  the  great 
issue  has  been  settled.  This  nomination  is  sometimes  used  to 
console  one  of  the  defeated  aspirants  for  the  presidential  nomi¬ 
nation,  or  is  handed  over  to  his  friends  to  be  given  to  some 
politician  of  their  choice.  If  there  be  a  contest,  it  is  seldom 
prolonged  beyond  two  or  three  ballots.  The  convention  is  at 
an  end,  and  in  another  day  the  whole  host  of  exhausted  dele¬ 
gates  and  camp-followers,  hoarse  with  shouting,  is  streaming 
home  along  the  railways. 

The  fever  heat  of  the  convention  is  almost  matched  by  that 
of  the  great  cities,  and  indeed  of  every  spot  over  the  Union  to 
which  there  runs  an  electric  wire.  Every  incident,  speech,  vote, 
is  instantly  telegraphed  to  all  the  cities.  Crowds  gather  round 
the  newspaper  offices,  where  frequent  editions  are  supple¬ 
mented  by  boards  displaying  the  latest  bulletins.  In  Wash¬ 
ington,  Congress  can  hardly  be  kept  together,  because  every 
politician  is  personally  interested  in  every  move  of  the  game. 
When  at  last  the  result  is  announced,  the  partisans  of  the 
chosen  candidate  go  wild  with  delight ;  salvos  of  artillery  are 
fired  off,  processions  with  bands  parade  the  streets,  ratification 
meetings  are  announced  for  the  same  evening  “  campaign, 
clubs”. bearing  the  candidate’s  name  are  organized  on  the  spot. 
The  excitement  is  of  course  greatest  in  the  victor’s  own  State, 
or  in  the  city  where  he  happens  to  be  resident.  A  crowd  rushes 
to  his  house,  squeezes  his  hand  to  a  quivering  pulp,  congratu- 


chap,  lxx  NOMINATING  CONVENTION  AT  WORK 


203 


lates  him  on  being  virtually  President,  while  the  keen-eyed 
reporter  telegraphs  far  and  wide  how  he  smiled  and  spoke 
when  the  news  was  brought.  Defeated  aspirants  telegraph  to 
their  luckier  rival  their  congratulations  on  his  success,  promis¬ 
ing  him  support  in  the  campaign.  Interviewers  fly  to  promi¬ 
nent  politicians,  and  cross-examine  them  as  to  what  they  think 
of  the  nomination.  But  in  two  days  all  is  still  again,  and  a 
lull  of  exhaustion  follows  till  the  real  business  of  the  contest 
begins  some  while  later  with  the  issue  of  the  letter  of  accept¬ 
ance  in  which  the  candidate  declares  his  views  and  outlines  his 
policy. 


CHAPTER  LXXI 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN 

¥ 

A  presidential  election  in  America  is  something  to  which 
Europe  can  show  nothing  similar.  Though  the  issues  which  fall 
to  be  decided  by  the  election  of  a  Chamber  in  France  or  Italy, 
or  of  a  House  of  Commons  in  England,  are  often  far  graver 
than  those  involved  in  the  choice  of  A  or  B  to  be  executive 
chief  magistrate  for  four  years,  the  commotion  and  excitement, 
the  amount  of  “organization,”  of  speaking,  writing,  telegraph¬ 
ing,  and  shouting,  is  incomparably  greater  in  the  United  States. 
It  is  only  the  salient  features  of  these  contests  that  I  shall 
attempt  to  sketch,  for  the  detail  is  infinite. 

The  canvass  usually  lasts  about  four  months.  It  begins  soon 
after  both  of  the  great  parties  have  chosen  their  candidate,  i.e. 
before  the  middle  of  July ;  and  it  ends  early  in  November,  on 
the  day  when  the  presidential  electors  are  chosen  simultane¬ 
ously  in  and  by  all  the  States.  The  summer  heats  and  the 
absence  of  the  richer  sort  of  people  at  the  seaside  or  mountain 
resorts  keep  down  the  excitement  during  July  and  August ;  it 
rises  in  September,  and  boils  furiously  through  October. 

The  first  step  is  for  each  nominated  candidate  to  accept  his 
nomination  in  a  letter,  sometimes  as  long  as  a  pamphlet,  setting 
forth  his  views  of  the  condition  of  the  nation  and  the  policy 
which  the  times  require.  Such  a  letter  is  meant  to  strike  the 
keynote  for  the  whole  orchestra  of  orators.  It  is,  of  course, 
published  everywhere,  extolled  by  friendly  and  dissected  by 
hostile  journals.  Together  with  the  “platform”  adopted  at 
the  national  party  convention,  it  is  the  official  declaration  of 
party  principles,  to  be  referred  to  as  putting  the  party  case, 
no  less  than  the  candidate  himself,  before  the  nation. 

While  the  candidate  is  composing  his  address,  the  work  of 
organization  goes  briskly  forward,  for  in  American  elections 
everything  is  held  to  depend  on  organization.  A  central  or 

204 


CHAP.  LXXI 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN 


205 


national  party  committee  nominated  by  the  national  conven¬ 
tion,  and  consisting  of  one  member  from  each  State,  gets  its 
members  together  and  forms  a  plan  for  the  conduct  of  the  can¬ 
vass.  It  raises  money  by  appealing  to  the  wealthy  and  zealous 
men  of  the  party  for  subscriptions,  and,  of  course,  presses  those 
above  all  who  have  received  something  in  the  way  of  an  office 
or  other  gratification  from  the  party 1  or  who  expect  something 
from  its  action.  The  chairman  of  this  committee  is  an  impor¬ 
tant  personage,  who  exercises  great  power  and  upon  whose  abili¬ 
ties  much  may  depend.  The  treasurer  is  also  always  a  promi¬ 
nent  man,  in  whom  both  energy  and  discretion  are  required. 
It  communicates  with  the  leading  statesmen  and  orators  of  the 
party,  and  arranges  in  what  district  of  the  country  each  shall 
take  the  stump.  It  issues  shoals  of  pamphlets,  and  forms  rela¬ 
tions  with  party  newspapers.  It  allots  grants  from  the  “cam¬ 
paign  fund”  to  particular  persons  and  State  committees,  to  be 
spent  by  them  for  “campaign  purposes,”  an  elastic  term  which 
may  cover  a  good  deal  of  illicit  expenditure.  Enormous  sums  are 
gathered  and  disbursed  by  this  committee,  and  the  accounts 
submitted  do  not,  as  may  be  supposed,  answer  all  the  questions 
they  suggest.  The  committee  directs  its  speakers  and  its  funds 
chiefly  to  the  doubtful  States,  those  in  which  eloquence  or  ex¬ 
penditure  may  turn  the  balance  either  way.  There  are  seldom 
more  than  six  or  seven  such  States  at  any  one  election,  possibly 
fewer. 

The  efforts  of  the  national  committee  are  seconded  not  only 
by  a  Congressional  committee  2  and  by  State  committees,  but 
by  an  infinite  number  of  minor  organizations  over  the  country, 
in  the  rural  districts  no  less  than  in  the  cities.  Some  of  these 
are  permanent.  Others  are  created  for  the  election  alone ;  and 


1  As  a  statute  now  forbids  the  levying  of  assessments  for  party  purposes 
on  members  of  the  Federal  civil  service,  it  is  deemed  prudent  to  have  no  Federal 
official  on  the  committee,  lest  in  demanding  subscriptions  from  his  subordinates 
he  should  transgress  the  law. 

Large  contributions  used  to  be  made  by  the  great  manufacturing  and  other 
corporations,  partly  because  those  who  managed  them  thought  their  corporate 
interests  involved  in  the  success  of  one  party,  partly  (it  has  been  alleged)  because 
they  hoped  to  receive  certain  favors  from  the  party  to  which  they  were  giving 
pecuniary  aid.  The  practice  has  now  been  forbidden  by  a  statute  enacted  by 
Congress  in  1907. 

2  In  1908  both  parties,  under  the  provisions  of  a  statute,  returned  the  money 
collected  by  their  respective  national  committees  for  election  purpose.  The 
Republican  return  was  $1,65.5,518  the  Democratic  was  $620,644.  These  were 
deemed  unusually  small  sums. 


206 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


as  they  contemplate  a  short  life,  they  make  it  a  merry  one. 
These  “campaign  clubs,”  which  usually  bear  the  candidates’ 
names,  are  formed  on  every  imaginable  basis,  that  of  locality, 
of  race,  of  trade  or  profession,  of  university  affiliation.  There 
are  Irish  clubs,  Italian  clubs,  German  clubs,  Scandinavian  clubs, 
Polish  clubs,  coloured  (i.e.  negro)  clubs,  Orange  clubs.  There 
are  young  men’s  clubs,  lawyers’  clubs,  dry-goods  clubs,  insurance 
men’s  clubs,  shoe  and  leather  clubs.  There  are  clubs  of  the 
graduates  of  various  colleges.  Their  work  consists  in  canvassing 
the  voters,  making  up  lists  of  friends,  opponents,  and  doubtfuls, 
getting  up  processions  and  parades,  holding  meetings,  and  gen¬ 
erally  “booming  all  the  time.” 

This  is  mostly  unpaid  labour.  But  there  are  also  thousands 
of  paid  agents  at  work,  canvassing,  distributing  pamphlets  or 
leaflets,  lecturing  on  behalf  of  the  candidate.  It  is  in  America 
no  reproach  to  a  political  speaker  that  he  receives  a  fee  or  a 
salary.  Even  men  of  eminence  are  permitted  to  receive  not 
only  their  travelling  expenses,  but  a  round  sum.  Formerly  a 
candidate,  unless  possessed  of  popular  gifts,  did  but  little  speak¬ 
ing.  Latterly  he  has  been  expected  to  take  the  field  and  stay 
in  it  fighting  all  the  time,  a  terrible  strain  on  health  and  voice. 
He  is  of  course  chiefly  seen  in  the  doubtful  States,  where  he 
speaks  for  weeks  together  twice  or  thrice  on  most  days,  filling 
up  the  intervals  whth  “receptions”  at  which  he  has  to  shake 
hands  with  hundreds  of  male  callers,  and  be  presented  to  laches 
scarcely  less  numerous.1  The  leading  men  of  the  party  are,  of 
course,  pressed  into  the  service.  Even  if  they  dislike  and  have 
opposed  the  nomination  of  the  particular  candidate,  party  loyalty 
and  a  lively  sense  of  favours  to  come  force  them  to  work  for 
the  person  whom  the  party  has  chosen.  An  eminent  Irishman 
or  an  eminent  German  used  to  be  deemed  especially  valuable 
for  a  stumping  tour,  because  he  influenced  the  vote  of  his  coun¬ 
trymen.  Similarly  each  senator  is  expected  to  labour  assidu¬ 
ously  in  his  own  State,  where  presumably  his  influence  is  great¬ 
est,  and  any  refusal  to  do  so  is  deemed  a  pointed  disapproval  of 
the  candidate. 

The  committees  print  and  distribute  great  quantities  of  cam¬ 
paign  literature,  pamphlets,  speeches,  letters,  leaflets,  and  one 
can  believe  that  this  printed  matter  is  more  serviceable  than  it 

1  Sometimes  he  stumps  along  a  line  of  railroad,  making  ten-minute  speeches 
from  the  end  platform  of  the  last  car. 


CHAP.  LXXI 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN 


207 


would  be  in  England,  because  a  larger  part  of  the  voters  live  in 
quiet  country  places,  and  like  something  to  read  in  the  evening. 
Even  novelettes  are  composed  in  the  interests  of  a  candidate, 
wherein  lovers  talk  about  tariffs  under  the  moon.  Sometimes 
a  less  ingenuous  use  is  made  of  the  press.  On  the  very  eve  of 
election  of  1880,  too  late  for  a  contradiction  to  obtain  equal 
publicity,  a  forged  letter,  purporting  to  come  from  Mr.  Garfield, 
and  expressing  views  on  Chinese  immigration  and  labour  dis¬ 
tasteful  to  the  Pacific  States,  was  lithographed  and  scattered 
broadcast  over  California  where  it  told  heavily  against  him. 

Most  constant  and  effective  of  all  is  the  action  of  the  news¬ 
papers.  The  chief  journals  have  for  two  or  three  months  a 
daily  leading  article  recommending  their  own  and  assailing  the 
hostile  candidate,  with  a  swarm  of  minor  editorial  paragraphs 
bearing  on  the  election.  Besides  these  there  are  reports  of 
speeches  delivered,  letters  to  the  editor  with  the  editor’s  com¬ 
ments  at  the  end,  stories  about  the  candidates,  statements  as 
to  the  strength  of  each  party  in  particular  States,  counties, 
and  cities.  An  examination  of  a  few  of  the  chief  newspapers 
during  the  two  months  before  a  hotly  contested  election  showed 
that  their  “ campaign  matter”  of  all  kinds  formed  between  one- 
half  and  one-third  of  the  total  letterpress  of  the  paper  (excluding 
advertisements),  and  this,  be  it  remembered,  every  day  during 
those  two  months.  The  most  readable  part  of  this  matter  con¬ 
sists  in  the  reports  of  the  opinion  of  individual  persons,  more 
or  less  prominent,  on  the  candidate.  You  find,  for  instance,  a 
paragraph  stating  that  the  Rev.  Dr.  A.,  president  of  such  and 
such  a  college,  or  Mr.  B.,  the  philanthropist  who  is  head  of  the 
Y  Z  Bank,  or  ex-Governor  C.,  or  Judge  D.,  has  said  he  thinks 
the  candidate  a  model  of  chivalric  virtue,  or  fit  only  for  a 
felon’s  cell,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  that  he  will  vote  for  or 
against  him  accordingly.1  Occasionally  the  prominent  man 
is  called  on  bx_an  interviewer  and  gives  a  full  statement  of 
his  views,  or  he  writes  to  a  young  friend  who  has  asked  his  advice 
in  a  private  letter,  which  is  immediately  published.  The  abun- 

r  1  Sometimes  a  sort  of  amateur  census  is  taken  of  the  persons  occupied  in 
one  place  in  some  particular  employment,  as,  for  instance,  of  the  professors  in 
a  particular  college,  or  even  of  the  clerks  in  a  particular  store,  these  being 
taken  as  samples  of  store-clerks  or  professors  generally ;  and  the  party  organ 
triumphantly  claims  that  three-fourths  of  their  votes  will  be  cast  for  its  candi¬ 
date.  Among  the  “throbs  of  Connecticut’s  pulse,”  I  recollect  an  estimate  of 
the  “proclivities”  of  the  workmen  in  the  Willimantic  mills  in  that  State. 


208 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


dance  of  these  expressions  or  citations  of  the  opinions  of  private 
citizens  supplies  a  curious  evidence  of  the  disposition  of  some 
sections  in  a  democracy  to  look  up  to  its  intellectual  and  moral 
leaders.  For  the  men  thus  appealed  to  are  nearly  all  persons 
eminent  by  their  character,  ability,  learning,  or  success  in  busi¬ 
ness  ;  the  merely  rich  man  is  cited  but  rarely,  and  as  if  his  opin¬ 
ion  did  not  matter,  though  of  course  his  subscription  may. 
Judges  and  lawyers,  university  dignitaries  and  literary  men,  are, 
next  to  the  clergy,1  the  persons  most  often  quoted. 

The  function  of  the  clergy  in  elections  is  very  characteristic 
of  the  country  and  the  occasion.  They  used  during  the  period 
from  1820  to  1856  to  give  politics  a  wide  berth,  for  not  only 
would  their  advocacy  of  any  particular  cause  have  offended  a 
section  among  their  flocks,  but  the  general  sentiment  condemned 
the  immixture  in  politics  of  a  clerical  element.  The  struggle 
against  slavery,  being  a  moral  issue,  brought  them  into  more 
frequent  public  activity.  Since  the  close  of  that  struggle  they 
have  again  tended  to  retire.  However,  the  excitement  of  a 
presidential  election  suspends  all  rules ;  and  when  questions 
affecting  the  moral  character  of  the  candidates  are  involved, 
clerical  intervention  is  deemed  natural.  Thus  in  the  contest 
of  1884,  the  newspapers  were  full  of  the  opinions  of  clergy¬ 
men.  Sermons  were  reported  if  they  seemed  to  bear  upon 
the  issue.  Paragraphs  appeared  saying  that  such  and  such  a 
pastor  would  carry  three-fourths  of  his  congregation  with  him, 
whereas  the  conduct  of  another  in  appearing  at  a  meeting  on 
behalf  of  the  opposing  candidate  was  much  blamed  by  his 
flock.  Not  many  ministers  actually  took  the  platform,  though 
there  was  a  general  wish  to  have  them  as  chairmen.  But  one, 
the  late  Mr.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  did  great  execution  by  his 
powerful  oratory,  artillery  all  the  more  formidable  because  it 
was  turned  against  the  candidate  of  the  party  to  which  he  had 
through  his  long  life  belonged.  Nor  was  there  any  feature  in 
the  canvass  of  that  same  candidate  more  remarkable  than  the 
assembly  of  1018  clergymen  of  all  denominations  (including  a 
Jewish  rabbi),  which  gathered  at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  in 


1  An  eminent  Unitarian  clergyman  having  written  a  letter  condemning  a 
candidate,  the  leading  organ  of  that  candidate  in  sneering  at  it,  remarked  that 
after  all,  Dr.  Clarke’s  coachman’s  vote  was  as  good  as  Dr.  Clarke’s ;  to  which 
it  was  rejoined  that  hundreds  of  voters  would  follow  Dr.  Clarke,  and  hundreds 
more  be  offended  at  this  disrespectful  reference  to  him. 


CHAP.  LXXI 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN 


203 


New  York,  to  meet  him  and  assure  him  of  their  support  on  moral 
grounds  immediately  before  the  election  day.1 

From  a  class  usually  excluded  from  politics  by  custom  to  a 
class  excluded  by  law,  the  transition  is  easy.  Women  as  a  rule 
(setting  aside  the  four  woman  suffrage  Western  States)  keep  as 
much  aloof  from  electoral  contests  in  America  as  in  continental 
Europe,  and  certainly  more  than  in  England,  for  I  have  never 
heard  of  their  forming  an  organization  to  canvass  the  voters  of  a 
district  in  America,  as  the  (Conservative)  Primrose  League  and 
the  Women’s  Liberal  Associations  do  in  England.  Nor  are 
women  appointed  delegates  from  any  ward  primary,2  as  they  have 
lately  been  in  several  places  in  England.  However,  the  excite¬ 
ment  of  a  close  struggle  sometimes  draws  even  women  into  the 
vortex.  Receptions  are  tendered  by  the  ladies  of  each  party  to 
the  candidate,  and  are  reported  in  the  public  press  as  politically 
significant,  while  among  the  letters  which  appear  in  the  news¬ 
papers  not  a  few  bear  female  signatures. 

Speaking  and  writing  and  canvassing  are  common  to  elections 
all  over  the  world.  What  is  peculiar  to  America  is  the  amazing 
development  of  the  “  demonstration  ”  as  a  means  for  raising 
enthusiasm.  For  three  months,  processions,  usually  with  brass 
bands,  flags,  badges,  crowds  of  cheering  spectators,  are  the  order 
of  the  day  and  night  from  end  to  end  of  the  country.  The  Young 
Men’s  Pioneer  Club  of  a  village  in  the  woods  of  Michigan  turns 
out  in  the  summer  evening ;  the  Democrats  or  Republicans  of 
Chicago  or  Philadelphia  leave  their  business  to  march  through 
the  streets  of  these  great  cities  many  thousand  strong. 

When  a  procession  is  exceptionally  large,  it  is  called  a  Parade. 
In  New  York  City,  on  the  29th  of  October,  1884,  the  business 
men  who  supported  Air.  James  Gillespie  Blaine  held  such  a 
demonstration.  They  were  organized  by  profession  or  occupa¬ 
tion  :  the  lawyers,  eight  hundred  strong,  forming  one  battalion, 

1  One  of  the  clerical  speakers  spoke  of  the  opposite  candidate  as  receiving 
the  support  of  “rum,  Romanism,  and  rebellion.”  This  phrase,  eagerly  caught 
up,  and  repeated  by  hostile  newspapers,  incensed  the  Roman  Catholics  of  New 
York,  and  was  even  believed  to  have  turned  the  election  against  the  candidate 
in  whose  interest  the  alliteration  was  invented.  Nothing  so  dangerous  as  a 
friend. 

2  Women,  however,  have  often  appeared  as  delegates  at  the  conventions  of 
the  Prohibition  party ;  and  there  have  been  instances  in  which  they  have  been 
admitted  as  delegates  to  a  Republican  State  convention  in  Massachusetts. 

In  1904  several  women  were  alternate  delegates  to  the  Republican  national 
convention  from  AVyoming,  Colorado,  and  Idaho,  and  in  1908  one  woman  came 
as  an  “alternate”  from  Colorado  to  the  Republican  convention. 


210 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


the  dry-goods  men  another,  the  Produce  Exchange  a  third,  the 
bankers  a  fourth,  the  brokers  a  fifth,  the  jewellers  a  sixth,  the 
Petroleum  Exchange  a  seventh,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  They 
started  from  the  Bowling-green  near  the  south  end  of  Manhattan 
Island,  and  marched  right  up  the  city  along  Broadway  to  Madi¬ 
son  Square,  where  Air.  Blaine  reviewed  and  addressed  them. 
Rain  fell  incessantly,  and  the  streets  were  deep  with  mud,  but 
neither  rain  above  nor  mud  below  damped  the  spirits  of  this 
great  army,  which  tramped  steadily  along,  chanting  various 
“  campaign  refrains/’  such  as 

“  Five,  Five,  Five  Cent  Fare ;  ”  1 
but  most  frequently 

“Blaine,  Blaine,  James  G.  Blaine, 

We  don’t  care  a  bit  for  the  rain, 

O  —  O  —  O  —  O  —  HI  —  O.”  2 

There  were  said  to  have  been  25,000  business  men  in  this  pa¬ 
rade,  which  was  followed  soon  after  by  another  more  miscel¬ 
laneous  Blaine  parade  of  60,000  Republicans,  as  well  as  (of 
course)  by  counter  parades  of  Democrats.  A  European,  who 
stands  amazed  at  the  magnitude  of  these  demonstrations,  is  apt 
to  ask  whether  the  result  attained  is  commensurate  with  the 
money,  time,  and  effort  given  to  them.  His  American  friends 
answer  that,  as  with  advertising,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
shrewd  and  experienced  men  would  thus  spend  their  money 
unless  convinced  that  the  expenditure  was  reproductive.  The 
parade  and  procession  business,  the  crowds,  the  torches,  the 
badges,  the  flags,  the  shouting,  all  this  pleases  the  participants 
by  making  them  believe  they  are  effecting  something ;  it  im¬ 
presses  the  spectators  by  showing  them  that  other  people  are  in 
earnest,  it  strikes  the  imagination  of  those  who  in  country  hamlets 
read  of  the  doings  in  the  great  city.  In  short,  it  keeps  up  the 
“boom/’  and  an  American  election  is  held  to  be,  truly  or  falsely, 
largely  a  matter  of  booming. 

If  the  cynical  visitor  smiles  at  these  displays,  he  is  constrained 
to  admire  the  good-humour  and  good  order  which  prevail. 

1  Mr.  Cleveland  had,  as  Governor  of  New  York  State,  vetoed  as  unconstitu¬ 
tional  a  bill  establishing  a  uniform  fare  of  5  cents  on  the  New  York  City  ele¬ 
vated  railroads.  This  act  was  supposed  to  have  alienated  the  working  men 
and  ruined  his  presidential  prospects. 

2  In  the  State  elections  held  in  Ohio  shortly  beforehand,  the  Republicans 
had  been  victorious,  and  the  omen  was  gladly  caught  up. 


CHAP.  LXXI 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN 


211 


Neither  party  in  the  Northern,  Middle,  and  Western  States 
dreams  of  disturbing  the  parades  or  meetings  of  the  other.  You 
might  believe,  from  the  acclamations  which  accompany  a  pro¬ 
cession,  that  the  whole  population  was  with  it,  for  if  opponents 
are  present,  they  do  not  hoot  or  hiss,  and  there  are  always 
enough  sympathizers  to  cheer.  During  the  hotly  contested 
elections  of  1880  to  1896,  hardly  any  collisions  or  disturbances 
were  reported  from  California  to  Maine.  Even  in  Virginia, 
Maryland,  Missouri,  where  the  old  Southern  party  is  apt  to  let 
its  angry  passions  rise  against  the  negroes  and  their  white  Re¬ 
publican  allies,  the  breaches  of  order  were  neither  numerous  nor 
serious.  Over  five-sixths  of  the  Southern  States  perfect  quiet 
prevailed.  It  is  true  that  one  party  can  there  count  on  an  over¬ 
whelming  majority,  so  that  there  was  no  excuse  for  the  one  to 
bully  nor  any  inducement  for  the  other  to  show  fight.  The 
elections  of  1904  and  1908  were  even  more  tranquil.  If  any 
disturbances  occurred  anywhere  in  the  latter  year  no  notice  of 
them  found  its  way  into  the  press. 

The  maxim  that  nothing  succeeds  like  success  is  nowhere  so 
cordially  and  consistently  accepted  as  in  America.  It  is  the 
corner-stone  of  all  election  work.  The  main  effort  of  a  candi¬ 
date’s  orators  and  newspapers  is  to  convince  the  people  that 
their  side  is  the  winning  one,  for  there  are  sure  to  be  plenty  of 
voters  anxious  to  be  on  that  side,  not  so  much  from  any  ad¬ 
vantage  to  be  gained  for  themselves  as  because  reverence  for 
“the  People”  makes  them  believe  that  the  majority  are  right. 
Hence  the  exertions  to  prove  that  the  Germans,  or  the  Irish, 
or  the  working  men  are  going  for  candidate  X  or  candidate  Y. 
Hence  the  reports  of  specimen  canvasses  showing  that  70 
per  cent  of  the  clerks  in  a  particular  bank  or  80  per  cent  of 
the  professors  in  a  particular  theological  college  have  declared 
themselves  for  X.  Hence  the  announcements  of  the  betting  odds 
for  a  particular  candidate,  and  the  assertion  that  the  supporters 
of  the  other  man  who  had  put  large  sums  on  him  are  now  be¬ 
ginning  to  hedge.1  But  the  best  evidence  to  which  a  party  can 
appeal  is  its  winning  minor  elections  which  come  off  shortly 

1  There  is  a  great  deal  of  betting  on  elections,  so  much  that  bribery  is  often 
alleged  to  be  practised  by  those  who  are  heavily  involved.  The  constitutions 
or  statutes  of  some  States  make  it  an  offence  to  give  or  take  a  bet  on  an  election. 
In  the  campaigns  of  1904  and  1908  the  odds  were  from  the  first  on  one  candi¬ 
date,  and  after  a  little  fluctuation  during  a  few  weeks,  rose  slowly  but  steadily  in 
his  favour  till  the  end. 


212 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


before  the  great  presidential  one.  In  three  states,  Vermont, 
Maine,  and  Oregon,  the  choice  of  a  governor  and  other  State 
officers  takes  place  in  September,  i.e.  within  two  months  of  the 
presidential  contest.  If  the  State  is  a  safe  one  for  the  Repub¬ 
licans  or  the  Democrats  (as  the  case  may  be),  the  votes  cast 
are  compared  with  those  cast  at  the  last  preceding  similar 
election,  and  the  inference  drawn  that  one  or  other  party  is 
gaining.  If  it  is  a  doubtful  State,  the  interest  is  still  more  keen, 
and  every  nerve  is  strained  to  carry  an  election  whose  issue  will 
presage,  and  by  presaging  contribute  to,  success  in  the  presi¬ 
dential  struggle.  Possibly  the  candidate  or  some  of  his  ablest 
speakers  stump  this  State ;  probably  also  it  is  drenched  with 
money.  The  inferences  from  such  a  contest  may  be  thought 
uncertain,  because  State  elections  are  always  complicated  with 
local  questions,  and  with  the  character  of  the  particular  candi¬ 
dates  for  State  offices.  But  it  is  a  maxim  among  politicians 
that  in  a  presidential  year  local  issues  vanish,  the  voters  being 
so  warmed  with  party  spirit  that  they  go  solid  for  their  party 
in  spite  of  all  local  or  personal  obstacles.  The  truth  of  this 
view  was  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  Ohio  used  often  to  return  a 
majority  of  Democrats  to  Congress  and  had  a  Democratic  ma¬ 
jority  in  her  own  legislature,  but  for  several  elections  gave  a 
majority  for  the  presidential  candidate  of  the  Republican  party. 
The  eagerness  shown  to  carry  the  October  elections  in  this  great 
and  then  frequently  doubtful  State  used  to  be  scarcely  second  to 
that  displayed  in  the  presidential  contest.  She  has  now  (and 
Indiana  likewise)  put  her  fall  elections  later,  and  makes  them 
coincide  (every  second  term)  with  the  presidential  election,  in 
order  to  avoid  the  tremendous  strain  which  they  had  been  forced 
to  bear.  Before  this  change  it  was  often  made  an  argument 
why  the  party  should  select  its  candidate  from  Ohio,  that  this 
would  give  a  better  chance  of  winning  the  preliminary  canter, 
and  thereby  securing  the  advantage  of  a  presageful  victory.1 

So  far  I  have  described  the  contest  as  one  between  two 
parties  and  two  candidates  only.  But  it  is  sometimes  compli- 

1  There  is  a  touch  of  superstition  in  the  value  set  in  America  upon  the  first 
indications  of  the  popular  sentiment,  like  that  which  made  the  Romans  attach 
such  weight  to  the  vote  of  the  century  first  called  up  to  vote  in  the  comitia 
centuriata.  It  was  selected  by  lot,  perhaps  not  merely  because  the  advantage 
of  calling  first  a  century  which  he  might  know  to  be  favourable  to  his  own 
view  or  candidate  was  too  great  a  one  to  be  left  to  the  presiding  magistrate, 
but  also  because  its  declaration  was  thus  deemed  to  be  an  indication  of  the 
will  of  the  gods  who  governed  the  lot. 


CHAP.  LXXI 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN 


213 


cated  by  the  appearance  of  other  minor  parties  and  minor  can¬ 
didates  who,  although  they  have  no  chance  of  success,  affect  the 
main  struggle  by  drawing  off  strength  from  one  side  or  the  other. 
In  the  elections  of  1880-1892  the  Prohibitionist  party  and  the 
Greenback  party  each  held  a  national  convention,  nominated 
candidates  for  presidency  and  vice-presidency,  and  obtained  at 
the#  polls  a  number  of  votes  far  too  small  to  carry  any  single 
State,  and  therefore,  of  course,  too  small  to  choose  any  presi¬ 
dential  electors,  but  sufficient  to  affect  the  balance  of  strength 
between  Republicans  and  Democrats  in  two  or  three  of  the 
doubtful  States.  A  Prohibitionist  candidate  drew  most  of  his 
votes  from  the  Republican  side  ;  a  Greenbacker  from  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  :  and  so  more  recently  the  appearance  of  a  Populist  or  So¬ 
cialist  candidate  has  been  supposed  to  injure  the  Democratic  pros¬ 
pects.  Hence  there  was  apt  to  be  a  sort  of  tacit  alliance  during 
the  campaign  between  the  Republican  organs  and  the  Labour 
or  Socialist  party,  between  the  Democratic  organs  and  the  Pro¬ 
hibitionist  ;  and  conversely  much  ill  blood  between  Republicans 
and  Prohibitionists,  between  Democrats  and  Labour  men.  Any 
one  can  see  what  an  opening  for  intrigue  is  given  by  these  com¬ 
plications,  and  how  much  they  add  to  the  difficulty  of  predict¬ 
ing  the  result  of  the  contest.  The  area  of  that  contest  is  a 
continent,  and  in  the  various  regions  of  the  continent  forces 
different  in  nature  and  varying  in  strength  are  at  work. 


CHAPTER  LXXII 


THE  ISSUES  IN  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS 

Upon  what  does  a  presidential  election  turn?  The  presiden¬ 
tial  candidate  has  a  double  character.  He  is  put  forward  as 
being  individually  qualified  for  the  great  place  of  executive  head 
of  the  nation,  because  he  is  a  man  of  integrity,  energy,  firmness, 
intellectual  power,  experience  in  affairs.  He  is  also  recom¬ 
mended  as  a  prominent  member  of  a  great  national  party, 
inspired  by  its  traditions,  devoted  to  its  principles,  and  prepared 
to  carry  them  out  not  only  in  his  properly  executive  capacity, 
but,  what  is  more  important,  as  virtually  a  third  branch  of  the 
legislature,  armed  with  a  veto  on  bills  passed  by  Congress.  His 
election  may  therefore  be  advocated  or  opposed  either  on  the 
ground  of  his  personal  qualities  or  of  his  political  professions 
and  party  affiliations.  Here  we  have  a  marked  difference 
between  the  American  and  European  systems,  because  in  Eng¬ 
land,  and  perhaps  still  more  in  France,  Belgium,  and  Italy,  elec¬ 
tions  turn  chiefly  on  the  views  of  the  parties,  secondarily  on 
the  character  of  individual  leaders,  seeing  that  the  leaders  are 
not  chosen  directly  by  the  people,  but  are  persons  who  have 
come  to  the  top  in  the  legislatures  of  those  countries,  or  have 
been  raised  to  office  by  the  Crown.  In  America,  therefore,  we 
have  a  source  of  possible  confusion  between  issues  of  two  wholly 
distinct  kinds  —  those  which  affect  the  personal  qualifications 
of  the  candidate,  and  those  which  regard  the  programme  of  his 
party. 

Whether,  in  any  given  presidential  election,  the  former  or 
the  latter  class  of  issues  are  the  more  conspicuous  and  decisive, 
depends  partly  on  the  political  questions  which  happen  to  be 
then  before  the  people,  partly  on  the  more  or  less  marked  in¬ 
dividuality  of  the  rival  candidates.  From  about  1850  down  to 
1876,  questions,  first  of  the  extension  of  slavery,  then  of  its 
extinction,  then  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  Union,  had  divided 
the  nation,  and  made  every  contest  a  contest  of  principles  and 

214 


CHAP,  lxxii  ISSUES  IN  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS 


215 


of  practical  measures.  Since  the  controversies  raised  by  the 
war  have  been  settled,  there  were,  till  the  Free  Silver  question 
emerged  in  1896,  few  real  differences  of  political  principle  be¬ 
tween  the  parties,  and  questions  of  personal  fitness  therefore 
became  relatively  more  important.  Now  that  both  currency 
issues  and  those  raised  by  the  war  with  Spain  have  subsided, 
the  qualities  of  the  candidates  seem  again  tending  to  be  po¬ 
tent  factors. 

The  object  of  each  party  naturally  is  to  put  forward  as  many 
good  political  issues  as  it  can,  claiming  for  itself  the  merit  of 
having  always  been  on  the  popular  side.  Any  one  who  should 
read  the  campaign  literature  of  the  Republicans  would  fancy 
that  they  were  opposed  to  the  Democrats  on  many  important 
points.  When  he  took  up  the  Democratic  speeches  and  pam¬ 
phlets,  he  would  be  again  struck  by  the  serious  divergences 
between  the  parties,  which,  however,  would  seem  to  arise,  not 
on  the  points  raised  by  the  Republicans,  but  on  other  points 
which,  the  Republicans  had  not  referred  to.  In  other  words, 
the  aim  of  each  party  is  to  force  on  its  antagonist  certain  issues 
which  the  antagonist  rarely  accepts,  so  that  although  there  is  a 
vast  deal  of  discussion  and  declamation  on  political  topics,  there 
are  few  on  which  either  party  directly  traverses  the  doctrines 
of  the  other.  Each  pummels,  not  his  true  enemy,  but  a  stuffed 
figure  set  up  to  represent  that  enemy.  During  several  presiden¬ 
tial  elections  after  that  of  1876,  the  Republicans  sought  to 
force  to  the  front  the  issue  of  Protection  versus  Free  Trade, 
which  the  Democrats  sometimes  hesitated  to  accept,  having 
avowed  Protectionists  within  their  own  ranks,  and  knowing  that 
the  bulk  of  the  nation  was  (at  most)  prepared  only  for  certain 
reductions  in  the  tariff.  Thus  while  Republican  orators  were 
advocating  a  protective  tariff  on  a  thousand  platforms,  hardly  a 
Democrat  in  those  days  ventured  to  refer  to  the  subject  except 
by  saying  that  he  would  not  refer  to  it.  Both  sides  declared 
against  monopolists  and  the  power  of  corporations.  Both  pro¬ 
fessed  to  be  the  friends  of  civil  service  reform,  though  neither 
cared  for  it.  Both  promised  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  Amer¬ 
icans  all  over  the  world,  to  withstand  Bismarck  in  his  attacks 
on  American  bacon  —  this  was  in  1884  —  and  to  rescue  Ameri¬ 
can  citizens  from  British  dungeons.  Both,  however,  were  equally 
zealous  for  peace  and  good-will  among  the  nations,  and  had  no 
idea  of  quarrelling  with  any  European  power.  These  appeals 


216 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


and  professions  made  no  great  impression  upon  the  voters. 
The  American,  like  the  Englishman,  usually  votes  with  his  party, 
right  or  wrong,  and  when  there  is  little  distinction  of  view 
between  the  parties  it  becomes  all  the  easier  to  stick  to  your 
old  friends.  The  Republican  party  still  had  much  support 
from  those  who  remembered  that  it  had  saved  the  Union  in 
the  days  of  Secession.  The  Democratic  party  commanded  a 
Solid  South. 

The  election  of  1888  was  remarkable  for  the  fact  that  the 
victory  of  the  party  which  had  been  defeated  in  1884  was 
mainly  due  to  a  personal  intrigue,  a  secret  “deal,”  which  was 
believed  to  have  turned  over  from  the  Democrats  to  the  Repub¬ 
licans  the  thirty-six  electoral  votes  of  New  York  State.  In 
the  contest  of  1892  the  Democrats  imitated  the  Republican 
tactics  of  1884  by  attacking  the  latter  party  upon  an  issue  (that 
of  the  Federal  Elections  or  so-called  “  Force  ”  Bill)  which  the 
Republicans  had  carefully  avoided,  and  which  they  refused  to 
accept.  The  protective  tariff  did  on  this  occasion  raise  a 
definite  issue  and  materially  affect  the  result.  But  as  regards 
currency  questions,  profound  and  important  as  they  were,  the 
“ platforms”  of  the  two  great  parties  differed  but  slightly,  and 
neither  could  command  the  allegiance  to  its  platform  of  the 
whole  of  its  rank  and  file.  In  particular  the  strange  spectacle 
was  presented  of  a  candidate  avowing  strong  and  clear  views, 
who  found  himself  in  this  weighty  matter  more  in  accordance 
with  the  bulk  of  his  Republican  opponents  than  with  a  large 
section  of  his  Democratic  supporters. 

In  the  election  of  1896  the  section  last  referred  to  carried  the 
Democratic  Convention  and  nominated  its  candidate,  so  the 
contest  turned  upon  the  Free  Silver  issue.  Here  there  was  an 
economic  question  of  capital  importance,  which  divided  the 
Republicans  from  the  “ regular”  Democrats,  for  a  part  of  the 
Democratic  party,  differing  from  the  majority  on  the  currency, 
had  broken  away  and  nominated  its  own  candidates  for  presi¬ 
dency  and  vice-presidency.  On  this  occasion  campaign  oratory 
and  literature  were  directed  to  a  tangible  issue.  Economic  doc¬ 
trines  were  forcibly  argued;  the  intelligence  of  the  electors  was 
appealed  to :  the  contest  was  splendidly  stimulating  and  educa¬ 
tive.  In  1900  something  similar  happened,  though  the  currency 
was  then  a  less  prominent  issue.  In  1904  that  issue  had  disap¬ 
peared.  Both  then  and  in  1908  there  was  a  less  sharp  opposition 


CHAP,  lxxii  ISSUES  IN  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS 


217 


of  contending  doctrines,  and  on  many  points  the  parties  were 
practically  agreed,  though  one  stated  its  views  in  more  “  radi¬ 
cal”  terms  than  the  other,  and  the  Democrats  kept  almost  silent 
on  tariff  questions  while  the  Republicans  talked  of  cautiously 
revising  a  scale  of  duties  which  they  lauded  as  beneficial. 

When  political  controversy  is  languid,  personal  issues  come 
to  the  front.  They  are  in  one  sense  small,  but  not  for  that 
reason  less  exciting.  Whoever  has  sat  in  any  body  of  men, 
from  a  college  debating  society  up  to  a  legislative  chamber, 
knows  that  no  questions  raise  so  much  warmth,  and  are  de¬ 
bated  with  so  much  keenness  as  questions  affecting  the  char¬ 
acter  and  conduct  of  individual  men.  They  evoke  some  of 
what  is  best  and  much  of  what  is  worst  in  human  nature.  In 
a  presidential  election  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  discussing  the 
personal  merits  of  the  candidates,  because  much  depends  on 
those  merits.  It  has  also  proved  impossible  to  set  limits  to 
the  discussion.  Unmitigated  publicity  ’is  a  condition  of  emi¬ 
nence  in  America ;  and  the  excitement  in  one  of  these  con¬ 
tests  rises  so  high  that  (at  elections  in  which  personal  issues 
are  prominent)  the  canons  of  decorum  which  American  custom 
at  other  times  observes,  have  sometimes  been  cast  aside  by 
speakers  and  journalists.  The  air  is  thick  with  charges,  de¬ 
fences,  recriminations,  till  the  voter  knows  not  what  to  believe. 

These  censures  are  referable  to  three  classes.1  One  used  to 
include  what  was  called  the  candidate’s  “war  record.”  To 
have  been  disloyal  to  the  Union  in  the  hour  of  its  danger  was  a 
reproach.  To  have  fought  for  the  North,  still  more  to  have  led 
a  Northern  regiment  or  division,  covered  a  multitude  of  sins. 
It  is  the  greatest  of  blessings  for  America  that  she  fights  so  sel¬ 
dom,  for  in  no  country  do  military  achievements  carry  a  candi¬ 
date  farther,  not  that  the  people  love  war,  for  they  do  not,  but 
because  success  in  a  sphere  so  remote  from  their  ordinary  life 
touches  their  imagination,  marks  a  man  out  from  his  fellows, 
associates  his  name  with  their  passionate  patriotism,  gives  him 
a  claim  on  the  gratitude,  not  of  a  party,  but  of  the  nation  as  a 
whole.  His  prowess  in  repulsing  the  British  troops  at  New 
Orleans  made  Andrew  Jackson  twice  President,  in  spite  of 

1  This  and  the  two  following  paragraphs  are  allowed  to  stand  in  the  text 
because  they  describe  what  happened  in  earlier  elections  and  might  possibly, 
given  similar  conditions,  happen  again.  But  what  is  said  in  them  does  not 
apply  to  the  contests  from  1888  onwards,  for  in  these  there  have  been  compara¬ 
tively  few  and  slight  attacks  upon  the  character  of  candidates. 


218 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


grave  faults  of  temper  and  judgment.  Some  Indian  skirmishes 
fixed  the  choice  of  the  Whig  party  in  1840  upon  William  H. 
Harrison,  though  his  competitor  for  the  nomination  was  Henry 
Clay.  Zachary  Taylor  was  known  only  by  his  conduct  of  the 
Mexican  War,  when  he  was  elected  by  the  same  party  in  1848. 
The  failure  of  General  Grant  as  President  in  his  first  term,  a 
failure  which  those  who  most  heartily  recognized  his  honour 
and  patriotism  could  not  deny,  did  not  prevent  his  re-election 
in  1872 ;  and  the  memory  of  his  services  came  near  to  giving 
him  a  third  nomination  in  1880. 

More  serious,  however,  than  the  absence  of  a  war  record, 
have  been  charges  of  the  second  class  —  those  impeaching  the 
nominee’s  personal  integrity.  These  few  candidates  used  to 
escape.  Few  men  can  have  passed  years  in  a  State  legislature, 
or  State  or  city  office,  or  Congress,  without  coming  into  contact 
with  disreputable  persons,  and  occasionally  finding  themselves 
in  situations  capable  of  being  misrepresented.  They  may  have 
walked  warily,  they  may  not  have  swerved  from  the  path  of 
rectitude,  but  they  must  have  been  tempted  to  do  so,  and  it 
requires  no  great  invention  to  add  details  which  give  a  bad 
look  to  the  facts.  As  some  men  of  note,  from  whom  better 
things  had  been  expected,  had  lapsed,  a  lapse  by  a  man  of 
standing  seemed  credible.  It  was  therefore  an  easy  task  for 
the  unscrupulous  passions  which  a  contest  rouses  to  gather  up 
rumours,  piece  out  old  though  unproved  stories  of  corruption, 
put  the  worst  meaning  on  doubtful  words,  and  so  construct  a 
damning  impeachment,  which  will  be  read  in  party  journals 
by  many  voters  who  never  see  the  defence.  The  worst  of  this 
habit  of  universal  invective  is  that  the  plain  citizen,  hearing 
much  which  he  cannot  believe,  finding  foul  imputations  brought 
even  against  those  he  has  cause  to  respect,  despairs  of  sifting 
the  evidence,  and  sets  down  most  of  the  charges  to  malice  and 
“campaign  methods,”  while  concluding  that  the  residue  is  about 
equally  true  of  all  politicians  alike.  The  distinction  between 
good  and  bad  men  may  for  many  voters  be  practically  effaced, 
and  the  spectacle  be  presented  of  half  the  honest  men  support¬ 
ing  for  the  headship  of  the  nation  a  person  whom  the  other 
half  declare  to  be  a  knave.  Extravagant  abuse  produces  a  re¬ 
action,  and  makes  the  honest  supporters  of  a  candidate  defend 
even  his  questionable  acts.  And  thus  the  confidence  of  the 
country  in  the  honour  of  its  public  men  was  lowered. 


CHAP,  lxxii  ISSUES  IN  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS 


219 


Less  frequent,  but  more  offensive,  have  sometimes,  though 
happily  rarely,  been  the  charges  made  against  the  private  life  of 
a  candidate,  particularly  in  his  relations  with  women.  Ameri¬ 
can  opinion  is  highly  sensitive  on  this  subject.  Nothing  damages 
a  man  more  than  a  reputation  for  irregularity  in  these  relations ; 
nothing  therefore  opens  a  more  promising  field  to  slander,  and 
to  the  coarse  vulgarity  which  is  scarcely  less  odious,  even  if  less 
mendacious,  than  slander  itself. 

Though  these  have  been  the  chief  heads  of  attack,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  life  or  habits  of  a  candidate  out  of  which  materials 
for  a  reproach  might  not  be  drawn.  Of  one  it  is  said  that  he 
is  too  fond  of  eating ;  of  another,  that  though  he  rents  a  pew 

in  Dr.  Y - ’s  church,  he  is  more  frequently  seen  in  a  Roman 

Catholic  place  of  worship ;  of  a  third,  that  he  deserted  his  wife 
twenty-five  years  ago ;  of  a  fourth,  that  he  is  an  atheist.  His 
private  conversations  may  be  reported ;  and  when  he  denies  the 
report,  third  persons  are  dragged  in  to  refute  his  version.  Nor 
does  criticism  stop  with  the  candidate  himself.  His  leading 
supporters  are  arraigned  and  dissected.  A  man’s  surround¬ 
ings  do  no  doubt  throw  some  light  upon  him.  If  you  are 
shown  into  a  library,  you  derive  an  impression  from  the  books 
on  the  shelves  and  the  pictures  on  the  wall ;  much  more  then 
may  you  be  influenced  by  the  character,  if  conspicuously  good 
or  evil,  of  a  man’s  personal  friends  and  political  associates. 
But  such  methods  of  judging  must  be  applied  cautiously. 
American  electioneering  has  now  and  then  carried  them  beyond 
reasonable  limits. 

These  personal  issues  do  not  always  come  to  the  front.  The 
candidates  may  both  be  free  from  any  reasonable  possibility  of 
reproach.  This  tends  to  be  more  and  more  the  case  :  and  there 
have  in  fact  been  few  attacks  on  personal  character  in  recent 
elections. 

Obviously,  both  the  integrity  and  the  abilities  of  the  rival 
candidates  deserve  to  be  carefully  weighed  by  the  electors 
and  ought  to  affect  the  result,  for  the  welfare  of  the  country 
may  be  profoundly  affected  by  them.  The  personal  qualities 
of  a  President  generally  make  more  difference  to  the  United 
States  than  the  personal  qualities  of  a  prime  minister  do  to 
Britain.  Sometimes,  however,  this  quite  proper  regard  to  the 
personal  merits  or  demerits  of  the  candidates  has  tended  to 
draw  attention  away  from  political  discussions,  and  has  thereby 


220 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


lessened  what  may  be  called  the  educational  value  of  the  cam¬ 
paign.  A  general  election  in  England  seems  better  calculated 
to  instruct  the  masses  of  the  people  in  the  principles  as  well  as 
the  practical  issues  of  politics  than  the  longer  and  generally 
hotter  presidential  contest  in  America.  The  average  intelligence 
of  the  voter  (excluding  the  negroes)  is  higher  in  America  than 
in  Britain,  and  his  familiarity  not  only  with  the  passwords  and 
catchwords  of  politics,  but  with  the  structure  of  his  own  govern¬ 
ment,  is  much  greater.  But  in  Britain  the  contest  is  primarily 
one  of  programmes  and  not  of  persons.  The  leaders  on  each 
side  are  freely  criticized,  and  people  are  of  course  influenced 
by  their  judgment  of  the  prime  minister,  and  of  the  person  who 
will  become  prime  minister  if  the  existing  ministry  be  dismissed. 
Still  the  men  are  almost  always  overshadowed  by  the  principles 
which  they  respectively  advocate,  and  as  invective  and  pane¬ 
gyric  have  already  been  poured  for  years,  there  is  little  induce¬ 
ment  to  rake  up  or  invent  tales  against  them.  Controversy 
turns  on  the  needs  of  the  country,  and  on  the  measures  which 
each  party  puts  forward ;  attacks  on  a  ministry  are  levelled  at 
their  public  acts  instead  of  their  private  characters.  Americans 
who  watch  general  elections  in  England  say  that  they  find  in 
the  speeches  of  English  candidates  more  appeal  to  reason  and 
experience,  more  argument  and  less  sentimental  rhetoric  than 
in  the  discourses  of  their  own  campaign  orators.  To  such  a 
general  judgment  there  are,  of  course,  many  exceptions.  The 
whole  campaign  of  1896  was  highly  educative,  and  those  of  1904 
and  1908,  turning  largely  on  economic  questions,  were  similarly 
valuable.  There  have  always  been  in  the  United  States  public 
speakers  such  as  Mr.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  in  the  days  of 
the  Civil  War,  whose  vigorous  thinking  has  been  in  the  highest 
degree  instructive  as  well  as  stimulative ;  and  the  oratory  of 
English  candidates  is  probably,  regarded  as  mere  oratory,  less 
effective  than  that  of  the  American  stump. 

An  examination  of  the  causes  which  explain  this  difference 
belongs  to  another  part  of  this  book.  Here  I  will  only  remark 
that  the  absence  from  British  elections  of  flags,  uniforms, 
torches,  brass  bands,  parades,  and  all  the  other  appliances  em¬ 
ployed  in  America,  for  making  the  people  “  enthuse,  ”  leaves 
the  field  more  free  for  rational  discussion.  Add  to  this  that 
whereas  the  questions  discussed  on  British  platforms  during 
the  last  two  generations  have  been  mainly  questions  needing 


CHAP,  lxxii  ISSUES  IN  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS 


221 


argument,  such  as  that  of  the  corn  laws  in  the  typical  popular 
struggle  which  Cobden  and  Bright  and  Villiers  led,  the  most 
exciting  theme  for  an  American  speaker  during  a  whole  gen¬ 
eration  was  one  —  the  existence  and  extension  of  slavery  — 
which  specially  called  for  emotional  treatment.  Such  subjects 
as  the  regulation  of  the  tariff,  competing  plans  of  liquor  legis¬ 
lation,  currency  and  labour  questions,  the  question  of  controlling 
or  abolishing  Trusts,  are  so  difficult  to  sift  thoroughly  before  a 
popular  audience  that  election  speakers  were  long  tempted  to 
evade  them  or  to  deal  in  sounding  commonplaces.  Latterly, 
however,  the  growing  gravity  of  the  problems  which  the  customs 
tariff  and  the  national  currency  present,  has  induced  a  note¬ 
worthy  change,  a  change  strikingly  apparent  in  1896 ;  and 
although  these  complex  economic  topics  are  often  handled  with 
little  knowledge  and  in  a  declamatory  way,  it  is  a  real  gain  that 
the  popular  mind  should  be  constantly  directed  to  them  and 
forced  to  think  seriously  about  them. 

If  the  presidential  contest  may  seem  to  have  usually  done  less 
for  the  formation  of  political  thought  and  diffusion  of  political 
knowledge  than  was  to  be  expected  from  the  immense  efforts  put 
forth  and  the  intelligence  of  the  voters  addressed,  it  neverthe¬ 
less  rouses  and  stirs  the  public  life  of  the  country.  One  can 
hardly  imagine  what  the  atmosphere  of  American  politics  would 
be  without  this  quadrennial  storm  sweeping  through  it  to  clear 
away  stagnant  vapours,  and  recall  to  every  citizen  the  sense  of 
his  own  responsibility  for  the  present  welfare  and  future  great¬ 
ness  of  his  country.  Nowhere  does  government  by  the  people, 
through  the  people,  for  the  people,  take  a  more  directly  impres¬ 
sive  and  powerfully  stimulative  form  than  in  the  choice  of  a 
chief  magistrate  by  fifteen  millions  of  citizens  voting  on  one  day. 


CHAPTER  LXXIII 


FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  NOMINATIONS  AND  ELECTIONS 

Several  questions  may  have  occurred  to  the  European  reader 
who  has  followed  the  foregoing  account  of  presidential  nomina¬ 
tions  and  elections. 

The  most  obvious  is  —  How  comes  it  that  a  system  of  nomi¬ 
nation  by  huge  party  assemblies  has  grown  up  so  unlike  any¬ 
thing  which  the  free  countries  of  Europe  have  seen  ? 

The  nominating  convention  is  the  natural  and  legitimate  out¬ 
growth  of  two  features  of  the  Constitution,  the  restricted  func¬ 
tions  of  Congress  and  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  the  people. 
It  was  soon  perceived  that  under  the  rule  of  party,  a  party 
must  be  united  on  its  candidate  in  order  to  have  a  prospect  of 
success.  There  was  therefore  need  for  a  method  of  selecting 
the  candidate  which  the  whole  of  a  party  would  recognize  as 
fair  and  entitled  to  respect.  At  first  the  representatives  of  the 
party  in  Congress  assumed  the  right  of  nomination.  But  it  was 
presently  felt  that  they  were  not  entitled  to  it,  for  they  had 
not  been  chosen  for  any  such  purpose,  and  the  President  was 
not  constitutionally  responsible  to  them,  but  rather  set  up  to 
check  them.  When  the  congressional  caucus  had  been  discred¬ 
ited,  the  State  legislatures  tried  their  hands  at  nominations ; 
but  acting  irregularly,  and  with  a  primary  regard  to  local  senti¬ 
ment,  they  failed  to  win  obedience.  The  self-authorized  and 
sometimes  secret  action  of  both  these  sets  of  persons  caused 
resentment.  It  began  to  be  held  that  whom  the  people  were 
to  elect  the  people  must  also  nominate.  Thus  presently  the 
tumultuous  assemblies  of  active  politicians  were  developed  into 
regular  representative  bodies,  modelled  after  Congress,  and 
giving  to  the  party  in  each  State  exactly  the  same  weight  in 
nominating  as  the  State  possessed  in  voting.  The  elaborate 
nominating  scheme  of  primaries  and  conventions  which  was 
being  constructed  for  the  purpose  of  city,  State,  and  congres¬ 
sional  elections,  was  applied  to  the  election  of  a  President, 

222 


chap,  lxxiii  NOMINATIONS  AND  ELECTIONS 


223 


and  the  national  convention  was  the  result.  We  may  call 
it  an  effort  of  nature  to  fill  the  void  left  in  America  by  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  the  European  parliamentary  or  cabinet  system,  under 
which  an  executive  is  called  into  being  out  of  the  legislature 
by  the  majority  of  the  legislature.  In  the  European  system  no 
single  act  of  nomination  is  necessary,  because  the  leader  of  the 
majority  comes  gradually  to  the  top  in  virtue  of  his  own  strength.1 
In  America  there  must  be  a  single  and  formal  act :  and  this  act 
must  emanate  from  the  people,  since  it  is  to  them  that  the 
party  leader,  when  he  becomes  chief  magistrate,  will  be  re¬ 
sponsible.  There  is  not  quite  so  strong  a  reason  for  entrust¬ 
ing  to  the  convention  the  function  of  declaring  the  aims  and 
tenets  of  the  party  in  its  platform,  for  this  might  properly  be 
done  by  a  caucus  of  the  legislature.  But  as  the  President  is, 
through  his  veto  power,  an  independent  branch  of  the  legisla¬ 
ture,  the  moment  of  nominating  him  is  apt  for  a  declaration  of 
the  doctrines  whereof  the  party  makes  him  the  standard-bearer. 

What  have  been  the  effects  upon  the  public  life  of  the  coun¬ 
try  of  this  practice  of  nomination  by  conventions?  Out  of 
several  I  select  two.  Politics  have  turned  largely  upon  the 
claims  of  rival  personalities.  The  victory  of  a  party  in  a  presi¬ 
dential  election  depends  upon  its  being  unanimous  in  its  support 
of  a  particular  candidate.  It  must  therefore  use  every  effort  to 
find,  not  necessarily  the  best  man,  but  the  man  who  will  best 
unite  it.  In  the  pursuit  of  him,  it  is  distracted  from  its  con¬ 
sideration  of  the  questions  on  which  it  ought  to  appeal  to  the 
country,  and  may  form  its  views  on  them  hastily  or  loosely. 
The  convention  is  the  only  body  authorized  to  declare  the  tenets 
and  practical  programme  of  the  party.  But  the  duty  of  declar¬ 
ing  them  is  commonly  overshadowed  by  the  other  duty  of 
choosing  the  candidate,  which  naturally  excites  warmer  feelings 
in  the  hearts  of  actual  or  potential  office-holders.  Accordingly, 
delegates  are  chosen  by  local  conventions  rather  as  the  partisans 
of  this  or  that  aspirant  than  as  persons  of  political  ability  or 

1  The  nearest  parallel  to  the  American  nominating  system  is  the  selection 
of  their  leader  by  the  Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons,  of  which  there  have 
been  only  two  instances,  the  choice  of  Lord  Hartington  by  the  Liberal  members 
in  that  House  in  1875,  on  which  occasion  the  other  candidates  withdrew  be¬ 
fore  a  vote  was  needed  ;  and  the  choice  of  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman  by 
the  same  party  in  1898,  on  which  occasion  no  other  candidate  appeared.  The 
selection  of  a  prime  minister  is  the  act  of  the  Crown.  If  he  sits  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  he  naturally  leads  it ;  if  in  the  other  house,  he  chooses  one  of  his 
colleagues  to  lead  in  the  Commons. 


224 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


moral  weight ;  and  the  function  of  formulating  the  views  of 
the  party  may  be  left  to,  and  ill  discharged  by,  men  of  an 
inferior  type. 

A  further  result  will  have  been  foreseen  by  those  who  have 
realized  what  these  conventions  are  like.  They  are  monster  pub¬ 
lic  meetings.  Besides  the  thousand  delegates,  there  are  some 
twelve  to  fifteen  thousand  spectators  on  the  floor  and  in  the  gal¬ 
leries,  while  at  Chicago  in  1860,  there  were  also  thousands  on 
the  roof.  It  goes  without  saying  that  such  a  meeting  is  capable 
neither  of  discussing  political  questions  and  settling  a  political 
programme,  nor  of  deliberately  weighing  the  merits  of  rival 
aspirants  for  the  nomination.  Its  platform  must  be  presented 
to  it  cut  and  dry,  and  this  is  the  work  of  a  small  committee. 
In  choosing  a  candidate,  it  must  follow  a  few  leaders.1  And 
what  sort  of  leaders  do  conventions  tend  to  produce?  Two 
sorts  —  the  intriguer  and  the  declaimer.  There  is  the  man  who 
manipulates  delegates  and  devises  skilful  combinations.  There 
is  also  the  orator,  whose  physical  gifts,  courage,  and  readiness 
enable  him  to  browbeat  antagonists,  overawe  the  chairman, 
and  perhaps,  if  he  be  possessed  of  eloquence,  carry  the  multi¬ 
tude  away  in  a  fit  of  enthusiasm.  For  men  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge,  not  seconded  by  a  commanding  voice  and  presence, 
there  is  no  demand,  and  little  chance  of  usefulness,  in  these 
tempestuous  halls. 

Why,  however,  it  may  also  be  asked,  should  conventions  be 
so  pre-eminently  tempestuous,  considering  that  they  are  not 
casual  concourses,  but  consist  of  persons  duly  elected,  and  are 
governed  by  a  regular  code  of  procedure  ?  The  reason  may  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  in  them  are  united  the  two  conditions 
which  generate  excitement  viz.,  very  large  numbers,  and  im¬ 
portant  issues  to  be  determined.  In  no  other  modern  assem¬ 
blies  2  do  these  conditions  concur.  Modern  deliberative  assem¬ 
blies  are  comparatively  small  —  the  House  of  Representatives 
has  less  than  400  members  ;  the  French  Chamber  584  ;  while  in 

1  Hamilton  had  acutely  remarked  in  1788  that  the  larger  an  assembly,  the 
greater  is  the  power  of  a  few  in  it.  See  Vol.  I.  p.  195. 

2  In  the  ancient  world  the  assemblies  of  great  democratic  cities  like  Athens 
or  Syracuse  presented  both  these  conditions ;  they  had  large  numbers  present, 
and  almost  unlimited  powers.  But  they  were  at  any  rate  permanent  bodies, 
accustomed  to  meet  frequently,  composed  of  men  who  knew  one  another,  who 
respected  certain  leaders,  and  applauded  the  same  orators.  The  American 
convention  consists  of  men  who  come  together  once  only  in  their  lives,  and 
then  for  a  week  or  less. 


chap,  lxxiii  NOMINATIONS  AND  ELECTIONS 


225 


the  British  House  of  Commons  there  is  sitting  space  for  only  400. 
Large  popular  gatherings,  on  the  other  hand,  such  as  mass 
meetings,  are  excitable  in  virtue  of  their  size,  but  have  nothing 
to  do  but  pass  resolutions,  and  there  is  seldom  controversy  over 
these,  because  such  meetings  are  attended  only  by  those  who 
agree  with  the  summoners.  But  a  national  convention  consists  of 
more  than  about  one  thousand  delegates,  as  many  alternates,  and 
some  fourteen  thousand  spectators.  It  is  the  hugest  mass  meet¬ 
ing  the  world  knows  of.  Not  only,  therefore,  does  the  sympathy 
of  numbers  exert  an  unequalled  force,  but  this  host,  far  larger 
than  the  .army  with  which  the  Greeks  conquered  at  Marathon, 
has  an  issue  of  the  highest  and  most  exciting  nature  to  decide, 
an  issue  which  quickens  the  pulse  even  of  those  who  read  in  cold 
blood  afterwards  how  the  votes  fell  as  the  roll  of  States  was 
called/and  which  thrills  those  who  see  and  listen,  and,  most  of 
all,  those  who  are  themselves  concerned  as  delegates,  with  an 
intensity  of  emotion  surpassing,  in  proportion  to  the  magnitude 
of  the  issue,  that  which  attends  the  finish  of  a  well-contested 
boat  race.  If  you  wish  to  realize  the  passionate  eagerness  of 
an  American  convention,  take  the  House  of  Commons  or  the 
French  Chamber,  during  a  division  which  is  to  decide  the  fate 
of  a  ministry,  and  a  policy,  and  raising  the  numbers  present 
twenty-fold,  imagine  the  excitement  twenty-fold  hotter.  Want¬ 
ing  those  wonderful  scenes  which  a  great  debate  and  division 
in  Parliament  provide  the  English  with,  America  has  evolved 
others  not  less  dramatic.  The  contrast  between  the  two  coun¬ 
tries  is  perhaps  most  marked  in  this,  that  in  Parliament  the  strife 
is  between  two  parties,  in  an  American  convention  between  the 
adherents  of  different  leaders  belonging  to  the  same  party. 
We  might  have  expected  that  in  the  more  democratic  country 
more  would  turn  upon  principles,  less  upon  men.  It  is  exactly 
the  other  way.  The  struggle  in  a  convention  is  over  men,  not 
over  principles. 

These  considerations  may  serve  to  explain  to  a  European  the 
strange  phenomena  of  a  convention.  But  his  inquiry  probably 
extends  itself  to  the  electoral  campaign  which  follows.  “  Why/’ 
he  asks,  “is  the  contest  so  much  longer,  more  strenuous,  and  more 
absorbing  than  the  congressional  elections,  or  than  any  election 
struggle  in  Europe,  although  Europe  is  agitated  by  graver  prob¬ 
lems  than  now  occupy  America?  And  why  does  a  people  ex¬ 
ternally  so  cool,  self-contained,  and  unimpulsive  as  the  American 
Q 


226 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


work  itself  up  into  a  fever  of  enthusiasm  over  an  issue  which 
may  not  be  permanently  important  between  two  men,  neither 
of  whom  will  do  much  good  or  can  do  much  harm  ?  ” 

The  length  of  the  contest  is  a  survival.  The  Americans  them¬ 
selves  regret  it,  for  it  sadly  interrupts  both  business  and  pleas¬ 
ure.  It  is  due  to  the  fact  that  when  communication  was  difficult 
over  a  rough  and  thinly  settled  country,  several  months  were 
needed  to  enable  the  candidates  and  their  orators  to  go  round. 
Now  railways  and  telegraphs  have  drawn  the  continent  so  much 
together  that  five  or  six  weeks  would  be  sufficient.  That  the 
presidential  election  is  fought  more  vehemently  than  congres¬ 
sional  elections  seems  due  to  its  coming  only  half  as  often ;  to 
the  fact  that  the  President  is  the  dispenser  of  Federal  patronage, 
and  to  the  habit,  formed  in  days  when  the  President  was  the 
undoubted  head  of  the  party,  and  his  action  in  foreign  affairs 
might  be  of  transcendent  importance,  of  looking  on  his  election 
as  the  great  trial  of  party  strength.  Besides,  it  is  the  choice  of 
one  officer  by  the  whole  country,  a  supreme  political  act  in  which 
every  voter  has  a  share,  and  the  same  share ;  an  act  which  fills 
the  whole  of  the  party  in  all  of  the  States  with  the  sense  that  it  is 
feeling  and  thinking  and  willing  as  one  heart  and  mind.  This 
simultaneity  of  effort,  this  concentration  of  interest  upon  one 
person  and  one  polling  day,  gives  to  the  struggle  a  sort  of  tension 
not  to  be  looked  for  where  a  number  of  elections  of  different 
persons  are  going  on  in  as  many  different  spots,  nor  always  at  the 
same  time.  In  congressional  elections  each  constituency  has 
to  think  first  of  itself  and  its  own  candidate.  In  the  presidential 
elections  all  eyes  are  fixed  on  the  same  figure  ;  the  same  personal 
as  well  as  political  issue  is  presented  to  the  nation.  Each  polling 
district  in  a  State,  each  State  in  the  Union,  emulates  every  other 
in  the  efforts  it  puts  forth  to  carry  the  party  ticket. 

To  explain  why  the  hard-headed,  self-possessed  Americans  go 
so  wild  with  excitement  at  election  times  is  a  more  difficult 
task.  See  what  the  facts  are  :  From  Abraham  Lincoln’s  re-elec¬ 
tion  in  1864  down  to  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  had 
not  been  a  single  presidential  candidate  (always  excepting  General 
Grant)  of  whom  his  friends  could  say  that  he  had  done  any¬ 
thing  to  command  the  gratitude  of  the  nation.  Some  of  these 
candidates  had  been  skilful  party  leaders,  others  had  served 
with  credit  in  the  Civil  War.  None  could  be  called  distinguished 
in  the  sense  in  which,  I  will  not  say,  Hamilton,  Jefferson, 


chap,  lxxiii  NOMINATIONS  AND  ELECTIONS 


227 


Marshall,  Webster,  but  J.  Q.  Adams,  Clay,  Benton,  Calhoun, 
Seward,  Stanton,  and  Chase,  were  distinguished  men.  How¬ 
ever,  let  us  take  Mr.  Blaine  and  Mr.  Cleveland  in  the  election 
of  1884.  One  had  been  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  was  un¬ 
questionably  a  skilful  debater  in  Congress,  an  effective  speaker 
on  a  platform,  a  man  socially  attractive,  never  forgetting  a 
face  or  a  service.  The  other  had  made  a  shrewd,  upright 
and  courageous  Mayor  of  Buffalo  and  Governor  of  New  York 
State.  Compare  the  services  rendered  to  the  country  by  them, 
or  by  any  other  candidate  of  recent  times,  with  those  of  Mazzini, 
Garibaldi,  Cavour,  and  Victor  Emmanuel  to  Italy,  of  Bismarck 
and  Moltke  to  Germany,  even  of  Thiers  and  Gambetta  to 
France  in  her  hour  of  peril.  Yet  the  enthusiasm  shown  for 
Mr.  Blaine  (who  seems  to  have  drawn  out  the  precious  fluid 
at  a  higher  temperature  than  his  rival),  the  demonstrations 
made  in  his  honour  wherever  he  appeared,  equalled  anything 
done,  in  their  several  countries,  for  these  heroes  of  Italy,  Ger¬ 
many,  or  France.  As  for  England,  where  two  great  political 
leaders,  towering  far  above  their  fellows,  excited  during  many 
years  the  warmest  admiration  and  the  bitterest  dislike  from 
friends  and  foes,  imagine  eight  hundred  English  barristers 
turning  out  from  the  Temple  and  Lincoln’s  Inn  to  walk  in 
slow  procession  from  London  Bridge  to  South  Kensington, 
shouting  themselves  hoarse  for  Gladstone  or  Disraeli ! 

In  attempting  an  explanation,  I  will  take  the  bull  by  the 
horns,  and  ask  whether  the  world  is  right  in  deeming  the  Ameri¬ 
cans  a  cool  and  sober  people?  The  American  is  shrewd  and 
keen,  his  passion  seldom  obscures  his  reason  ;  he  keeps  his 
head  in  moments  when  a  Frenchman,  or  an  Italian,  or  even  a 
German,  would  lose  it.  Yet  he  is  also  of  an  excitable  temper, 
with  emotions  capable  of  being  quickly  and  strongly  stirred. 
That  there  is  no  contradiction  between  these  qualities  appears 
from  the  case  of  the  Scotch,  who  are  both  more  logical  and 
more  cautious  in  affairs  than  the  English,  but  are  also  more 
enthusiastic,  more  apt  to  be  swept  away  by  a  passionate  move¬ 
ment.1  Moreover,  the  Americans  like  excitement.  They  like  it 
for  its  own  sake,  and  go  wherever  they  can  find  it.  They  sur- 


1  Sir  Walter  Scott  remarks  of  Edinburgh  early  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
that  its  mob  was  one  of  the  fiercest  in  Europe.  The  history  of  the  Covenant 
from  1638  downwards  is  full  of  episodes  which  indicate  how  much  more  excitable 
is  Scotch  than  English  blood. 


228 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  HI 


render  themselves  to  the  enjoyment  of  this  pleasure  the  more 
willingly  because  it  is  comparatively  rare,  and  relieves  the  level 
tenor  of  their  ordinary  life.  Add  to  this  the  further  delight 
which  they  find  in  any  form  of  competition.  The  passion  which 
in  England  expresses  itself  in  the  popular  eagerness  over  a  boat 
race  or  a  horse  race,  extends  more  widely  in  America  to  every 
kind  of  rivalry  and  struggle.  The  presidential  election,  in  which 
two  men  are  pitted  against  one  another  over  a  four  months’ 
course  for  the  great  prize  of  politics,  stirs  them  like  any  other 
trial  of  strength  and  speed ;  sets  them  betting  on  the  issue, 
disposes  them  to  make  efforts  for  a  cause  in  which  their  deeper 
feelings  may  be  little  engaged. 

These  tendencies  are  intensified  by  the  vast  area  over  which 
the  contest  extends,  and  the  enormous  multitude  that  bears  a 
part  in  it.  The  American  imagination  is  peculiarly  sensitive  to 
the  impression  of  great  size.  “  A  big  thing”  is  their  habitual 
phrase  of  admiration.  In  Europe,  antiquity  is  what  chiefly  com¬ 
mands  the  respect  of  some  minds,  novelty  what  rouses  the  in¬ 
terest  of  others.  Beyond  the  Atlantic,  the  sense  of  immensity, 
the  sense  that  the  same  thought  and  purpose  are  animating 
millions  of  other  men  in  sympathy  with  himself,  lifts  a  man 
out  of  himself,  and  sends  him  into  transports  of  eagerness  and 
zeal  about  things  intrinsically  small,  but  great  through  the 
volume  of  human  feeling  they  have  attracted.  It  is  not  the 
profundity  of  an  idea  or  emotion,  but  its  lateral  extension, 
which. most  quickly  touches  the  American  imagination.  For 
one  man  who  can  feel  the  former,  a  hundred  are  struck  by  the 
latter ;  and  he  who  describes  America  must  remember  that  he 
has  always  to  think  first  of  the  masses. 

These  considerations  may  help  to  explain  the  disproportion 
that  strikes  a  European  between  the  merits  of  the  presidential 
candidate  and  the  blazing  enthusiasm  which  he  evokes.  It  is 
not  really  given  to  him  as  an  individual,  it  is  given  to  the  party 
personified  in  him,  because  he  bears  its  banner,  and  its  fervour 
is  due,  not  even  so  much  to  party  passion  as  to  the  impres¬ 
sionist  character  of  the  people,  who  desire  to  be  excited,  desire 
to  demonstrate,  desire,  as  English  undergraduates  say,  “to  run 
with  the  boats,”  and  cheer  the  efforts  of  the  rowers.  As  regards 
the  details  of  the  demonstrations,  the  parades  and  receptions, 
the  badges  and  brass  bands  and  triumphal  arches,  any  one  can 
understand  why  the  masses  of  the  people  —  those  who  in  Europe 


chap,  lxxiii  NOMINATIONS  AND  ELECTIONS 


229 


would  be  called  the  lower  middle  and  working  classes  —  should 
relish  these  things,  which  break  the  monotony  of  their  lives, 
and  give  them  a  sense  of  personal  participation  in  a  great 
movement.  Even  in  London,  least  externally  picturesque 
among  European  cities,  when  the  working  men  turn  out  for 
a  Hyde  Park  meeting  they  come  marshalled  in  companies 
under  the  banners  of  their  trade  unions  or  other  societies, 
carrying  devices,  and  preceded  by  music.  They  make  a  some¬ 
what  scrubby  show,  for  England  does  not  know  how  to  light 
up  the  dulness  of  her  skies  and  streets  by  colour  in  costume 
or  variety  in  design.  But  the  taste  for  display  is  there  as  it  is 
in  human  nature  everywhere.  In  England,  the  upper  class  is 
shy  of  joining  in  any  such  “functions,”  even  when  they  have 
a  religious  tinge.  Its  fastidiousness  and  sense  of  class  dignity 
are  offended.  But  in  America,  the  sentiment  of  equality  is  so 
pervading  that  the  rich  and  cultivated  do  not  think  of  scorn¬ 
ing  the  popular  procession ;  or  if  some  do  feel  such  scorn,  they 
are  careful  to  conceal  it.  The  habit  of  demonstrating  with 
bands  and  banners  and  emblems  was  formed  in  days  when  the 
upper  class  was  very  small,  and  would  not  have  dreamt  of 
standing  aloof  from  anything  which  interested  the  crowd ; 
and  now,  when  the  rich  and  cultivated  have  grown  to  be  as 
numerous,  and,  in  most  respects,  as  fastidious  as  the  parallel 
class  in  Europe,  the  habit  is  too  deeply  rooted  to  be  shaken. 
Nobody  thinks  of  sneering.  To  do  as  the  people  do  is  a  tribute 
to  the  people’s  majesty.  And  the  thousand  lawyers  who 
shout  “James  G.  Blaine,  O-hi-o,”  as  they  march  through  the 
October  mud  of  Broadway,  have  no  more  sense  that  they 
are  making  themselves  ridiculous  than  the  European  noble 
who  backs  with  repeated  obeisances  out  of  the  presence  of  his 
sovereign. 


CHAPTER  LXXIV 


TYPES  OF  AMERICAN  STATESMEN 

As  trees  are  known  by  their  fruits,  and  as  different  systems 
of  government  evidently  tend  to  produce  different  types  of 
statesmanship,  it  is  pertinent  to  our  examination  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  party  system  to  inquire  what  are  the  kinds  of  statesmen 
which  it  engenders  and  ripens  to  maturity.  A  democracy, 
more  perhaps  than  any  other  form  of  government,  needs  great 
men  to  lead  and  inspire  the  people.  The  excellence,  therefore, 
of  the  methods  democracy  employs  may  fairly  enough  be  tested 
by  the  excellence  of  the  statesmen  whom  these  methods  call 
forth.  Europeans  are  wont  to  go  farther,  and  reason  from  the 
character  of  the  statesmen  to  the  character  of  the  people,  a 
convenient  process,  because  it  seems  easier  to  know  the  careers 
and  judge  the  merits  of  persons  than  of  nations,  yet  one  not 
universally  applicable.  In  the  free  countries  of  Europe,  the 
men  who  take  the  lead  in  public  affairs  may  be  deemed  fair 
specimens  of  its  best  talent  and  character,  and  fair  types,  pos¬ 
sibly  of  the  virtues  of  the  nation,  though  the  temptations  of 
politics  are  great,  certainly  of  its  practical  gifts.  But  in  two 
sorts  of  countries  one  cannot  so  reason  from  the  statesmen  to 
the  masses.  In  despotic  monarchies  the  minister  is  often 
merely  the  king’s  favourite,  who  has  risen  by  unworthy  arts, 
or,  at  any  rate,  not  by  merit.  And  in  a  democracy  where  birth 
and  education  give  a  man  little  advantage  in  the  race,  a  politi¬ 
cal  career  may  have  become  so  unattractive  as  compared  with 
other  pursuits  that  the  finest  or  most  ambitious  spirits  do  not 
strive  for  its  prizes,  but  generally  leave  them  to  men  of  the 
second  order. 

This  second  case  is,  as  we  have  seen,  to  some  extent  the  case  of 
America.  We  must  not  therefore  take  her  statesmen  as  types 
of  the  highest  or  strongest  American  manhood.  The  national 
qualities  come  out  fully  in  them,  but  not  always  in  their  best 
form.  I  speak  of  the  generations  that  have  grown  up  since  the 

230 


CHAP,  lxxiv  TYPES  OF  AMERICAN  STATESMEN 


231 


great  men  of  the  Revolution  epoch  died  off.  Some  of  those 
men  were  the  peers  of  the  best  European  statesmen  of  the  time  : 
one  of  them  rises  in  moral  dignity  above  all  his  European  con¬ 
temporaries.  The  generation  to  which  J.  Q.  Adams,  Jackson, 
Webster,  Clay,  Calhoun,  and  Benton  belonged  is  less  impres¬ 
sive,  perhaps  because  they  failed  to  solve  a  question  which 
may  have  been  too  hard  for  any  one  to  solve.  Yet  the  men  I 
have  mentioned  were  striking  personalities  who  would  have 
made  a  figure  in  any  country.  Few  of  the  statesmen  of  the 
third  or  Civil  War  period  enjoyed  more  than  a -local  reputation 
when  it  began,  but  in  its  course  several  of  them  developed  re¬ 
markable  powers,  and  one  became  a  national  hero.  The  fourth 
generation  is  now  upon  the  stage,  and  it  is  too  soon  to  attempt 
to  conjecture  the  place  they  will  hold  in  the  judgment  of  pos¬ 
terity.  Only  a  few  who  belong  to  it  have  as  yet  won  high  fame. 
The  times,  it  is  remarked,  are  comparatively  quiet.  What  is 
wanted  is  not  so  much  an  impassioned  popular  leader  or  a  great 
philosophic  legislator  as  men  who  will  administer  the  affairs  of 
the  nation  with  skill  and  rectitude,  and  who,  fortified  by  care¬ 
ful  study  and  observation,  will  grapple  with  the  economic  prob¬ 
lems  which  the  growth  of  the  country  makes  urgent.  While 
admitting  this,  we  must  also  ascribe  something  to  the  character 
of  the  party  system  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  unfavourable  to 
the  development  of  the  finest  gifts.  Let  us  note  what  are  the 
types  which  that  system  displays. 

In  such  countries  as  England,  France,  Germany,  and  Italy 
there  is  room  and  need  for  five  sorts  of  statesmen.  Men  are 
wanted  for  the  management  of  foreign  and  colonial  policy,  men 
combining  the  talents  of  a  diplomatist  with  a  wide  outlook  over 
the  world’s  horizon.  The  needs  of  social  and  economic  reform, 
grave  in  old  countries  with  the  mistakes  of  the  past  to  undo, 
require  a  second  kind  of  statesman  with  an  aptitude  for  con¬ 
structive  legislation.  Thirdly  there  is  the  administrator  who 
can  manage  a  department  with  diligence  and  skill  and  economy. 
Fourthly  comes  the  parliamentary  tactician,  whose  function  it 
is  to  understand  men,  who  frames  cabinets  and  is  dexterous  in 
humouring  or  spurring  a  representative  assembly.1  Lastly  we 
have  the  leader  of  the  masses,  who,  whether  or  no  he  be  a 

1  Englishmen  will  think  of  the  men  who  framed  the  new  Poor  Law  of  1834 
as  specimens  of  the  second  class,  of  Sir  G.  C.  Lewis  as  a  specimen  of  the  third, 
of  Lord  Palmerston  as  a  specimen  of  the  fourth.  The  aptitudes  of  the  third 
and  fourth  were  united  in  Sir  Robert  Peel. 


232 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


skilful  parliamentarian,  thinks  rather  of  the  country  than  of  the 
chamber,  knows  how  to  watch  and  rouse  the  feelings  of  the 
multitude,  and  rally  a  great  party  to  the  standard  which  he 
bears  aloft.  The  first  of  these  has  no  need  for  eloquence ;  the 
second  and  third  can  get  on  without  it ;  to  the  fourth  it  is 
almost,  yet  not  absolutely,  essential ;  it  is  the  life  breath  of 
the  fifth.1 

Let  us  turn  to  America.  In  America  there  are  few  occasions 
for  the  first  sort  of  statesmen,  while  the  conditions  of  a  Federal 
government,  with  its  limited  legislative  sphere,  are  unfavourable 
to  the  second,  as  frequently  changing  cabinets  are  to  the  third. 
It  is  chiefly  for  persons  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  classes  we  must 
look.  Persons  of  those  classes  we  shall  find,  but  in  a  different 
shape  and  guise  from  what  they  would  assume  in  Europe. 
American  politics  seemed  in  the  end  of  last  century  to  be  tend¬ 
ing  to  the  production  of  two  types,  the  one  of  whom  may  be 
called  par  excellence  the  man  of  the  desk  or  of  the  legislature, 
the  other  the  man  of  the  convention  and  the  stump.  They 
resemble  the  fourth  and  fifth  of  our  European  types,  but  with 
instructive  differences. 

The  first  of  these  types  is  usually  a  shrewd,  cool,  hard-headed 
man  of  business.  He  is  such  a  man  as  one  would  find  success¬ 
ful  in  the  law  or  in  commerce  if  he  had  applied  his  faculties 
to  those  vocations.  He  has  mostly  been,  is  often  still,  a  prac¬ 
tising  counsel  and  attorney.  He  may  lack  imagination  and 
width  of  view ;  but  he  has  a  tight  grip  of  facts,  a  keen  insight 
into  men,  and  probably^  also  tact  in  dealing  with  them.  That 
he  has  come  to  the  front  shows  him  to  possess  a  resolute  and 
tenacious  will,  for  without  it  he  must  have  been  trodden  down 
in  the  fierce  competition  of  a  political  career.  His  indepen¬ 
dence  is  limited  by  the  necessity  of  keeping  step  with  his  party, 
for  isolated  action  counts  for  little  in  America,  but  the  tendency 
to  go  with  one’s  party  is  so  inbred  there  that  a  man  feels  less 
humiliated  by  waiving  his  private  views  than  would  be  the  case 
in  Europe.  Such  compliance  does  not  argue  want  of  strength. 
As  to  what  is  called  “ culture,”  he  has  often  at  least  a  suscepti¬ 
bility  to  it,  with  a  wish  to  acquire  it  which,  if  he  has  risen  from 
humble  beginnings,  may  contrast  oddly  with  the  superficial 

1  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  characteristic  attributes  of  these  several 
types  are  often  found  united  in  the  same  person  ;  indeed  no  one  can  rise  high 
who  does  not  combine  at  least  two  of  the  four  latter. 


CHAP,  lxxiv  TYPES  OF  AMERICAN  STATESMEN 


233 


roughness  of  his  manner.  He  is  a  ready  and  effective  rather 
than  a  polished  speaker,  and  is  least  agreeable  when,  forsaking 
the  solid  ground  of  his  legal  or  administrative  knowledge,  he 
attempts  the  higher  flights  of  eloquence. 

Such  a  man  does  not  necessarily  make  his  first  reputation  in 
an  assembly.  He  may  begin  as  governor  of  a  State  or  mayor 
of  a  large  city,  and  if  he  earns  a  reputation  there,  can  make 
pretty  sure  of  going  on  to  Congress  if  he  desires  it.  In  any 
case,  it  is  in  administration  and  the  legislative  work  which 
deals  with  administration  that  he  wins  his  spurs.  The  sphere 
of  local  government  is  especially  fitted  to  develop  such  talents, 
and  to  form  that  peculiar  quality  I  have  been  trying  to  describe. 
It  makes  able  men  of  affairs  ;  men  fit  for  the  kind  of  work 
which  needs  the  combination  of  a  sound  businesss  head  and  the 
power  of  working  along  with  others.  One  may  go  further  and 
say,  that  this  talent  is  the  sort  of  talent  which  during  the  last 
half-century  has  been  most  characteristic  of  the  American 
people.  Their  greatest  achievements  have  lain  in  the  internal 
development  of  their  country  by  administrative  shrewdness, 
ingenuity,  promptitude,  and  an  unequalled  dexterity  in  applying 
the  principle  of  association,  whether  by  means  of  private  cor¬ 
porations  or  of  local  public  or  quasi-public  organisms.  These 
national  characteristics  reappear  in  Federal  politics,  not  always 
accompanied  by  the  largeness  of  vision  and  mastery  of  the  politi¬ 
cal  and  economic  sciences  which  that  wider  sphere  demands. 

The  type  I  describe  is  less  brilliant  than  those  modern  Europe 
has  learned  to  admire  in  men  like  Bismarck  or  Cavour,  per¬ 
haps  one  may  add,  Tisza  or  Minghetti  or  Castelar.  But 
then  the  conditions  required  for  the  rise  of  the  last-named 
men  do  not  exist  in  America,  nor  is  her  need  for  them  pressing. 
America  would  have  all  she  wants  if  such  statesmen  as  I  have 
described  were  more  numerous  ;  and  if  a  philosophic  mind, 
capable  of  taking  in  the  whole  phenomena  of  transatlantic 
society,  and  propounding  comprehensive  solutions  for  its  prob¬ 
lems,  were  more  common  among  the  best  of  them.  Persons  of 
this  type  have  hitherto  been  most  frequently  found  in  the 
Senate,  to  which  they  usually  rise  from  the  House  of  Repre¬ 
sentatives  or  from  a  State  legislature.  They  are  very  useful 
there  ;  indeed,  it  is  they  who  gained  for  it  that  authority  which 
it  long  enjoj^ed  but  is  now  fast  losing. 

The  other  kind  of  statesman  is  the  product  of  two  factors 


234 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


which  give  to  American  politics  their  peculiar  character,  viz., 
an  enormous  multitude  of  voting  citizens,  and  the  existence  of 
a  wonderful  network  of  party  organizations  for  the  purpose  of 
selecting  and  carrying  candidates  for  office.  To  move  the 
masses,  a  man  must  have  the  gifts  of  oratory ;  to  rule  party 
committees,  he  must  be  a  master  of  intrigue.  The  stump  and 
the  committee-room  are  his  sphere.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
campaign  speaking  to  be  done  at  State  elections,  at  congres¬ 
sional  elections,  above  all,  in  presidential  campaigns.  It  does 
not  flow  in  such  a  perennial  torrent  as  in  England,  for  England 
has  since  1876  become  the  most  speech-flooded  country  in  the 
world,  but  it  is  more  copious  than  in  France,  Italy,  or  Germany. 
The  audiences  are  less  ignorant  than  those  of  Europe,  but  their 
critical  standard  is  not  higher ;  and  whereas  in  England  it  is 
Parliament  that  forms  most  speakers  and  creates  the  type  of 
political  oratory,  Congress  renders  no  such  service  to  America. 
There  is,  therefore,  I  think,  less  presumption  in  America  than 
in  Europe  that  the  politician  who  makes  his  way  by  oratory  is 
a  man  either  of  real  eloquence  or  of  vigorous  thinking  power. 
Able,  however,  he  must  be.  He  is  sure  to  have  fluency,  a  power 
of  touching  either  the  emotions  or  the  imagination,  a  command 
of  sonorous  rhetoric.  Probably  he  has  also  humour  and  a  turn 
for  quick  retort.  In  fact,  he  must  have  the  arts  —  we  all  know 
what  they  are  —  which  please  the  multitude  ;  arts  not  blamable 
in  themselves,  but  needing  to  be  corrected  by  occasional  appear¬ 
ances  before  a  critical  audience.  These  arts  joined  to  a  power¬ 
ful  voice  and  a  forcible  personality  will  carry  a  man  far.  If 
he  can  join  to  them  a  ready  and  winning  address,  a  geniality  of 
manner  if  not  of  heart,  he  becomes  what  is  called  magnetic. 
Now,  magnetism  is  among  the  highest  qualities  which  an 
American  popular  leader  can  possess.  Its  presence  may  bring 
him  to  the  top.  Its  absence  may  prevent  him  from  getting  there. 
It  makes  friends  for  him  wherever  he  goes.  It  immensely  en¬ 
hances  his  powers  in  the  region  of  backstairs  politics. 

For  besides  the  visible  work  on  the  stump,  there  is  the  in¬ 
visible  work  of  the  committee-room  or  rather  of  the  inner  con¬ 
clave,  whose  resolves  are  afterwards  registered  in  the  committee, 
to  be  still  later  laid  before  the  convention.  The  same  talent  for 
intrigue  which  in  monarchies  or  oligarchies  is  spent  within  the 
limits  of  a  court  or  a  knot  of  ruling  families,  here  occupies  itself 
with  bosses  and  rings  and  leaders  of  political  groups.  To  ma- 


CHAP,  lxxiv  TYPES  OF  AMERICAN  STATESMEN 


235 


nipulate  these  men  and  groups,  to  know  their  weaknesses,  their 
ambitions,  their  jealousies,  to  play  upon  their  hopes  and  fears, 
attaching  some  by  promises,  entrapping  others  through  their 
vanity,  browbeating  others  into  submission,  forming  combina¬ 
tions  in  which  each  partisan’s  interest  is  so  bound  up  with  that 
of  the  aspiring  statesman  that  he  is  sure  to  stand  faithfully  by 
his  chief  —  all  this  goes  a  long  way  to  secure  advancement 
under  the  party  system. 

It  may  be  thought  that  between  such  aptitudes  and  the  power 
of  effective  speech  there  is  no  necessary  connection.  There  are 
intriguers  who  are  nothing  but  intriguers,  of  small  account  on 
the  stump  or  on  the  platform  of  a  convention  :  and  such  a  man 
does  occasionally  rise  to  national  prominence.  First  he  gains 
command  of  his  own  State  by  a  dexterous  use  of  patronage  ;  then 
he  wins  influence  in  Federal  politics  by  being  able  to  dispose  of 
his  State  vote  in  Federal  elections  ;  finally  he  forces  his  way  into 
the  Senate,  and  possibly  even  aspires  to  the  presidential  chair, 
deluded  by  his  own  advancement,  and  by  the  applause  of  pro¬ 
fessionals  who  find  in  success  sufficient  evidence  of  worthiness. 
Recent  instances  of  such  careers  are  not  wanting.  But  they  are 
exceptions  due  to  the  special  conditions  of  exceptionally  demoral¬ 
ized  States.  Speaking  generally,  oratory  is  essential  to  distinc¬ 
tion.  Fluent  oratory,  however,  as  distinguished  from  eloquence, 
is  an  art  which  most  able  men  can  acquire  with  practice.  In 
popularly  governed  countries  it  is  as  common  as  it  is  worthless. 
And  a  link  between  the  platform  and  the  committee-room  is 
found  in  the  quality  of  magnetism.  The  magnetic  man  attracts 
individuals  just  as  he  captivates  masses.  Where  oratory  does 
not  need  either  knowledge  or  reflection,  because  the  people  are 
not  intent  upon  great  questions,  or  because  the  parties  evade 
them,  where  power  of  voice  and  skill  in  words,  and  ready  sym¬ 
pathy  with  the  feelings  and  prejudices  of  the  crowd,  are  enough 
to  command  the  ear  of  monster  meetings,  there  the  successful 
speaker  will  pass  for  a  statesman.  He  will  seem  a  fit  man  to 
put  forward  for  high  office,  if  he  can  but  persuade  the  managers 
to  run  him  ;  and  therefore  the  other  side  of  his  activity  is  spent 
among  and  upon  the  managers. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  owner  of  these  gifts  is  also  a 
shrewd,  keen,  practical  man,  so  that  the  first  type  is  blended 
with  the  second.  .  Nor  is  there  anything  to  prevent  the  popular 
speaker  and  skilled  intriguer  from  also  possessing  the  higher 


236 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


attributes  of  statesmanship.  This  generation  has  seen  the  con¬ 
junction  both  in  America  and  in  France.  But  the  conjunction 
is  rare  ;  not  only  because  these  last-named  attributes  are  them¬ 
selves  rare,  but  because  the  practice  of  party  intrigue  is  unfa¬ 
vourable  to  their  development.  It  narrows  a  man’s  mind  and 
distorts  his  vision.  His  eye,  accustomed  to  the  obscurity  of 
committee-rooms,  cannot  range  over  the  wide  landscape  of 
national  questions.  Habits  of  argument  formed  on  the  stump 
seldom  fit  a  man  to  guide  a  legislature.  In  none  of  the  greatest 
public  men  that  have  adorned  America  do  we  discern  the  features 
of  the  type  just  sketched.  Hamilton  was  no  intriguer,  though 
he  once  executed  a  brilliant  piece  of  strategy.1  Neither  was  Clay 
or  Webster.  Jefferson,  who  added  an  eminent  talent  for  party 
organization  and  management  to  his  powers  as  a  thinker  and 
writer,  was  no  speaker ;  and  one  might  go  through  the  whole 
list  without  finding  a  man  of  the  first  order  in  whom  the  art  of 
handling  committees  and  nominating  conventions  was  developed 
to  that  pitch  of  excellence  which  it  has  now  reached  in  the  hands 
of  far  inferior  men.  National  conventions  offer  the  best  field 
for  the  display  of  the  peculiar  kind  of  talent  which  this  type  of 
statesman  exhibits.  To  rouse  eight  hundred  delegates  and  ten 
thousand  spectators  needs  powerful  lungs,  a  striking  presence, 
address,  and  courage.  A  man  capable  enough  in  Congress  may 
fail  in  this  arena.  But  less  than  half  the  work  of  a  convention 
is  done  on  the  public  stage.  Delegates  have  to  be  seen  in  private, 
combinations  arranged,  mines  laid  and  those  of  the  opponent 
discovered  and  countermined,  a  distribution  of  the  good  things 
in  the  gift  of  the  party  settled  with  swarms  of  hungry  aspirants. 
Easy  manners,  tact,  and  suppleness,  a  reputation  for  remembering 
and  requiting  good  turns  and  ill  turns,  —  that  pleasant  famili¬ 
arity  which  makes  a  man  “a  good  mixer,”  with  some  of  the 
habits  which  form  the  courtier,  —  are  the  qualities  which  the 
intrigues  of  a  convention  require,  develop,  and  perfect. 

Besides  such  causes  inherent  in  the  present  party  system  as 
have  tended  to  make  first-class  statesmen  more  rare  than  might 
be  expected  from  the  vast  ness  of  the  nation  and  its  boundless 
energy,  there  are  two  others  which  spring  from  the  constitu¬ 
tional  arrangements  of  the  country.  One  is  the  disconnection  of 

1  In  agreeing  that  the  national  capital  should  be  placed  in  the  South  in  return 
for  the  support  of  two  Southern  men  to  his  plan  for  the  settlement  of  the  public 
debt. 


CHAP,  lxxiv  TYPES  OF  AMERICAN  STATESMEN 


237 


Congress  from  the  executive.  How  this  works  to  prevent  true 
leadership  has  been  already  explained.1  Another  is  the  existence 
of  States,  each  of  which  has  a  political  life  and  distinct  party  or¬ 
ganization  of  its  own.  Men  often  rise  to  eminence  in  a  State 
without  making  their  mark  in  national  politics.  They  may  be¬ 
come  virtual  masters  of  the  State  either  in  a  legitimate  way  by 
good  service  to  it  or  in  an  illegitimate  way  as  its  bosses.  In 
either  case  they  have  to  be  reckoned  with  when  a  presidential 
election  comes  round,  and  are  able,  if  the  State  be  a  doubtful 
one,  to  dictate  their  terms.  Thus  they  push  their  way  to  the 
front  without  having  ever  shown  the  qualities  needed  for  guiding 
the-  nation ;  they  crowd  out  better  men,  and  they  make  party 
leadership  and  management  even  more  of  a  game  than  the  spoils 
system  and  the  convention  system  have  tended  to  make  it. 
The  State  vote  comes  to  be  in  national  politics  what  the  ward 
vote  is  in  city  politics,  a  commodity  which  a  Boss  or  Ring  can  dis¬ 
pose  of  ;  the  man  who  can  influence  it  has  a  power  greater  than 
his  personal  merits  entitle  him  to  ;  and  the  kind  of  skill  which  can 
make  friends  of  these  State  bosses  and  bring  them  into  a  “pool” 
or  working  combination  becomes  valuable,  if  not  essential,  to  a 
national  party  leader.  In  fact,  the  condition  of  things  is  not 
wholly  unlike  that  of  England  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  a  great  borough-monger  like  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
was  a  power  in  the  country,  who  must  be  not  only  consulted  and 
propitiated  at  every  crisis,  but  even  admitted  to  a  ministry  if  it 
was  to  secure  a  parliamentary  majority.  When  a  crisis  rouses  the 
nation,  the  power  of  these  organization-mongers  or  vote-owners 
vanishes,  just  as  that  of  the  English  borough-owning  magnate 
was  checked  on  like  occasions,  because  it  is  only  when  the  people 
of  a  State  are  listless  that  their  Boss  is  potent. .  Unable  to  oppose 
a  real  wish  of  the  masses,  he  can  use  their  vote  only  by  professing 
obedience  while  guiding  it  in  the  direction  of  the  men  or  the 
schemes  he  favours. 

This  remark  suggests  another.  We  have  noted  that  among 
statesmen  of  the  former  of  the  two  types  described,  there  always 
exist  ability  and  integrity  sufficient  for  carrying  on  the  regular 
business  of  the  country.  Men  with  those  still  higher  gifts 
which  European  nations  look  for  in  their  prime  ministers 
(though  they  do  not  always  find  them)  have  indeed  never  been 
absent,  but  they  have  been  comparatively  rare.  The  Americans 

1  See  Chapters  XXI.,  XXV.,  and  XXVI.  in  Vol.  I. 


238 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


admit  the  fact,  but  explain  it  by  arguing  that  there  has  been  no 
crisis  needing  those  gifts.  Whether  this  is  true  may  be  doubted. 
Men  of  constructive  statesmanship  were  surely  needed  in  the 
period  after  the  Civil  War ;  and  it  is  possible  that  a  higher 
statesmanship  might  have  averted  the  war  itself.  The  Ameri¬ 
cans,  however,  maintain  that  when  the  hour  comes,  it  brings  the 
man.  It  brought  Abraham  Lincoln.  When  he  was  nominated 
by  the  famous  convention  of  1860,  his  name  was  not  widely 
known  beyond  his  own  State.  But  he  rose  at  once  to  the  level 
of  the  situation,  and  that  not  merely  by  virtue  of  strong  clear 
sense,  but  by  his  patriotic  steadfastness  and  noble  simplicity  of 
character.  If  this  was  luck,  it  was  just  the  kind  of  luck  which 
makes  a  nation  hopeful  of  its  future,  and  inclined  to  overlook 
the  faults  of  the  methods  by  which  it  finds  its  leaders. 


CHAPTER  LXXV 


WHAT  THE  PEOPLE  THINK  OF  IT 

The  European  reader  who  has  followed  thus  far  the  descrip¬ 
tion  I  have  endeavoured  to  give  of  the  working  of  party  politics, 
of  the  nominating  machine,  of  the  spoils  system,  of  elections  and 
their  methods,  of  venality  in  some  legislative  and  municipal 
bodies,  may  have  been  struck  by  its  dark  lines.  He  sees  in  this 
new  country  evils  which  savour  of  Old  World  corruption,  even 
of  Old  World  despotism.  He  is  reminded  sometimes  of  England 
under  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  sometimes  of  Russia  under  the  Czar 
Nicholas  I.  Assuming,  as  a  European  is  apt  to  do,  that  the  work¬ 
ing  of  political  machinery  fairly  reflects  the  temper,  ideas,  and 
moral  standard  of  the  governing  class,  and  knowing  that 
America  is  governed  by  the  whole  people,  he  may  form  a  low 
opinion  of  the  people.  Perhaps  he  leaps  to  the  conclusion  that 
they  are  corrupt.  Perhaps  he  more  cautiously  infers  that  they 
are  heedless.  Perhaps  he  conceives  that  the  better  men  despair 
of  politics  and  wash  their  hands  of  it,  while  the  mass,  besotted 
with  a  self-confidence  born  of  their  rapid  material  progress,  are 
blind  to  the  consequences  which  the  degradation  of  public  life 
must  involve.  All  these  judgments  one  may  hear  pronounced 
by  persons  who  have  visited  the  United  States,  and  more  confi¬ 
dently  by  persons  who  have  not.  It  is  at  any  rate  a  plausible 
view  that  whatever  public  opinion  there  may  be  in  America 
upon  religion,  or  morality,  or  literature,  there  can  be  little  about 
politics,  and  that  the  leading  minds,  which  in  all  countries  shape 
and  direct  opinion,  have  in  America  abdicated  that  function, 
and  left  the  politicians  to  go  their  own  way. 

Such  impressions  are  far  from  the  truth.  In  no  country  is 
public  opinion  stronger  or  more  active  than  in  the  United  States  ; 
in  none  has  it  the  field  so  completely  to  itself,  because  aris¬ 
tocracies  like  those  of  Europe  do  not  exist,  and  because  the  legis¬ 
lative  bodies  are  relatively  less  powerful  and  less  independent. 

239 


240 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


It  may  seem  a  paradox  to  add  that  public  opinion  is  on  the  whole 
wholesome  and  upright.  Nevertheless,  this  also  is  true. 

Here  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  cardinal  problem 
of  American  politics.  Where  political  life  is  all-pervading, 
can  practical  politics  be  on  a  lower  level  than  public  opinion? 
How  can  a  free  people  which  tolerates  gross  evils  be  a  pure 
people?  To  explain  this  is  the  hardest  task  which  one  who 
describes  the  United  States  sees  confronting  him.  Experience 
has  taught  me,  as  it  teaches  every  traveler  who  seeks  to  justify 
when  he  returns  to  Europe  his  faith  in  the  American  people, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  get  Englishmen  at  any  rate  to  realize 
the  coexistence  of  phenomena  so  unlike  those  of  their  own 
country,  and  to  draw  the  inferences  which  those  phenomena 
suggest  to  one  who  has  seen  them  with  his  own  eyes.  Most 
English  admirers  of  popular  government,  when  pressed  with  the 
facts,  deny  them.  But  I  have  already  admitted  them. 

To  present  a  just  picture  of  American  public  opinion  one 
must  cut  deeper  than  the  last  few  chapters  have  done,  and  try 
to  explain  the  character  and  conditions  of  opinion  itself  beyond 
the  Atlantic,  the  mental  habits  from  which  it  springs,  the  organs 
through  which  it  speaks.  This  is  what  I  propose  to  do  in  the 
chapters  which  follow.  Meanwhile  it  is  well  to  complete  the 
survey  of  the  actualities  of  party  politics  by  stating  in  a  purely 
positive,  or,  as  the  Germans  say,  “objective,”  way,  what  the 
Americans  think  about  the  various  features  of  their  system  por¬ 
trayed  in  these  last  chapters,  about  Spoils  and  the  Machine, 
about  corruption  and  election  frauds.  I  omit  attempts  at  ex¬ 
planation  ;  I  simply  sum  up  the  bare  facts  of  the  case  as  they 
strike  one  who  listens  to  conversation  and  reads  the  newspapers. 

Corruption.  —  Most  of  it  the  people,  by  which  I  mean  not  the 
masses  but  all  classes  of  the  people,  do  not  see.  The  proceedings 
of  Congress  excite  less  interest  than  those  of  legislative  chambers 
do  in  France  or  England.  Venality  occurs  chiefly  in  connection 
with  private  legislation,  and  even  in  Washington  very  little  is 
known  about  this,  the  rather  as  committees  deliberate  with  closed 
doors.  Almost  the  only  persons  who  possess  authentic  informa¬ 
tion  as  to  what  goes  on  in  the  Capitol  are  railroad  men,  land 
speculators,  and  manufacturers  who  have  had  to  lobby  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  tariff.  The  same  remark  applies,  though  less 
forcibly,  to  the  venality  of  certain  State  legislatures.  A  farmer 
of  Western  New  York  may  go  through  a  long  life  Avithout 

i 


CHAP,  lxxv  WHAT  THE  PEOPLE  THINK  OF  IT 


241 


knowing  how  his  representative  behaves  at  Albany.  Albany 
is  not  within  his  horizon.1 

The  people  see  little  and  they  believe  less.  True,  the  party 
newspapers  accuse  their  opponents,  but  the  newspapers  are 
always  reviling  somebody  ;  and  it  is  because  the  words  are  so 
strong  that  the  tale  has  little  meaning.  For  instance,  in  a  hard 
fought  presidential  contest  charges  affecting  the  honour  of  one 
of  the  candidates  were  brought  against  him  by  journals  support¬ 
ing  the  other  candidate,  and  evidence  tendered  in  support  of 
them.  The  immense  majority  of  his  supporters  did  not  believe 
these  charges.  They  read  their  own  newspapers  chiefly,  which 
pooh-poohed  the  charges.  They  could  not  be  at  the  trouble  of 
sifting  the  evidence,  against  which  their  own  newspapers  offered 
counter  arguments,  so  they  quietly  ignored  them.  I  do  not 
say  that  they  disbelieved.  Between  belief  and  disbelief  there 
is  an  intermediate  state  of  mind. 

The  habit  of  hearing  charges  promiscuously  bandied  to  and 
fro,  but  seldom  probed  to  the  bottom,  makes  men  heedless. 
So  does  the  fact  that  prosecutions  frequently  break  down  even 
where  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  guilt  of  the  accused. 
A  general  impression  is  produced  that  things  are  not  as  they 
should  be,  yet  the  line  between  honest  men  and  dishonest  men 
is  not  sharply  drawn,  because  those  who  are  probably  honest 
are  attacked,  and  those  who  are  almost  certainly  dishonest 
escape  punishment.  The  state  of  mind  of  the  average  citizen 
is  a  state  rather  of  lassitude  than  of  callousness.  He  comes 
to  think  that  politicians  have  a  morality  of  their  own,  and  must 
be  judged  by  it.  It  is  not  his  morality  ;  but  because  it  is  pro¬ 
fessional,  he  does  not  fear  that  it  will  infect  other  plain  citizens 
like  himself. 

Some  people  shrug  their  shoulders  and  say  that  politicians 
have  always  been  so.  Others,  especially  among  the  cultivated 
classes,  will  tell  you  that  they  wash  their  hands  ‘of  the  whole 
affair.  “It  is  only  the  politicians  —  what  can  you  expect  from 
the  politicians?”  Leaving  out  the  cynics  on  the  one  side,. and 
the  perfectionist  reformers  on  the  other,  and  looking  at  the  bulk 
of  ordinary  citizens,  the  fair  conclusion  from  the  facts  is  that 
many  do  not  realize  the  evil  who  ought  to  realize  it  and  be 
alarmed,  and  that  those  who  do  realize  it  are  not  sufficiently 

1  This  remark  does  not  apply  to  the  malversations  of  officials  in  cities  like 
New  York  or  Philadelphia.  These  nobody  can  help  knowing. 

R 


242 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


alarmed.  They  take  it  too  easily.  Yet  now  and  then  when 
roused  they  will  inflict  severe  penalties  on  the  receivers  of 
bribes,  as  they  did  on  the  New  York  aldermen  who  were  bribed 
to  grant  the  right  of  laying  a  street-car  line  in  Broadway. 
The  givers  of  bribes  are  apt  to  be  more  leniently  dealt  with. 

Election  Frauds.  —  As  these  are  offences  against  popular  gov¬ 
ernment  and  injure  the  opposite  party,  they  excite  stronger, 
or  at  least  more  general  disapproval  than  do  acts  of  venality, 
from  which  only  the  public  purse  suffers.  No  one  attempts  to 
palliate  them ;  but  proof  is  difficult,  and  punishment  therefore 
uncertain.  Legislative  remedies  have  been  tried,  and  fresh 
ones  are  constantly  being  tried.  If  people  are  less  indignant 
than  they  would  be  in  England,  it  is  because  they  are  less  sur¬ 
prised.  There  is  one  exception  to  the  general  condemnation  of 
the  practice.  In  the  Southern  States  negro  suffrage  produced, 
during  the  few  years  of  “carpet-bagging”  and  military  govern¬ 
ment  which  followed  the  war,  incredible  mischief.  When  these 
States  recovered  full  self-government,  and  the  former  “rebels” 
were  readmitted  to  the  suffrage,  the  upper  class  of  the  white 
population  “took  hold”  again,  and  in  order,  as  they  expressed 
it,  “to  save  civilization,”  resolved  that,  come  what  might,  the 
negro  and  white  Republican  vote  should  not,  by  obtaining  a 
majority  in  the  State  legislatures,  be  in  a  position  to  play  these 
pranks  further.  The  negroes  were  at  first  roughly  handled  or, 
to  use  the  technical  term,  “bull-dozed,”  but  as  this  excited  anger 
at  the  North,  it  was  found  better  to  attain  the  desired  result 
by  manipulating  the  elections  in  various  ways,  “using  no  more 
fraud  than  was  necessary  in  the  premises,”  as  the  pleaders  say. 
As  few  of  the  negroes  are  fit  for  the  suffrage,  these  services  to 
civilization  have  been  leniently  regarded  even  at  the  North, 
and  are  justified  at  the  South  by  men  above  the  suspicion  of 
personal  corruption. 

The  Machine.  —  The  perversion  by  rings  of  the  nominating 
machinery  of  primaries  and  conventions  excites  a  disgust  which  is 
proportioned  to  the  amount  of  fraud  and  trickery  employed,  an 
amount  not  great  when  the  “good  citizens”  make  no  counter 
exertions.  The  disgust  is  often  mingled  with  amusement.  The 
Boss  is  a  sort  of  joke,  albeit  an  expensive  joke.  “After  all,” 
people  say,  “it  is  our  own  fault.  If  we  all  went  to  the  primaries, 
or  if  we  all  voted  an  Independent  ticket,  we  could  make  an  end  of 
the  Boss.  ’  ’  There  is  a  sort  of  fatalism  in  their  view  of  democracy. 


CHAP.  LXXV  WHAT  THE  PEOPLE  THINK  OF  IT 


243 


If  a  thing  exists  in  a  free  country,  it  has  a  right  to  exist,  for  it 
exists  by  the  leave  of  the  people,  who  may  be  deemed  to  acquiesce 
in  what  they  do  not  extinguish.  Nevertheless,  the  disgust  rose 
high  enough  to  enable  the  reformers  to  secure  the  enactment 
of  the  new  primary  laws,  which  represent  a  real  effort  to 
smash  the  Machine. 

The  Spoils  System.  ■ —  As  to  spoils  and  favouritism  in  patron¬ 
age,  I  have  already  explained  why  the  average  citizen  has  tol¬ 
erated  both.  He  was  accustomed  to  think  rotation  in  office  a 
recognition  of  equality,  and  a  check  on  the  growth  of  that  old 
bugbear,  an  11  aristocracy  of  office-holders.”  Favouritism  seemed 
natural,  and  competitive  examinations  pedantic.  Usage  sanc¬ 
tioned  a  certain  amount  of  jobbery,  so  you  must  not  be  too  hard 
on  a  man  who  does  no  more  than  others  have  done  before  him. 

The  conduct,  as  well  as  the  sentiment,  of  the  people  is  so 
much  better  than  the  practice  of  politicians  that  it  is  hard  to 
understand  why  the  latter  are  judged  so  leniently.  No  ordi¬ 
nary  citizen,  much  less  a  man  of  social  standing  and  high  educa¬ 
tion,  would  do  in  his  private  dealings  what  many  politicians  do 
with  little  fear  of  disgrace.  The  career  of  the  latter  is  not  de¬ 
stroyed,  while  the  former  would  lose  the  respect  of  his  neigh¬ 
bours,  and  probably  his  chances  in  the  world.  Europe  presents 
no  similar  contrast  between  the  tone  of  public  and  that  of  pri¬ 
vate  life. 

There  is,  however,  one  respect  in  which  a  comparison  of  the 
political  morality  of  the  United  States  with  that  of  England 
does  injustice  to  the  former. 

The  English  have  two  moralities  for  public  life,  the  one  con¬ 
ventional  or  ideal,  the  other  actual.  The  conventional  finds 
expression  not  merely  in  the  pulpit,  but  also  in  the  speeches 
of  public  men,  in  the  articles  of  journalists.  Assuming  the 
normal  British  statesman  to  be  patriotic,  disinterested,  truth¬ 
ful,  and  magnanimous,  it  treats  every  fault  as  a  dereliction 
from  a  well-settled  standard  of  duty,  a  quite  exceptional  dere¬ 
liction  which  disentitles  the  culprit  to  the  confidence  even  of 
his  own  party,  but  does  not  affect  the  generally  high  tone  of 
British  political  life.  The  actual  morality,  as  one  gathers  it 
in  the  lobbies  of  the  legislative  chambers,  or  the  smoking-rooms 
of  political  clubs,  or  committee-rooms  at  contested  elections,  is 
a  different  affair.  It  regards  (or  lately  regarded)  the  bribery 
of  voters  as  an  offence  only  when  detection  followed  ;  it  assumes 


244 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


that  a  minister  will  use  his  patronage  to  strengthen  his  party 
or  himself ;  it  smiles  at  election  pledges  as  the  gods  smiled  at 
lovers’  vows ;  it  defends  the  abuse  of  parliamentary  rules ;  it 
tolerates  equivocations  and  misleading  statements  proceeding 
from  an  official  even  when  they  have  not  the  excuse  of  State 
necessity.  It  is  by  this  actual  standard  that  Englishmen  do 
in  fact  judge  one  another ;  and  he  who  does  not  sink  below  it 
need  not  fear  the  conventional  ideality  of  press  and  pulpit. 

Perhaps  this  is  only  an  instance  of  the  tendency  in  all  profes¬ 
sions  to  develop  a  special  code  of  rules  less  exacting  than  those 
of  the  community  at  large.  As  a  profession  holds  some  things 
to  be  wrong,  because  contrary  to  its  etiquette,  which  are  in 
themselves  harmless,  so  it  justifies  other  things  in  themselves 
blamable.  In  the  mercantile  world,  agents  play  sad  tricks  on 
their  principals  in  the  matter  of  commissions,  and  their  fellow- 
merchants  are  astonished  when  the  courts  of  law  compel  the  ill- 
gotten  gains  to  be  disgorged.  At  the  University  of  Oxford 
everybody  who  took  a  Master  of  Arts  degree  was,  until  1871, 
required  to  sign  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land.  Hundreds  of  men  signed  who  did  not  believe,  and  ad¬ 
mitted  that  they  did  not  believe,  the  dogmas  of  this  formulary  ; 
but  nobody  thought  the  worse  of  them  for  a  solemn  falsehood. 
We  know  what  latitude,  as  regards  truth,  a  “ scientific  witness,” 
honourable  enough  in  his  private  life,  permits  himself  in  the  wit¬ 
ness  box.  Each  profession  indulges  in  deviations  from  the  es¬ 
tablished  rule  of  morals,  but  takes  pains  to  conceal  these  devia¬ 
tions  from  the  general  public,  and  continues  to  talk  about  itself 
and  its  traditions  with  an  air  of  unsullied  virtue.  What  each 
profession  does  for  itself  most  individual  men  do  for  themselves. 
They  judge  themselves  by  themselves,  that  is  to  say,  by  their 
surroundings  and  their  own  past  acts,  and  thus  erect  in  the  inner 
forum  of  conscience  a  more  lenient  code  for  their  own  trans¬ 
gressions  than  that  which  they  apply  to  others.  A  fault  which  a 
man  has  often  committed  seems  to  him  slighter  than  one  he 
has  refrained  from  and  sees  others  committing.  Often  he  gets 
others  to  take  the  same  view.  “It  is  only  his  way,”  they  say  ; 
“it  is  just  like  Roger.”  The  same  thing  happens  with  nations. 
The  particular  forms  in  which  faults  like  corruption,  or  falsehood, 
or  unscrupulous  partisanship  have  appeared  in  the  recent  political 
history  of  a  nation  shock  its  moral  sense  less  than  similar  offences 
which  have  taken  a  different  form  in  some  other  country. 


CHAP,  lxxv  WHAT  THE  PEOPLE  THINK  OF  IT 


245 


Each  country,  while  accustomed  to  judge  her  own  statesmen, 
as  well  as  her  national  behaviour  generally,  by  the  actual  stand¬ 
ard,  and  therefore  to  overlook  many  deflections  from  the  ideal, 
usually  applies  the  conventional  or  absolute  standard  to  other 
countries.  Europeans  have  done  this  to  America,  subjecting 
her  to  that  censorious  scrutiny  which  the  children  of  an  emi¬ 
grant  brother  receive  on  their  return  from  aunts  and  uncles. 

How  then  does  America  deal  with  herself  ? 

She  is  so  far  lenient  to  her  own  defects  as  to  judge  them  by 
her  past  practice  ;  that  is  to  say,  she  is  less  shocked  by  certain 
political  vices,  because  these  vices  are  familiar,  than  might 
have  been  expected  from  the  generally  high  tone  of  her  people. 
But  so  far  from  covering  things  up  as  the  English  do,  professing 
a  high  standard,  and  applying  it  rigorously  to  other  countries, 
but  leniently  to  her  own  offspring,  she  gives  an  exceptionally 
free  course  to  publicity  of  all  kinds,  and  allows  writers  and  speak¬ 
ers  to  paint  the  faults  of  her  politicians  in  strong,  not  to  say 
exaggerated,  colours.  Such  excessive  candour  is  not  an  un¬ 
mixed  gain.  It  removes  the  restraint  which  the  maintenance 
of  a  conventional  standard  imposes.  There  is  almost  too  little 
of  make-believe  about  Americans  in  public  writing,  as  well  as  in 
private  talk,  and  their  dislike  to  humbug,  hypocrisy,  and  what 
they  call  English  pharisaism,  not  only  tends  to  laxity,  but  has 
made  them  wrong  in  the  eyes  of  the  Old  World  their  real  moral 
sensitiveness.  Accustomed  to  see  constant  lip-service  rendered 
to  a  virtue  not  intended  to  be  practised,  Europeans  naturally 
assume  that  things  are  in  the  United  States  several  shades  darker 
than  they  are  painted,  and  interpret  frankness  as  cynicism. 
Were  American  politics  judged  by  the  actual  and  not  the  con¬ 
ventional  standard  of  European  countries,  the  contrast  between 
the  demerits  of  the  politicians  and  the  merits  of  the  people 
would  be  less  striking. 


246 


THE  PARTY  SYSTEM 


PART  III 


Supplementary  Note  to  Edition  of  1910 

REMARKS  ON  THE  GROWTH  OF  PARTY  :  ITS  PERVERSIONS  AND  THE 

REMEDIES  APPLIED 

It  may  be  well  to  add  here  a  few  further  observations,  suggested  by 
recent  events,  on  the  Party  System. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  of  every  State,  and  of 
every  City,  was  originally  intended  and  expected  to  be  conducted  by 
the  people  as  a  whole  through  their  elected  representatives,  who, 
being  the  best  and  wisest,  were  to  act  for  the  whole  people  in  their 
common  interest.  But,  within  a  few  years  of  its  establishment,  the 
government,  both  in  the  nation  and  in  the  States,  and  subsequently 
in  the  cities  also,  was  seized  upon  by  Party,  which  has  ever  since  con¬ 
trolled  it  and  worked  it,  so  that  no  other  way  of  working  it  has  even 
been  thought  of  or  can  now  be  easily  imagined.  Out  of  Party  there 
naturally  grew  the  Machine,  i.e.  an  elaborate  system  of  party  organi¬ 
zation  created  for  the  purpose  of  selecting  candidates  and  securing 
their  election  by  the  people.  The  Machine  is  the  offspring  of  two 
phenomena,  both  natural,  though  both  unforeseen.  One  was  the 
deficiency  of  public  zeal  among  the  citizens,  a  deficiency  not  indeed 
more  marked  here  than  in  other  countries  but  here  more  unfortunate. 
The  other  was  the  excess  of  private  zeal  among  the  politicians,  who 
perceived  that  public  work  could  be  turned  to  private  gain.  Thus  the 
Spoils  System  sprang  into  being,  office  being  the  prize  of  party  victory. 

But  the  action  of  these  factors  was  mightily  increased  by  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  democratic  theory  pushed  to  extremes.  The  doctrine  of 
human  equality  was  taken  to  imply  that  one  man  was  just  as  good  as 
another  for  public  office.  The  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  was 
applied  by  giving  the  election  of  nearly  all  officials  in  State,  county, 
and  city  to  the  voters  and  by  choosing  the  officials  for  very  short  terms. 
The  consequence  of  this  was  that  it  became  impossible  for  the  voters, 
in  such  large  communities  as  States  and  great  ci  ties,  to  know  who  were 
the  fittest  men  to  choose  for  the  large  number  of  elective  offices.  Hence 
the  action  and  power  of  the  Machine  became  inevitable.  Since  the 
voters  could  not  possibly  select  the  numerous  candidates  needed,  it 
stepped  in  and  selected  them.  Since  the  incessant  elections  required 
a  great  deal  of  work,  it  stepped  in  and  conducted  the  elections. 

These  evils  grew  with  the  increasing  size  of  the  communities  and 
the  increasing  wealth  of  the  country,  which  threw  into  the  hands  of 
legislatures  and  officials  immense  opportunities  for  bestowing  favours 
on  unscrupulous  groups  of  men  bent  on  gain.  It  is  easy  for  such  men 
to  influence  a  legislature,  and  it  was  well  worth  their  while  to  do  so. 

At  last  a  point  was  reached  at  which  the  evils  aroused  the  public 
conscience  and  were  felt  to  be  injuring  the  whole  community.  How 
were  they  to  be  dealt  with  ?  Human  intelligence,  by  a  sort  of  natural 
law,  chooses  the  path  of  least  resistance,  and  instead  of  trying  to  root 
out  an  evil  altogether,  often  seeks  to  discover  some  expedient  which 


CHAP,  lx xv  WHAT  THE  PEOPLE  THINK  OF  IT 


247 


will  get  round  the  evil  and  avoid  its  worst  consequences.  So  in  this 
instance  the  voters,  instead  of  destroying  the  Machine  or  setting  it 
right  by  ejecting  the  professionals  and  making  a  party  organization 
truly  represent  the  whole  party  and  the  principles  the  party  stands 
for,  resorted  to  the  plan  of  creating  statutory  primaries,  that  is  to  say, 
of  duplicating  elections  by  holding  a  party  election  to  choose  candidates 
as  preliminary  to  the  general  election  for  choosing  officials.  So  again, 
instead  of  trying  to  reform  the  legislatures,  which  had  largely  lost  pub¬ 
lic  confidence  by  their  subservience  to  the  Machine  and  to  powerful 
private  interests,  they  limited  the  powers  and  shortened  the  sittings 
of  the  legislatures ;  and  then  turned  to  the  State  Governor,  whenever 
he  happened  to  be  a  strong  and  upright  man,  encouraging  him  to  lead 
and  restrain  the  legislature  so  far  as  his  legal  powers  went.  And  now 
at  last  they  have  begun  to  supersede  the  legislature  by  taking  to  them¬ 
selves  the  direct  power  of  lawmaking  through  the*  institution  of  the 
Referendum  and  the  Initiative,  these  being  in  their  essence  an  effort 
to  get  rid,  not  only  of  the  evils  incident  to  the  selfishness  of  legislatures 
and  their  amenability  to  improper  influences,  but  also  of  Party  itself, 
as  a  force  which  divides  the  people  and  prevents  them  from  taking  the 
shortest  way  to  accomplish  their  will. 

All  this  beautiful  series  of  constitutional  developments  in  State 
and  City  government  has  evolved  itself  naturally  and  logically  within 
little  more  than  a  century.  The  constant  element  in  the  series  has 
been  democratic  theory,  i.e  the  faith  in  unlimited  and  direct  popular 
choice  and  the  doctrine  that  one  man  is  as  fit  for  public  office  as  another. 
These  doctrines,  largely  abstract  in  their  origin,  rooted  themselves  in 
mens’  minds  under  conditions  which  made  them  seem  reasonable,  in 
small  communities,  where  the  citizens  were  nearly  on  a  level  in  educa¬ 
tion  and  intelligence,  and  where  the  questions  of  government  that  arose 
were  within  the  range  of  an  ordinary  man’s  knowledge.  When  such 
notions  came  to  be  applied  to  huge  communities  like  the  States  and  the 
vast  modern  cities,  their  inapplicability  was  manifest,  while  at  the  same 
time  the  need  for  an  organization  to  work  the  Party  System  became 
more  evident.  Improvements  in  the  representative  system  might 
have  seemed  to  be  the  obvious  remedy,  but  unfortunately  the  same 
changes  had  so  injured,  and  at  last  discredited,  the  legislatures  of  States 
and  cities  that  the  efforts  for  reform  took  a  different  line. 

Since  1894,  when  the  preceding  chapters  on  the  Party  System  were 
last  revised,  public  opinion  has  become  more  impatient  of  the  rule  of 
the  Machine,  and  more  sensitive  to  scandals,  while  “good  citizens” 
have  begun  to  show  more  activity  in  their  campaign  for  purity.  “Boss 
rule”  seems  to  be  losing  its  hold  in  some  of  the  cities,  and  the  tendency 
to  emancipate  them  from  the  State  legislatures  and  stimulate  the  inhab¬ 
itants  to  frame  better  schemes  of  government  and  take  a  more  constant 
interest  in  their  working  has  gained  ground.  Accordingly,  although 
the  facts  set  forth  above  are  still  so  far  generally  true  that  the  state¬ 
ments  can  properly  be  allowed  to  stand,  it  may  safely  be  said  that  the 
sky  is  brighter  in  1910  than  it  was  in  1894. 


/ 


l 


PART  IY 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


N 


r 


CHAPTER  LXXVI 


THE  NATURE  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 

In  no  country  is  public  opinion  so  powerful  as  in  the  United 
States  :  in  no  country  can  it  be  so  well  studied.  Before  I  pro¬ 
ceed  to  describe  how  it  works  upon  the  government  of  the 
nation  and  the  States,  it  may  be  proper  to  consider  briefly  how 
it  is  formed,  and  what  is  the  nature  of  the  influence  which  it 
everywhere  exercises  upon  government. 

What  do  we  mean  by  public  opinion?  The  difficulties  which 
occur  in  discussing  its  action  mostly  arise  from  confounding 
opinion  itself  with  the  organs  whence  people  try  to  gather  it,  and 
from  using  the  term  to  denote,  sometimes  everybody’s  views,  — 
that  is,  the  aggregate  of  all  that  is  thought  and  said  on  a  subject, 
—  sometimes  merely  the  views  of  the  majority,  the  particular 
type  of  thought  and  speech  which  prevails  over  other  types. 

The  simplest  form  in  which  public  opinion  presents  itself  is 
when  a  sentiment  spontaneously  rises  in  the  mind  and  flows 
from  the  lips  of  the  average  man  upon  his  seeing  or  hearing 
something  done  or  said.  Homer  presents  this  with  his  usual 
vivid  directness  in  the  line  which  frequently  recurs  in  the  Iliad 
when  the  effect  produced  by  a  speech  or  event  is  to  be  conveyed  : 
“And  thus  any  one  was  saying  as  he  looked  at  his  neighbour.” 
This  phrase  describes  what  may  be  called  the  rudimentary  stage 
of  opinion.  It  is  the  prevalent  impression  of  the  moment.  It 
is  what  any  man  (not  every  man)  says,  i.e.  it  is  the  natural  and 
the  general  thought  or  wish  which  an  occurrence  evokes.  But 
before  opinion  begins  to  tell  upon  government,  it  has  to  go  through 
several  other  stages.  These  stages  are  various  in  different  ages 
and  countries.  Let  us  try  to  note  what  they  are  in  England  or 
America  at  the  present  time,  and  how  each  stage  grows  out  of 
the  other. 

A  business  man  reads  in  his  newspaper  at  breakfast  the 
events  of  the  preceding  day.  He  reads  that  Prince  Bismarck 

251 


252 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


has  announced  a  policy  of  protection  for  German  industry,  or 
that  Mr.  Henry  George  has  been  nominated  for  the  mayoralty 
of  New  York.  These  statements  arouse  in  his  mind  sentiments 
of  approval  or  disapproval,  which  may  be  strong  or  weak 
according  to  his  previous  predilection  for  or  against  protec¬ 
tion  or  Mr.  Henry  George,  and  of  course  according  to  his  per¬ 
sonal  interest  in  the  matter.  They  rouse  also  an  expectation 
of  certain  consequences  likely  to  follow.  Neither  the  senti¬ 
ment  nor  the  expectation  is  based  on  processes  of  conscious 
reasoning  —  our  business  man  has  not  time  to  reason  at  break¬ 
fast  —  they  are  merely  impressions  formed  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment.  He  turns  to  the  leading  article  in  the  newspaper, 
and  his  sentiments  and  expectations  are  confirmed  or  weakened 
according  as  he  finds  that  they  are  or  are  not  shared  by  the 
newspaper  writer.  He  goes  down  to  his  office  in  the  train, 
talks  there  to  two  or  three  acquaintances,  and  perceives  that 
they  agree  or  do  not  agree  with  his  own  still  faint  impressions. 
In  his  business  office  he  finds  his  partner  and  a  bundle  of  other 
newspapers  which  he  glances  at ;  their  words  further  affect 
him,  and  thus  by  the  afternoon  his  mind  is  beginning  to  settle 
down  into  a  definite  view,  which  approves  or  condemns  Prince 
Bismarck's  declaration  or  the  nomination  of  Mr.  George.  Mean¬ 
while  a  similar  process  has  been  going  on  in  the  minds  of  others, 
and  particularly  of  the  journalists,  whose  business  it  is  to  dis¬ 
cover  what  people  are  thinking.  The  evening  paper  has  col¬ 
lected  the  opinions  of  the  morning  papers,  and  is  rather  more 
positive  in  its  forecast  of  results.  Next  day  the  leading  journals  . 
have  articles  still  more  definite  and  positive  in  approval  or  con¬ 
demnation  and  in  prediction  of  consequences  to  follow  ;  and  the 
opinion  of  ordinary  minds,  hitherto  fluid  and  undetermined,  has 
begun  to  crystallize  into  a  solid  mass.  This  is  the  second  stage. 
Then  debate  and  controversy  begin.  The  men  and  the  news¬ 
papers  who  approve  Mr.  George’s  nomination  argue  with  those 
who  do  not ;  they  find  out  who  are  friends  and  who  opponents. 
The  effect  of  controversy  is  to  drive  the  partisans  on  either  side 
from  some  of  their  arguments,  which  are  shown  to  be  weak ; 
to  confirm  them  in  others,  which  they  think  strong  ;  and  to  make 
them  take  up  a  definite  position  on  one  side.  This  is  the  third 
stage.  The  fourth  is  reached  when  action  becomes  necessary. 
When  a  citizen  has  to  give  a  vote,  he  votes  as  a  member  of  a  party, 
his  party  prepossessions  and  party  allegiance  lay  hold  on  him, 


CHAP,  lxxvi  THE  NATURE  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


253 


and  generally  stifle  any  doubts  or  repulsions  he  may  feel.  Bring¬ 
ing  men  up  to  the  polls  is  like  passing  a  steam  roller  over  stones 
newly  laid  on  a  road  :  the  angularities  are  pressed  down,  and 
an  appearance  of  smooth  and  even  uniformity  is  given  which 
did  not  exist  before.  When  a  man  has  voted,  he  is  committed  : 
he  has  thereafter  an  interest  in  backing  the  view  which  he  has 
sought  to  make  prevail.  Moreover,  opinion,  which  may  have 
been  manifold  till  the  polling,  is  thereafter  generally  twofold 
only.  There  is  a  view  which  has  triumphed  and  a  view  which 
has  been  vanquished. 

In  examining  the  process  by  which  opinion  is  formed,  we  cannot 
fail  to  note  how  small  a  part  of  the  view  which  the  average  man 
entertains  when  he  goes  to  vote  is  really  of  his  own  making.  Plis 
original  impression  was  faint  and  perhaps  shapeless  :  its  present 
definiteness  and  strength  are  mainly  due  to  what  he  has  heard  and 
read.  He  has  been  told  what  to  think,  and  why  to  think  it. 
Arguments  have  been  supplied  to  him  from  without,  and  contro¬ 
versy  has  embedded  them  in  his  mind.  Although  he  supposes 
his  view  to  be  his  own,  he  holds  it  rather  because  his  acquaint¬ 
ances,  his  newspapers,  his  party  leaders  all  hold  it.  His  acquaint¬ 
ances  do  the  like.  Each  man  believes  and  repeats  certain  phrases, 
because  he  thinks  that  everybody  else  on  his  own  side  believes 
them,  and  of  what  each  believes  only  a  small  part  is  his  own  origi¬ 
nal  impression,  the  far  larger  part  being  the  result  of  the  com¬ 
mingling  and  mutual  action  and  reaction  of  the  impressions  of  a 
multitude  of  individuals,  in  which  the  element  of  pure  personal 
conviction,  based  on  individual  thinking,  is  but  small. 

Everyone  is  of  course  predisposed  to  see  things  in  some  one  par¬ 
ticular  light  by  his  previous  education,  habits  of  mind,  accepted 
dogmas,  religious  or  social  affinities,  notions  of  his  own  personal 
interest.  No  event,  no  speech  or  article,  ever  falls  upon  a  per¬ 
fectly  virgin  soil  :  the  reader  or  listener  is  always  more  or  less 
biassed  already.  When  some  important  event  happens,  which 
calls  for  the  formation  of  a  view,  these  pre-existing  habits,  dog¬ 
mas,  affinities,  help  to  determine  the  impression  which  each  man 
experiences,  and  so  far  are  factors  in  the  view  he  forms.  But 
they  operate  chiefly  in  determining  the  first  impression,  and  they 
operate  over  many  minds  at  once.  They  do  not  produce  variety 
and  independence  :  they  are  soon  overlaid  by  the  influences 
which  each  man  derives  from  his  fellows,  from  his  leaders,  from 
the  press. 


254 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


Orthodox  democratic  theory  assumes  that  every  citizen  has, 
or  ought  to  have,  thought  out  for  himself  certain  opinions,  i.e. 
ought  to  have  a  definite  view,  defensible  by  arguments,  of  what 
the  country  needs,  of  what  principles  ought  to  be  applied  in 
governing  it,  of  the  men  to  whose  hands  the  government  ought 
to  be  entrusted.  There  are  persons  who  talk,  though  certainly 
very  few  who  act,  as  if  they  believed  this  theory,  which  may  be 
compared  to  the  theory  of  some  ultra-Protestants  that  every 
good  Christian  has,  or  ought  to  have,  by  the  strength  of  his  own 
reason,  worked  out  for  himself  from  the  Bible  a  system  of  the¬ 
ology.  But  one  need  only  try  the  experiment  of  talking  to  that 
representative  of  public  opinion  whom  the  Americans  call  “the 
man  in  the  cars,  ’ ’  to  realize  how  uniform  opinion  is  among  all  classes 
of  people,  how  little  there  is  in  the  ideas  of  each  individual  of  that 
individuality  which  they  would  have  if  he  had  formed  them  for 
himself,  how  little  solidity  and  substance  there  is  in  the  political 
or  social  beliefs  of  nineteen  persons  out  of  every  twenty.  These 
beliefs,  when  examined,  mostly  resolve  themselves  into  two  or 
three  prejudices  and  aversions,  two  or  three  prepossessions  for  a 
particular  leader  or  party  or  section  of  a  party,  two  or  three 
phrases  or  catchwords  suggesting  or  embodying  arguments  which 
the  man  who  repeats  them  has  not  analyzed.  It  is  not  that  these 
nineteen  persons  are  incapable  of  appreciating  good  arguments, 
or  are  unwilling  to  receive  them.  On  the  contrary,  and  this  is 
especially  true  of  the  working  classes,  an  audience  is  pleased 
when  solid  arguments  are  addressed  to  it,  and  men  read  with  most 
relish  the  articles  or  leaflets,  supposing  them  to  be  smartly  written, 
which  contain  the  most  carefully  sifted  facts  and  the  most  exact 
thought.  But  to  the  great  mass  of  mankind  in  all  places,  public 
questions  come  in  the  third  or  fourth  rank  among  the  interests 
of  life,  and  obtain  less  than  a  third  or  a  fourth  of  the  leisure 
available  for  thinking.  It  is  therefore  rather  sentiment  than 
thought  that  the  mass  can  contribute,  a  sentiment  grounded  on  a 
few  broad  considerations  and  simple  trains  of  reasoning ;  and 
the  soundness  and  elevation  of  their  sentiment  will  have  more  to 
do  with  their  taking  their  stand  on  the  side  of  justice,  honour, 
and  peace,  than  any  reasoning  they  can  apply  to  the  sifting  of 
the  multifarious  facts  thrown  before  them,  and  to  the  drawing 
of  the  legitimate  inferences  therefrom. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  this  analysis,  if  true  of  the  half- 
educated,  is  not  true  of  the  educated  classes.  It  is  less  true  of 


CHAP,  lxxvi  THE  NATURE  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


255 


that  small  class  which  in  Europe  specially  occupies  itself  with 
politics  ;  which,  whether  it  reasons  well  or  ill,  does  no  doubt 
reason.  But  it  is  substantially  no  less  applicable  to  the  com¬ 
mercial  and  professional  classes  than  to  the  working  classes  ; 
for  in  the  former,  as  well  as  in  the  latter,  one  finds  few  persons 
who  take  the  pains,  or  have  the  leisure,  or  indeed  possess  the 
knowledge,  to  enable  them  to  form  an  independent  judgment. 
The  chief  difference  between  the  so-called  upper,  or  wealthier, 
and  the  humbler  strata  of  society  is,  that  the  former  are  less 
influenced  by  sentiment  and  possibly  more  influenced  by  notions, 
often  erroneous,  of  their  own  interest.  Having  something  to 
lose,  they  imagine  dangers  to  their  property  or  their  class  ascen¬ 
dency.  Moving  in  a  more  artificial  society,  their  sympathies 
are  less  readily  excited,  and  they  more  frequently  indulge  the 
tendency  to  cynicism  natural  to  those  who  lead  a  life  full  of 
unreality  and  conventionalisms. 

The  apparent  paradox  that  where  the  humbler  classes  have 
differed  in  opinion  from  the  higher,  they  have  often  been  proved 
by  the  event  to  have  been  right  and  their  so-called  betters  wrong 
(a  fact  sufficiently  illustrated  by  the  experience  of  many  European 
countries  during  the  last  half-century x),  may  perhaps  be  explained 
by  considering  that  the  historical  and  scientific  data  on  which  the 
solution  of  a  difficult  political  problem  depends  are  really  just  as 
little  known  to  the  wealthy  as  to  the  poor.  Ordinary  education, 
even  the  sort  of  education  which  is  represented  by  a  university 
degree,  does  not  fit  a  man  to  handle  these  questions,  and  it 
sometimes  fills  him  with  a  vain  conceit  of  his  own  competence 
which  closes  his  mind  to  argument  and  to  the  accumulating 
evidence  of  facts.  Education  ought,  no  doubt,  to  enlighten  a 
man ;  but  the  educated  classes,  speaking  generally,  are  the 
property-holding  classes,  and  the  possession  of  property  does 
more  to  make  a  man  timid  than  education  does  to  make  him 
hopeful.  He  is  apt  to  underrate  the  power  as  well  as  the  worth  of 
sentiment ;  he  overvalues  the  restraints  which  existing  institu- 

1  It  may  be  said  that  this  has  been  so  because  the  movements  of  the  last 
century  have  been  mostly  movements  in  a  democratic  direction,  which  ob¬ 
tained  the  sympathy  of  the  humbler  classes  because  tending  to  break  down 
the  power  and  privilege  which  the  upper  classes  previously  enjoyed.  This 
observation,  however,  does  not  meet  all  the  cases,  among  which  may  be  men¬ 
tioned  the  attitude  of  the  English  working  classes  towards  Italy  from  1848 
onwards,  as  well  as  their  attitude  in  the  American  Civil  War  from  1861  to  1865, 
and  in  the  Eastern  Question  from  1876  onwards,  for  in  none  of  these  instances 
had  they  any  personal  interest.  I  purposely  take  cases  far  back  in  the  past. 


256 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


tions  impose  ;  he  has  a  faint  appreciation  of  the  curative  power  of 
freedom,  and  of  the  tendency  which  brings  things  right  when  men 
have  been  left  to  their  own  devices,  and  have  learnt  from  failure 
how  to  attain  success.  In  the  less-educated  man  a  certain  sim¬ 
plicity  and  openness  of  mind  go  some  way  to  compensate  for  the 
lack  of  knowledge.  He  is  more  apt  to  be  influenced  by  the  author¬ 
ity  of  leaders  ;  but  as,  at  least  in  England  and  America,  he  is 
generally  shrewd  enough  to  discern  between  a  great  man  and  a 
demagogue,  this  is  more  a  gain  than  a  loss. 

While  suggesting  these  as  explanations  of  the  paradox,  I 
admit  that  it  remains  a  paradox.  But  the  paradox  is  not  in 
the  statement,  but  in  the  facts.  Nearly  all  great  political  and 
social  causes  have  made  their  way  first  among  the  middle  or 
humbler  classes.  The  original  impulse  which  has  set  the  cause 
in  motion,  the  inspiring  ideas  that  have  drawn  men  to  it,  have 
come  from  lofty  and  piercing  minds,  and  minds  generally  belong¬ 
ing  to  the  cultivated  class.  But  the  principles  and  precepts  these 
minds  have  delivered  have  waxed  strong  because  the  common 
people  received  them  gladly,  while  the  wealthy  and  educated 
classes  have  frowned  on  or  persecuted  them.  The  most  striking 
instance  of  all  is  to  be  found  in  the  early  history  of  Christianity. 

The  analysis,  however,  which  I  have  sought  to  give  of  opin¬ 
ion  applies  only  to  the  nineteen  men  out  of  twenty,  and  not  to 
the  twentieth.  It  applies  to  what  may  be  called  passive  opinion 
—  the  opinion  of  those  who  have  no  special  interest  in  politics, 
or  concern  with  them  beyond  that  of  voting,  of  those  who  receive 
or  propagate,  but  do  not  originate,  views  on  public  matters. 
Or,  to  put  the  same  thing  in  different  words,  we  have  been  con¬ 
sidering  how  public  opinion  grows  and  spreads,  as  it  were, 
spontaneously  and  naturally.  But  opinion  does  not  merely 
grow  ;  it  is  also  made.  There  is  not  merely  the  passive  class  of 
persons ;  there  is  the  active  class,  who  occupy  themselves  pri¬ 
marily  with  public  affairs,  who  aspire  to  create  and  lead  opinion. 
The  processes  which  these  guides  follow  are  too  well  known  to 
need  description.  There  are,  however,  one  or  two  points  wrhich 
must  be  noted,  in  order  to  appreciate  the  reflex  action  of  the 
passive  upon  the  active  class. 

The  man  who  tries  to  lead  public  opinion,  be  he  statesman, 
journalist,  or  lecturer,  finds  in  himself,  when  he  has  to  form  a 
judgment  upon  any  current  event,  a  larger  measure  of  individual 
prepossession,  and  of  w-hat  may  be  called  political  theory  and 


CHAP,  lxxvi  THE  NATURE  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


257 


doctrine,  than  belongs  to  the  average  citizen.  His  view  is  there¬ 
fore  likely  to  have  more  individuality,  as  well  as  more  intel¬ 
lectual  value.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has  also  a  stronger  motive 
than  the  average  citizen  for  keeping  in  agreement  with  his 
friends  and  his  party,  because  if  he  stands  aloof  and  advocates 
a  view  of  his  own,  he  may  lose  his  influence  and  his  position. 
He  has  a  past,  and  is  prevented,  by  the  fear  of  seeming  incon¬ 
sistent,  from  departing  from  what  he  has  previously  said.  He 
has  a  future,  and  dreads  to  injure  it  by  severing  himself  ever 
so  little  from  his  party.  He  is  accordingly  driven  to  make  the 
same  sort  of  compromise  between  his  individual  tendencies  and 
the  general  tendency  which  the  average  citizen  makes.  But  he 
makes  it  more  consciously,  realizing  far  more  distinctly  the 
difference  between  what  he  would  think,  say,  and  do,  if  left  to 
himself,  and  what  he  says  and  does  as  a  politician,  who  can  be 
useful  and  prosperous  only  as  a  member  of  a  body  of  persons 
acting  together  and  professing  to  think  alike. 

Accordingly,  though  the  largest  part  of  the  work  of  forming 
opinion  is  done  by  these  men, — whom  I  do  not  call  professional 
politicians,  because  in  Europe  many  of  them  are  not  solely  occu¬ 
pied  with  politics,  while  in  America  the  name  of  professionals 
must  be  reserved  for  another  class,  —  we  must  not  forget  the 
reaction  constantly  exercised  upon  them  by  the  passive  majority. 
Sometimes  a  leading  statesman  or  journalist  takes  a  line  to 
which  he  finds  that  the  mass  of  those  who  usually  agree  with 
him  are  not  responsive.  He  perceives  that  they  will  not  follow 
him,  and  that  he  must  choose  between  isolation  and  a  modifica¬ 
tion  of  his  own  views.  A  statesman  may  sometimes  venture 
on  the  former  course,  and  in  very  rare  cases  succeed  in  impos¬ 
ing  his  own  will  and  judgment  on  his  party.  A  journalist, 
however,  is  obliged  to  hark  back  if  he  has  inadvertently  taken 
up  a  position  disagreeable  to  his  clientele,  because  the  proprietors 
of  the  paper  have  their  circulation  to  consider.  To  avoid  so 
disagreeable  a  choice,  a  statesman  or  a  journalist  is  usually  on 
the  alert  to  sound  the  general  opinion  before  he  commits  himself 
on  a  new  issue.  He  tries  to  feel  the  pulse  of  the  mass  of  aver¬ 
age  citizens  ;  and  as  the  mass,  on  the  other  hand,  look  to  him 
for  initiative,  this  is  a  delicate  process.  In  European  countries 
it  is  generally  the  view  of  the  leaders  which  prevails,  but  it 
is  modified  by  the  reception  which  the  mass  give  it ;  it  becomes 
accentuated  in  the  points  which  they  appreciate  ;  while  those 


s 


258 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


parts  of  it,  or  those  ways  of  stating  it,  which  have  failed  to  find 
popular  favour,  fall  back  into  the  shade. 

This  mutual  action  and  reaction  of  the  makers  or  leaders  of 
opinion  upon  the  mass,  and  of  the  mass  upon  them,  is  the  most 
curious  part  of  the  whole  process  by  which  opinion  is  produced. 
It  is  also  that  part  in  which  there  is  the  greatest  difference 
between  one  free  country  and  another.  In  some  countries,  the 
leaders  count  for,  say,  three-fourths  of  the  product,  and  the 
mass  for  one-fourth  only.  In  others  these  proportions  are 
reversed.  In  some  countries  the  mass  of  the  voters  are  not 
only  markedly  inferior  in  education  to  the  few  who  lead,  but 
also  diffident,  more  disposed  to  look  up  to  their  betters.  In 
others  the  difference  of  intellectual  level  between  those  who 
busy  themselves  with  politics  and  the  average  voter  is  far 
smaller.  Perhaps  the  leader  is  not  so  well  instructed  a  man  as 
in  the  countries  first  referred  to  ;  perhaps  the  average  voter  is 
better  instructed  and  more  self-confident.  Where  both  of  these 
phenomena  coincide,  so  that  the  difference  of  level  is  inconsid¬ 
erable,  public  opinion  will  evidently  be  a  different  thing  from 
what  it  is  in  countries  where,  though  the  Constitution  has  become 
democratic,  the  habits  of  the  nations  are  still  aristocratic.  This 
is  the  difference  between  America  and  the  countries  of  Western 
Europe. 


CHAPTER  LXXVII 


GOVERNMENT  BY  PUBLIC  OPINION 

We  talk  of  public  opinion  as  a  new  force  in  the  world,  con¬ 
spicuous  only  since  governments  began  to  be  popular.  States¬ 
men,  even  so  lately  as  two  generations  ago,  looked  on  it  with 
some  distrust  or  dislike.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  for  instance,  in  a 
letter  written  in  1820  speaks,  with  the  air  of  a  discoverer,  of 
“that  great  compound  of  folly,  weakness,  prejudice,  wrong  feel¬ 
ing,  right  feeling,  obstinacy,  and  newspaper  paragraphs,  which 
is  called  public  opinion/ 1 

Yet  opinion  has  really  been  the  chief  and  ultimate  power  in 
nearly  all  nations  at  nearly  all  times.  I  do  not  mean  merely  the 
opinion  of  the  class  to  which  the  rulers  belong.  Obviously 
the  small  oligarchy  of  Venice  was  influenced  by  the  opinion  of 
the  Venetian  nobility,  as  an  absolute  Czar  is  influenced  by  • 
the  opinion  of  his  court  and  his  army.  I  mean  the  opinion, 
unspoken,  unconscious,  but  not  the  less  real  and  potent,  of  the 
masses  of  the  people.  Governments  have  always  rested  and, 
special  cases  apart,  must  rest,  if  not  on  the  affection,  then  on 
the  reverence  or  awe,  if  not  on  the  active  approval,  then  on  the 
silent  acquiescence,  of  the  numerical  majority.  It  is  only  by 
rare  exception  that  a  monarch  or  an  oligarchy  has  maintained 
authority  against  the  will  of  the  people.  The  despotisms  of  the 
East,  although  they  usually  began  in  conquest,  did  not  stand  by 
military  force  but  by  popular  assent.  So  did  the  feudal  king¬ 
doms  of  mediaeval  Europe.  So  do  the  monarchies  of  the  Sultan 
(so  far,  at  least,  as  regards  his  Mussulman  subjects),  of  the  Shah, 
and  of  the  Chinese  Emperor.  The  cases  to  the  contrary  are  chiefly 
those  of  military  tyrannies,  such  as  existed  in  many  of  the  Greek 
cities  of  antiquity,  and  in  some  of  the  Italian  cities  of  the  Renais¬ 
sance,  and  such  as  exist  now  in  some  of  the  so-called  republics 
of  Central  and  South  America.  That  even  the  Roman  Empire, 

259 


260 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


that  eldest  child  of  war  and  conquest,  did  not  rest  on  force  but 
on  the  consent  and  good-will  of  its  subjects,  is  shown  by  the 
smallness  of  its  standing  armies,  nearly  the  whole  of  which  were 
employed  against  frontier  enemies,  because  there  was  rarely 
any  internal  revolt  or  disturbance  to  be  feared.  Belief  in  author¬ 
ity,  and  the  love  of  established  order,  are  among  the  strongest 
forces  in  human  nature,  and  therefore  in  politics.  The  first 
supports  governments  de  jure,  the  latter  governments  de  facto. 
They  combine  to  support  a  government  which  is  de  jure  as  well 
as  de  facto.  Where  the  subjects  are  displeased,  their  discontent 
may  appear  perhaps  in  the  epigrams  which  tempered  the  des¬ 
potism  of  Louis  NV.  in  France,  perhaps  in  the  sympathy  given 
to  bandits  like  Robin  Hood,  perhaps  in  occasional  insurrections 
like  those  of  Constantinople  under  the  Eastern  Emperors. 
Of  course,  where  there  is  no  habit  of  combining  to  resist,  dis¬ 
content  may  remain  for  some  time  without  this  third  means  of 
expressing  itself.  But,  even  when  the  occupant  of  the  throne  is 
unpopular,  the  throne  as  an  institutio  is  in  no  danger  so  long 
as  it  can  command  the  respect  of  the  multitude  and  show  itself 
equal  to  its  duties. 

In  the  earlier  or  simpler  forms  of  political  society  public 
opinion  is  passive.  It  acquiesces  in,  rather  than  supports,  the 
authority  which  exists,  whatever  its  faults,  because  it  knows  of 
*  nothing  better,  because  it  sees  no  way  to  improvement,  probably 
also  because  it  is  overawed  by  some  kind  of  religious  sanction. 
Human  nature  must  have  something  to  reverence,  and  the 
sovereign,  because  remote  and  potent  and  surrounded  by  pomp 
and  splendour,  seems  to  it  mysterious  and  half  divine.  Worse 
administrations  than  those  of  Asiatic  Turkey  and  Persia  in  the 
nineteenth  century  can  hardly  be  imagined,  yet  the  Moham¬ 
medan  population  showed  no  signs  of  disaffection.  The  subjects 
of  Darius  and  the  subjects  of  Theebaw  obeyed  as  a  matter  of 
course.  They  did  not  ask  why  they  obeyed,  for  the  habit  of 
obedience  was  sufficient.  They  could,  however,  if  disaffected, 
have  at  any  moment  overturned  the  throne,  which  had  only,  in 
both  cases,  an  insignificant  force  of  guards  to  protect  it.  During 
long  ages  the  human  mind  did  not  ask  itself  —  in  many  parts 
of  the  world  does  not  even  now  ask  itself  —  questions  which 
seem  to  us  the  most  obvious.  Custom,  as  Pindar  said,  is  king 
over  all  mortals  and  immortals,  and  custom  prescribed  obedience. 
When  in  any  society  opinion  becomes  self-conscious,  when  it 


chap,  lxxvii  GOVERNMENT  BY  PUBLIC  OPINION 


261 


begins  to  realize  its  force  and  question  the  rights  of  its  rulers, 
that  society  is  already  progressing,  and  soon  finds  means  of 
organizing  resistance  and  compelling  reform. 

The  difference,  therefore,  between  despotically  governed  and 
free  countries  does  not  consist  in  the  fact  that  the  latter  are 
ruled  by  opinion  and  the  former  by  force,  for  both  are  generally 
ruled  by  opinion.  It  consists  rather  in  this,  that  in  the  former 
the  people  instinctively  obey  a  power  which  they  do  not  know  to 
be  really  of  their  own  creation,  and  to  stand  by  their  own  per¬ 
mission  ;  whereas  in  the  latter  the  people  feel  their  supremacy, 
and  consciously  treat  their  rulers  as  their  agents,  while  the  rulers 
obey  a  power  which  they  admit  to  have  made  and  to  be  able 
to  unmake  them,  —  the  popular  will.  In  both  cases  force  is 
seldom  necessary,  or  is  needed  only  against  small  groups,  because 
the  habit  of  obedience  replaces  it.  Conflicts  and  revolutions 
belong  to  the  intermediate  stage,  when  the  people  are  awakening 
to  the  sense  that  they  are  truly  the  supreme  power  in  the  State, 
but  when  the  rulers  have  not  yet  become  aware  that  their  author¬ 
ity  is  merely  delegated.  When  superstition  and  the  habit  of 
submission  have  vanished  from  the  whilom  subjects,  when  the 
rulers,  recognizing  that  they  are  no  more  than  agents  for  the 
citizens,  have  in  turn  formed  the  habit  of  obedience,  public 
opinion  has  become  the  active  and  controlling  director  of  a 
business  in  which  it  was  before  the  sleeping  and  generally  for¬ 
gotten  partner.  But  even  when  this  stage  has  been  reached, 
as  has  now  happened  in  most  civilized  States,  there  are  dif¬ 
ferences  in  the  degree  and  mode  in  and  by  which  public  opinion 
asserts  itself.  In  some  countries  the  habit  of  obeying  rulers 
and  officials  is  so  strong  that  the  people,  once  they  have  chosen 
the  legislature  or  executive  head  by  whom  the  officials  are  ap¬ 
pointed,  allow  these  officials  almost  as  wide  a  range  of  authority 
as  in  the  old  days  of  despotism.  Such  people  have  a  profound 
respect  for  government  as  government,  and  a  reluctance,  due 
either  to  theory  or  to  mere  laziness,  perhaps  to  both,  to  interfere 
with  its  action.  They  say,  “That  is  a  matter  for  the  Adminis¬ 
tration  ;  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  it  ”  ;  and  stand  as  much  aside 
or  submit  as  humbly  as  if  the  government  did  not  spring  from 
their  own  will.  Perhaps  they  practically  leave  themselves,  as 
did  the  Germans  of  Bismarck’s  day,  in  the  hands  of  a  venerated 
monarch  or  a  forceful  minister,  giving  these  rulers  a  free  hand 
so  long  as  their  policy  moves  in  accord  with  the  sentiment  of  the 


262 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


nation,  and  maintains  its  glory.  Perhaps  while  frequently 
changing  their  ministries,  they  nevertheless  yield  to  each  ministry 
and  to  its  executive  subordinates  all  over  the  country,  an  author¬ 
ity  great  while  it  lasts,  and  largely  controlling  the  action  of  the 
individual  citizen.  This  seems  to  be  still  true  of  France.  There 
are  other  countries  in  which,  though  the  sphere  of  government 
is  strictly  limited  by  law,  and  the  private  citizen  is  little  inclined 
to  bow  before  an  official,  the  habit  has  been  to  check  the  ministry 
chiefly  through  the  legislature,  and  to  review  the  conduct  of 
both  ministry  and  legislature  only  at  long  intervals,  when  an 
election  of  the  legislature  takes  place.  This  has  been,  and  to 
some  extent  is  still,  the  case  in  Britain.  Although  the  people 
rule,  they  rule  not  directly,  but  through  the  House  of  Commons, 
which  they  choose  only  once  in  four,  five,  or  six  years,  and 
which  may,  at  any  given  moment,  represent  rather  the  past 
than  the  present  will  of  the  nation. 

I  make  these  observations  for  the  sake  of  indicating  another 
form  which  the  rule  of  the  people  may  assume.  We  have 
distinguished  three  stages  in  the  evolution  of  opinion  from  its 
unconscious  and  passive  into  its  conscious  and  active  condi¬ 
tion.  In  the  first  it  acquiesces  in  the  will  of  the  ruler  whom  it 
has  been  accustomed  to  obey.  In  the  second  conflicts  arise 
between  the  ruling  person  or  class,  backed  by  those  who  are 
still  disposed  to  obedience,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  more 
independent  or  progressive  spirits  on  the  other ;  and  these 
conflicts  are  decided  by  arms.  In  the  third  stage  the  whilom 
ruler  has  submitted,  and  disputes  are  referred  to  the  sovereign 
multitude,  whose  will  is  expressed  at  certain  intervals  upon 
slips  of  paper  deposited  in  boxes,  and  is  carried  out  by  the  min¬ 
ister  or  legislature  to  whom  the  popular  mandate  is  entrusted. 
A  fourth  stage  would  be  reached,  if  the  will  of  the  majority  of 
the  citizens  were  to  become  ascertainable  at  all  times,  and 
without  the  need  of  its  passing  through  a  body  of  representa¬ 
tives,  possibly  even  without  the  need  of  voting  machinery  at 
all.  In  such  a  state  of  things  the  sway  of  public  opinion  would 
have  become  more  complete,  because  more  continuous,  than  it 
is  in  those  European  countries  which,  like  France,  Italy,  and 
Britain,  look  chiefly  to  parliaments  as  exponents  of  national 
sentiment.  The  authority  would  seem  to  remain  all  the  while 
in  the  mass  of  the  citizens.  Popular  government  would  have 
been  pushed  so  far  as  almost  to  dispense  with,  or  at  any  rate 


chap,  lxxyii  GOVERNMENT  BY  PUBLIC  OPINION 


263 


to  anticipate,  the  legal  modes  in  which  the  majority  speaks  its 
will  at  the  polling  booths ;  and  this  informal  but  direct  control 
of  the  multitude  would  dwarf,  if  it  did  not  supersede,  the  im¬ 
portance  of  those  formal  but  occasional  deliverances  made  at  the 
elections  of  representatives.  To  such  a  condition  of  things  the 
phrase,  “Rule  of  public  opinion,”  might  be  most  properly 
applied,  for  public  opinion  would  not  only  reign  but  govern. 

The  mechanical  difficulties,  as  one  may  call  them,  of  working 
such  a  method  of  government  are  obvious.  How  is  the  will  of 
the  majority  to  be  ascertained  except  by  counting  votes?  how, 
without  the  greatest  inconvenience,  can  votes  be  frequently 
taken  on  all  the  chief  questions  that  arise  ?  No  large  country 
has  yet  surmounted  these  inconveniences,  though  little  Switzer¬ 
land  with  her  Referendum  and  Initiative  has  faced  and  partially 
dealt  with  some  of  them,  and  some  of  the  American  States  are 
treading  in  the  same  path.  But  what  I  desire  to  point  out  is 
that  even  where  the  machinery  for  weighing  or  measuring  the 
popular  will  from  week  to  week  or  month  to  month  has  not 
been,  and  is  not  likely  to  be,  invented,  there  may  nevertheless 
be  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  rulers,  whether  ministers  or 
legislators,  to  act  as  if  it  existed ;  that  is  to  say,  to  look  inces¬ 
santly  for  manifestations  of  current  popular  opinion,  and  to 
shape  their  course  in  accordance  with  their  reading  of  those 
manifestations.  Such  a  disposition  will  be  accompanied  by  a 
constant  oversight  of  public  affairs  by  the  mass  of  the  citizens, 
and  by  a  sense  on  their  part  that  they  are  the  true  governors, 
and  that  their  agents,  executive  and  legislative,  are  rather  serv¬ 
ants  than  agents.  Where  this  is  the  attitude  of  the  people  on 
the  one  hand  and  of  the  persons  who  do  the  actual  work  of  gov¬ 
erning  on  the  other,  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  there  exists  a  kind 
of  government  materially,  if  not  formally,  different  from  the 
representative  system  as  it  presented  itself  to  European  thinkers 
and  statesmen  of  the  last  generation.  And  it  is  to  this  kind  of 
government  that  democratic  nations  seem  to  be  tending. 

The  state  of  things  here  noted  will  find  illustration  in  what  I 
have  to  say  in  the  following  chapters  regarding  opinion  in  the 
United  States.  Meanwhile  a  few  remarks  may  be  hazarded  on 
the  rule  of  public  opinion  in  general. 

The  excellence  of  popular  government  lies  not  so  much  in  its 
wisdom  —  for  it  is  as  apt  to  err  as  other  kinds  of  government 
—  as  in  its  strength.  It  has  been  compared,  ever  since  Sir 


264 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


William  Temple,  to  a  pyramid,  the  firmest  based  of  all  buildings. 
Nobody  can  be  blamed  for  obeying  it.  There  is  no  appeal  from 
its  decisions.  Once  the  principle  that  the  will  of  the  majority 
honestly  ascertained  must  prevail,  has  soaked  into  the  mind  and 
formed  the  habits  of  a  nation,  that  nation  acquires  not  only 
stability,  but  immense  effective  force.  It  has  no  need  to  fear 
discussion  and  agitation.  It  can  bend  all  its  resources  to  the 
accomplishment  of  its  collective  ends.  The  friction  that  exists 
in  countries  where  the  laws  or  institutions  handed  down  from 
former  generations  are  incompatible  with  the  feelings  and 
wishes  of  the  people  has  disappeared.  A  key  has  been  found 
that  will  unlock  every  door. 

On  the  other  hand,  such  a  government  is  exposed  to  two 
dangers.  One,  the  smaller  one,  yet  sometimes  troublesome,  is 
the  difficulty  of  ascertaining  the  will  of  the  majority.  I  do  not 
mean  the  difficulty  of  getting  all  citizens  to  vote,  because  it 
must  be  taken  that  those  who  do  not  vote  leave  their  will  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  do,  but  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  by 
any  machinery  yet  devised  a  quite  honest  record  of  the  results 
of  voting.  Where  the  issues  are  weighty,  involving  immense 
interests  of  individual  mem  or  groups  of  men,  the  danger  of 
bribery,  of  force,  and  still  more  of  fraud  in  taking  and  counting 
votes,  is  a  serious  one.  When  there  is  reason  to  think  that 
ballots  have  been  tampered  with,  the  value  of  the  system  is 
gone  ;  and  men  are  remitted  to  the  old  methods  of  settling  their 
differences. 

The  other  danger  is  that  minorities  may  not  sufficiently  assert 
themselves.  Where  a  majority  has  erred,  the  only  remedy 
against  the  prolongation  or  repetition  of  its  error  is  in  the  con¬ 
tinued  protests  and  agitation  of  the  minority,  an  agitation  which 
ought  to  be  conducted  peaceably,  by  voice  and  pen,  but  which 
must  be  vehement  enough  to  rouse  the  people  and  deliver  them 
from  the  consequences  of  their  blunders.  But  the  more  com¬ 
plete  the  sway  of  majorities  is,  so  much  the  less  disposed  is  a 
minority  to  maintain  the  contest.  It  loses  faith  in  its  cause  and 
in  itself,  and  allows  its  voice  to  be  silenced  by  the  triumphant 
cries  of  its  opponents.  How  are  men  to  acquiesce  promptly 
and  loyally  in  the  decision  of  a  majority,  and  yet  to  go  on 
arguing  against  it  ?  how  can  they  be  at  once  submissive  and 
aggressive  ?  That  conceit  of  his  own  goodness  and  greatness 
which  intoxicates  an  absolute  monarch  besets  a  sovereign 


chap,  lxxvii  GOVERNMENT  BY  PUBLIC  OPINION 


265 


people  also,  and  the  slavishness  with  which  his  ministers  ap¬ 
proach  an  Oriental  despot  may  reappear  in  the  politicians  of  a 
Western  democracy.  The  duty,  therefore,  of  a  patriotic  states¬ 
man  in  a  country  where  public  opinion  rules,  would  seem  to  be 
rather  to  resist  and  correct  than  to  encourage  the  dominant 
sentiment.  He  will  not  be  content  with  trying  to  form  and 
mould  and  lead  it,  but  he  will  confront  it,  lecture  it,  remind  it 
that  it  is  fallible,  rouse  it  out  of  its  self-complacency.  Unfor¬ 
tunately,  courage  and  independence  are  plants  which  a  soil 
impregnated  with  the  belief  in  the  wisdom  of  numbers  does  not 
tend  to  produce  :  nor  is  there  any  art  known  to  statesmen 
whereby  their  growth  can  be  fostered. 

Experience  has,  however,  suggested  plans  for  lessening  the 
risks  incident  to  the  dominance  of  one  particular  set  of  opin¬ 
ions.  One  plan  is  for  the  people  themselves  to  limit  their 
powers,  i.e.  to  surround  their  own  action  and  the  action  of 
their  agents  with  restrictions  of  time  and  method  which  com¬ 
pel  delay.  Another  is  for  them  so  to  parcel  out  functions  among 
many  agents  that  no  single  one  chosen  indiscreetly,  or  obeying 
his  mandate  overzealously,  can  do  much  mischief,  and  that  out 
of  the  multiplicity  of  agents  differences  of  view  may  spring 
which  will  catch  the  attention  of  the  citizens. 

The  temper  and  character  of  a  people  may  supply  more 
valuable  safeguards.  The  country  which  has  worked  out  for 
itself  a  truly  free  government  must  have  done  so  in  virtue  of 
the  vigorous  individuality  of  its  children.  Such  an  individu¬ 
ality  does  not  soon  yield  even  to  the  pressure  of  democratic 
conditions.  In  a  nation  with  a  keen  moral  sense  and  a  capac¬ 
ity  for  strong  emotions,  opinion  based  on  a  love  of  what  is 
deemed  just  or  good  will  resist  the  multitude  when  bent  on 
evil :  and  if  there  be  a  great  variety  of  social  conditions,  of 
modes  of  life,  of  religious  beliefs,  these  will  prove  centres  of 
resistance  to  a  dominant  tendency,  like  rocks  standing  up  in  a 
river,  at  which  he  whom  the  current  sweeps  downwards  may 
clutch.  Instances  might  be  cited  even  from  countries  where 
the  majority  has  had  every  source  of  strength  at  its  command 
—  physical  force,  tradition,  the  all  but  universal  persuasions 
and  prejudices  of  the  lower  as  well  as  of  the  higher  classes  —  in 
which  small  minorities  have  triumphed,  first  by  startling  and 
then  by  leavening  and  convincing  the  majority.  This  they 
have  done  in  virtue  of  that  intensity  of  belief  which  is  oftenest 


266 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


found  in  a  small  sect  or  group,  not  because  it  is  small,  but 
because  if  its  belief  were  not  intense  it  would  not  venture  to 
hold  out  at  all  against  the  adverse  mass.  The  energy  of  each 
individual  in  the  minority  makes  it  in  the  long  run  a  match 
for  a  majority  huger  but  less  instinct  with  vitality.  In  a  free 
country  more  especially,  ten  men  who  care  are  a  match  for  a 
hundred  who  do  not. 

Such  natural  compensations  as  this  occur  in  the  physical  as 
well  as  in  the  spiritual  and  moral  world,  and  preserve  both. 
But  they  are  compensations  on  which  the  practical  statesman 
cannot  safely  rely,  for  they  are  partial,  they  are  uncertain,  and 
they  probably  tend  to  diminish  with  the  progress  of  democracy. 
The  longer  public  opinion  has  ruled,  the  more  absolute  is  the 
authority  of  the  majority  likely  to  become,  the  less  likely  are 
energetic  minorities  to  arise,  the  more  are  politicians  likely  to 
occupy  themselves,  not  in  forming  opinion,  but  in  discovering 
and  hastening  to  obey  it. 


CHAPTER  LXXVIII 


HOW  PUBLIC  OPINION  RULES  IN  AMERICA 

It  was  observed  in  last  chapter  that  the  phrase  “  govern¬ 
ment  by  public  opinion”  is  most  specifically  applicable  to  a 
system  wherein  the  will  of  the  people  acts  directly  and  con¬ 
stantly  upon  its  executive  and  legislative  agents.  A  govern¬ 
ment  may  be  both  free  and  good  without  being  subject  to 
this  continuous  and  immediate  control.  Still  this  is  the  goal 
towards  which  the  extension  of  the  suffrage,  the  more  rapid 
diffusion  of  news,  and  the  practice  of  self-government  itself 
necessarily  lead  free  nations ;  and  it  may  even  be  said  that  one 
of  their  chief  problems  is  to  devise  means  whereby  the  national 
will  shall  be  most  fully  expressed,  most  quickly  known,  most 
unresistingly  and  cheerfully  obeyed.  Delays  and  jerks  are 
avoided,  friction  and  consequent  waste  of  force  are  prevented, 
when  the  nation  itself  watches  all  the  play  of  the  machinery 
and  guides  its  workman  by  a  glance.  Towards  this  goal  the 
Americans  have  marched  with  steady  steps,  unconsciously  as 
well  as  consciously.  No  other  people  now  stands  so  near  it. 

Of  all  the  experiments  which  America  has  made,  this  is  that 
which  best  deserves  study,  for  her  solution  of  the  problem 
differs  from  all  previous  solutions,  and  she  has  shown  more 
boldness  in  trusting  public  opinion,  in  recognizing  and  giving 
effect  to  it,  than  has  yet  been  shown  elsewhere.  Towering  over 
Presidents  and  State  governors,  over  Congress  and  State  legis¬ 
latures,  over  conventions  and  the  vast  machinery  of  party, 
public  opinion  stands  out,  in  the  United  States,  as  the  great 
source  of  power,  the  master  of  servants  who  tremble  before  it. 

For  the  sake  of  making  clear  what  follows,  I  will  venture  to 
recapitulate  what  was  said  in  an  earlier  chapter  as  to  the  three 
forms  which  government  has  taken  in  free  countries.  First 
came  primary  assemblies,  such  as  those  of  the  Greek  republics 
of  antiquity,  or  those  of  the  early  Teutonic  tribes,  which  have 
survived  in  a  few  Swiss  cantons.  The  whole  people  met,  de- 

267 


268 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


bated  current  questions,  decided  them  by  its  votes,  chose  those 
who  were  to  carry  out  its  will.  Such  a  system  of  direct  popu¬ 
lar  government  is  possible  only  in  small  communities,  and  in 
this  day  of  large  States  has  become  a  matter  rather  of  anti¬ 
quarian  curiosity  than  of  practical  moment. 

In  the  second  form,  power  belongs  to  representative  bodies, 
Parliaments  and  Chambers.  The  people  in  their  various  local 
areas  elect  men,  supposed  to  be  their  wisest  or  most  influential, 
to  deliberate  for  them,  resolve  for  them,  choose  their  executive 
servants  for  them.  They  give  these  representatives  a  tolerably 
free  hand,  leaving  them  in  power  for  a  considerable  space  of 
time,  and  allowing  them  to  act  unchecked,  except  in  so  far  as 
custom,  or  possibly  some  fundamental  law,  limits  their  discre¬ 
tion.  This  is  done  in  the  faith  that  the  Chamber  will  feel  its 
responsibility  and  act  for  the  best  interests  of  the  country, 
carrying  out  what  it  believes  to  be  the  wishes  of  the  majority, 
unless  it  should  be  convinced  that  in  some  particular  point  it 
knows  better  than  the  maj  ority  what  the  interests  of  the  country 
require.  Such  a  system  has  long  prevailed  in  England,  and 
the  English  model  has  been  widely  imitated  on  the  continent 
of  Europe  and  in  the  British  colonies. 

The  third  is  something  between  the  other  two.  It  may  be 
regarded  either  as  an  attempt  to  apply  the  principle  of  primary 
assemblies  to  large  countries,  or  as  a  modification  of  the  repre¬ 
sentative  system  in  the  direction  of  direct  popular  sovereignty. 
There  is  still  a  legislature,  but  it  is  elected  for  so  short  a  time 
and  checked  in  so  many  ways  that  much  of  its  power  and 
x  dignity  has  departed.  Ultimate  authority  is  not  with  it,  but 
with  the  people,  who  have  fixed  limits  beyond  which  it  cannot 
go,  and  who  use  it  merely  as  a  piece  of  machinery  for  carrying 
out  their  wishes  and  settling  points  of  detail  for  them.  The 
supremacy  of  their  will  is  expressed  in  the  existence  of  a  Con¬ 
stitution  placed  above  the  legislature,  although  capable  of 
alteration  by  a  direct  popular  vote.  The  position  of  the  repre¬ 
sentatives  has  been  altered.  They  are  conceived  of,  not  as 
wise  and  strong  men  chosen  to  govern,  but  as  delegates  under 
specific  orders  to  be  renewed  at  short  intervals. 

This  is  the  form  established  in  the  United  States.  Congress 
sits  for  two  years  only.  It  is  strictly  limited  by  the  Consti¬ 
tution,  and  by  the  coexistence  of  the  State  governments,  which 
the  Constitution  protects.  It  has  (except  by  way  of  impeach- 


CHAP,  lxxviii  PUBLIC  OPINION  RULES  IN  AMERICA  269 


ment)  no  control  over  the  Federal  executive,  which  is  directly 
named  by  and  responsible  to  the  people.  So,  too,  the  State 
legislatures  sit  for  short  periods,  do  not  appoint  the  State 
executives,  are  hedged  in  by  the  prohibitions  of  the  State  con¬ 
stitutions.  The  people  frequently  legislate  directly  by  enacting 
or  altering  a  constitution.  The  principle  of  popular  sover¬ 
eignty  could  hardly  be  expressed  more  unmistakably.  Allow¬ 
ing  for  the  differences  to  which  the  vast  size  of  the  country 
gives  rise,  the  mass  of  the  citizens  may  be  deemed  as  directly 
the  supreme  power  as  the  Assembly  was  at  Athens  or  Syra¬ 
cuse.1  The  'only  check  on  the  mass  is  that  which  they  have 
themselves  imposed,  and  which  the  ancient  democracies  did 
not  possess,  the  difficulty  of  changing  a  rigid  constitution. 
And  this  difficulty  is  serious  only  as  regards  the  Federal  Con¬ 
stitution. 

As  this  is  the  most  developed  form  of  popular  government, 
so  is  it  also  the  form  which  most  naturally  produces  what  I 
have  called  Government  by  Public  Opinion.  Popular  govern¬ 
ment  may  be  said  to  exist  wherever  all  power  is  lodged  in  and 
issues  from  the  people.  Government  by  public  opinion  exists 
where  the  wishes  and  views  of  the  people  prevail,  even  before 
they  have  been  conveyed  through  the  regular  law-appointed 
organs,  and  without  the  need  of  their  being  so  conveyed.  As 
in  a  limited  monarchy  the  king,  however  powerful,  must  act 
through  certain  officers  and  in  a  defined  legal  way,  whereas  in 
a  despotism  he  may  act  just  as  he  pleases,  and  his  initial  written 
on  a  scrap  of  paper  is  as  sure  of  obedience  as  his  full  name 
signed  to  a  parchment  authenticated  by  the  Great  Seal  or  the 
counter-signature  of  a  minister,  so  where  the  power  of  the  people 
is  absolute,  legislators  and  administrators  are  quick  to  catch  its 
wishes  in  whatever  way  they  may  be  indicated,  and  do  not  care 
to  wait  for  the  methods  which  the  law  prescribes.  This  happens 
in  America.  Opinion  rules  more  fully,  more  directly,  than  under 
the  second  of  the  systems  described  above. 

A  consideration  of  the  nature  of  the  State  governments,  as 
of  the  National  government,  will  show  that  legal  theory  as  well 
as  popular  self-confidence  gives  birth  to  this  rule  of  opinion. 
Supreme  power  resides  in  the  whole  mass  of  citizens.  They 

1  Rome  is  a  somewhat  peculiar  case,  because  she  left  far  more  power  to  her 
non-representative  Senate  and  to  her  magistrates  than  the  Greek  democracies 
did  to  their  councils  or  officials.  See  Chapter  XXV.  in  Vol.  I. 


270 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


have  prescribed,  in  the  strict  terms  of  a  legal  document,  the 
form  of  government.  They  alone  have  the  right  to  change  it, 
and  that  only  in  a  particular  way.  They  have  committed  only 
a  part  of  their  sovereignty  to  their  executive  and  legislative 
agents,  reserving  the  rest  to  themselves.  Hence  their  will,  or, 
in  other  words,  public  opinion,  is  constantly  felt  by  these  agents 
to  be,  legally  as  well  as  practically,  the  controlling  authority. 
In  England,  Parliament  is  the  nation,  not  merely  by  a  legal 
fiction,  but  because  the  nation  looks  to  Parliament  only,  having 
neither  reserved  any  authority  to  itself  nor  bestowed  any  else¬ 
where.  In  America,  Congress  is  not  the  nation,  and  does  not 
claim  to  be  so. 

The  ordinary  functions  and  business  of  government,  the 
making  of  laws,  the  imposing  of  taxes,  the  interpretation  of 
laws  and  their  execution,  the  administration  of  justice,  the 
conduct  of  foreign  relations,  are  parcelled  out  among  a  number 
of  bodies  and  persons  whose  powers  are  so  carefully  balanced 
and  touch  at  so  many  points  that  there  is  a  constant  risk  of 
conflicts,  even  of  deadlocks.  Some  of  the  difficulties  thence 
arising  are  dealt  with  by  the  Courts,  as  questions  of  the  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  Constitution.  But  in  many  cases  the  interven¬ 
tion  of  the  courts,  which  can  act  only  in  a  suit  between  parties, 
comes  too  late  to  deal  with  the  matter,  which  may  be  an  urgent 
one  ;  and  in  some  cases  there  is  nothing  for  the  courts  to  decide, 
because  each  of  the  conflicting  powers  is  within  its  legal  right. 
The  Senate,  for  instance,  may  refuse  the  measures  which  the 
House  thinks  necessary.  The  President  may  veto  bills  passed 
by  both  Houses,  and  there  may  not  be  a  two-thircls  majority  to 
pass  them  over  his  veto.  Congress  may  urge  the  President  to 
take  a  certain  course,  and  the  President  may  refuse.  The 
President  may  propose  a  treaty  to  the  Senate,  and  the  Senate 
may  reject  it.  In  such  cases  there  is  a  stoppage  of  govern¬ 
mental  action  which  may  involve  loss  to  the  country.  The 
master,  however,  is  at  hand  to  settle  the  quarrels  of  his  ser¬ 
vants.  If  the  question  be  a  grave  one,  and  the  mind  of  the 
country  clear  upon  it,  public  opinion  throws  its  weight  into  one 
or  other  scale,  and  its  weight  is  decisive.  Should  opinion  be 
nearly  balanced,  it  is  no  doubt  difficult  to  ascertain,  till  the  next 
election  arrives,  which  of  many  discordant  cries  is  really  the 
prevailing  voice.  This  difficulty  must,  in  a  large  country, 
where  frequent  plebiscites  are  impossible,  be  endured  ;  and  it 


CHAP,  lxxviii  PUBLIC  OPINION  RULES  IN  AMERICA  271 


may  be  well,  when  the  preponderance  of  opinion  is  not  great, 
that  serious  decisions  should  not  be  quickly  taken.  The  gen¬ 
eral  truth  remains  that  a  system  of  government  by  checks  and 
balances  specially  needs  the  presence  of  an  arbiter  to  incline 
the  scale  in  favour  of  one  or  other  of  the  balanced  authorities, 
and  that  public  opinion  must  therefore  be  more  frequently 
invoked  and  more  constantly  active  in  America  than  in  other 
countries. 

Those  who  invented  this  machinery  of  checks  and  balances 
were  anxious  not  so  much  to  develop  public  opinion  as  to  resist 
and  build  up  breakwaters  against  it.  No  men  were  less  revo¬ 
lutionary  in  spirit  than  the  founders  of  the  American  Consti¬ 
tution.  They  had  made  a  revolution  in  the  name  of  Magna 
Charta  and  the  Bill  of  Rights  :  they  were  penetrated  by  a  sense 
of  the  dangers  incident  to  democracy.  They  conceived  of  pop¬ 
ular  opinion  as  aggressive,  unreasoning,  passionate,  futile,  and 
a  breeder  of  mob  violence.  We  shall  presently  inquire  whether 
this  conception  has  been  verified.  Meantime  be  it  noted  that 
the  efforts  made  in  1787  to  divide  authority  and,  so  to  speak, 
force  the  current  of  the  popular  will  into  many  small  channels 
instead  of  permitting  it  to  rush  down  one  broad  bed,  have 
really  tended  to  exalt  public  opinion  above  the  regular  legally 
appointed  organs  of  government.  Each  of  these  organs  is  too 
small  to  form  opinion,  too  narrow  to  express  it,  too  weak  to 
give  effect  to  it.  It  grows  up  not  in  Congress,  not  in  State 
legislatures,  not  in  those  great  conventions  which  frame  plat¬ 
forms  and  choose  candidates,  but  at  large  among  the  people. 
It  is  expressed  in  voices  everywhere.  It  rules  as  a  pervading 
and  impalpable  power,  like  the  ether  which  passes  through  all 
things.  It  binds  all  the  parts  of  the  complicated  system  to¬ 
gether,  and  gives  them  whatever  unity  of  aim  and  action  they 
possess. 

There  is  also  another  reason  why  the  opinion  of  the  whole 
nation  is  a  more  important  factor  in  the  government  of  the 
United  States  than  anywhere  in  Europe.  In  Europe  there  has 
always  been  a  governing  class,  a  set  of  persons  whom  birth,  or 
wealth,  or  education  has  raised  above  their  fellows,  and  to 
whom  has  been  left  the  making  of  public  opinion  together  with 
the  conduct  of  administration  and  the  occupancy  of  places  in 
the  legislature.  The  public  opinion  of  Germany,  Italy,  France, 
and  England  has  been  substantially  the  opinion  of  the  class 


272 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


which  wears  black  coats  and  lives  in  good  houses,  though  in 
the  two  latter  countries  it  has  of  late  years  been  increasingly 
affected  by  the  opinion  of  the  classes  socially  lower.  Although 
the  members  of  the  British  Parliament  now  obey  the  mass  of 
their  constituents  when  the  latter  express  a  distinct  wish,  still 
the  influence  which  plays  most  steadily  on  them  and  permeates 
them  is  the  opinion  of  a  class  or  classes,  and  not  of  the  whole 
nation.  The  class  to  which  the  great  majority  of  members  of 
both  Houses  belong  (i.e.  the  landowners  and  the  persons  occu¬ 
pied  in  professions  and  in  the  higher  walks  of  commerce)  is 
the  class  which  chiefly  forms  and  expresses  what  is  called  pub¬ 
lic  opinion.  Even  in  these  days  of  vigilant  and  exacting  con¬ 
stituencies  one  sees  many  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  the 
democratic  robustness  or  provincial  crudity  of  whose  ideas  melts 
like  wax  under  the  influence  of  fashionable  dinner-parties  and 
club  smoking-rooms.  Until  a  number  of  members  entered  the 
House  who  claimed  to  be  the  authorized  representatives  of  the 
views  of  working  men,  the  complaint  used  to  be  heard  that 
it  was  hard  to  “keep  touch”  with  the  opinion  of  the  masses. 

In  the  United  States  public  opinion  is  the  opinion  of  the 
whole  nation,  with  little  distinction  of  social  classes.  The 
politicians,  including  the  members  of  Congress  and  of  State 
legislatures,  are,  perhaps  not  (as  Americans  sometimes  insinu¬ 
ate)  below,  yet  certainly  little  above  the  average  level  of  their 
constituents.  They  find  no  difficulty  in  keeping  touch  with 
outside  opinion.  Washington  or  Albany  may  corrupt  them, 
but  not  in  the  way  of  modifying  their  political  ideas.  They 
do  not  aspire  to  the  function  of  forming  opinion.  They  are 
like  the  Eastern  slave  who  says  “I  hear  and  obey.”  Nor  is 
there  any  one  class  or  set  of  men,  or  any  one  “social  layer,” 
which  more  than  another  originates  ideas  and  builds  up  politi¬ 
cal  doctrine  for  the  mass.  The  opinion  of  the  nation  is  the 
resultant  of  the  views,  not  of  a  number  of  classes,  but  of  a 
multitude  of  individuals,  diverse,  no  doubt,  from  one  another, 
but,  for  the  purposes  of  politics  far  less  diverse  than  if  they 
were  members  of  groups  defined  by  social  rank  or  by  property. 

The  consequences  are  noteworthy.  Statesmen  cannot,  as  in 
Europe,  declare  any  sentiment  which  they  find  telling  on  their 
friends  or  their  antagonists  to  be  confined  to  the  rich,  or  to 
the  governing  class,  and  to  be  opposed  to  the  general  sentiment 
of  the  people.  In  America  you  cannot  appeal  from  the  classes 


CHAP,  lxxviii  PUBLIC  OPINION  RULES  IN  AMERICA  273 


to  the  masses.  What  the  employer  thinks,  his  workmen  think.1 
What  the  wholesale  merchant  feels,  the  retail  storekeeper  feels, 
and  the  poorer  customers  feel.  Divisions  of  opinion  are  verti¬ 
cal  and  not  horizontal.  Obviously  this  makes  opinion  more 
easily  ascertained,  while  increasing  its  force  as  a  governing 
power,  and  gives  to  the  whole  people,  without  distinction  of 
classes,  a  clearer  and  fuller  consciousness  of  being  the  rulers 
of  their  country,  than  European  peoples  have.  Every  man 
knows  that  he  is  himself  a  part  of  the  government,  bound  by 
duty  as  well  as  by  self-interest  to  devote  part  of  his  time  and 
thoughts  to  it.  He  may  neglect  his  duty,  but  he  admits  it  to 
be  a  duty.  So  the  system  of  party  organizations  already 
described  is  built  upon  this  theory ;  and  as  this  system  is  more 
recent,  and  is  the  work  of  practical  politicians,  it  is  even  better 
evidence  of  the  general  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  than  are  the 
provisions  of  Constitutions.  Compare  European  countries,  or 
compare  the  other  States  of  the  New  World.  In  the  so-called 
republics  of  Central  and  South  America  a  small  section  of  the 
inhabitants  pursue  politics,  while  the  rest  follow  their  ordinary 
avocations,  indifferent  to  elections  and  pronunciamentos  and 
revolutions.  In  Germany,  and  in  the  German  and  Slavonic 
parts  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy,  people  think  of  the 
government  as  a  great  machine  which  will  go  on,  whether  they 
put  their  hand  to  it  or  not,  a  few  persons  working  it,  and  all  the 
rest  paying  and  looking  on.  The  same  thing  is  largely  true  of 
republican  France,  and  of  semi-republican  Italy,  where  free 
government  is  still  a  novelty,  and  local  self-government  in  its 
infancy.  Even  in  England,  though  the  sixty  years  that  have 
passed  since  the  great  Reform  Act  have  brought  many  new 
ideas  with  them,  the  ordinary  voter  is  still  far  from  feeling, 
as  the  American  does,  that  the  government  is  his  own,  and  he 
individually  responsible  for  its  conduct. 

1  Of  course  I  do  not  include  questions  specially  relating  to  labour,  in  which 
there  may  be  a  direct  conflict  of  interests.  Nor  is  it  to  be  denied  that  the 
wealthiest  men,  especially  financiers,  have  become  more  of  a  class,  holding 
views  of  their  own  on  questions  affecting  capital,  than  they  were  some  decades 

ago. 


¥ 


CHAPTER  LXXIX 


ORGANS  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 

How  does  this  vague,  fluctuating,  complex  thing  we  call 
public  opinion  —  omnipotent  yet  indeterminate,  a  sovereign  to 
whose  voice  every  one  listens,  yet  whose  words,  because  he 
speaks  with  as  many  tongues  as  the  waves  of  a  boisterous  sea, 
it  is  so  hard  to  catch  —  how  does  public  opinion  express  itself 
in  America?  By  what  organs  is  it  declared,  and  how,  since 
these  organs  often  contradict  one  another,  can  it  be  discovered 
which  of  them  speak  most  truly  for  the  mass  ?  The  more  com¬ 
pletely  popular  sovereignty  prevails  in  a  country,  so  much  the 
more  important  is  it  that  the  organs  of  opinion  should  be  ade¬ 
quate  to  its  expression,  prompt,  full,  and  unmistakable  in  their 
utterances.  And  in  such  European  countries  as  England  and 
France,  it  is  now  felt  that  the  most  successful  party  leader  is 
he  who  can  best  divine  from  these  organs  what  the  decision  of 
the  people  will  be  when  a  direct  appeal  is  made  to  them  at  an 
election. 

I  have  already  observed  that  in  America  public  opinion  is  a 
power  not  satisfied  with  choosing  executive  and  legislative 
agents  at  certain  intervals,  but  continuously  watching  and  guid¬ 
ing  those  agents,  who  look  to  it,  not  merely  for  a  vote  of  ap¬ 
proval  when  the  next  general  election  arrives,  but  also  for 
directions  which  they  are  eager  to  obey,  so  soon  as  they  have 
learnt  their  meaning.  The  efficiency  of  the  organs  of  opinion 
is  therefore  more  essential  to  the  government  of  the  United 
States  than  even  to  England  or  to  France. 

An  organ  of  public  opinion  is,  however,  not  merely  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  views  and  tendencies  already  in  existence,  but  a  factor 
in  further  developing  and  moulding  the  judgment  of  the  people. 
Opinion  makes  opinion.  Men  follow  in  the  path  which  they 
see  others  treading :  they  hasten  to  adopt  the  view  that  seems 
likely  to  prevail.  Hence  every  weighty  voice,  be  it  that  of  a 
speaker,  or  an  association,  or  a  public  meeting,  or  a  newspaper, 
is  at  once  the  disclosure  of  an  existing  force  and  a  further  force 

274 


CHAP.  LXXIX 


ORGANS  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


275 


influencing  others.  This  fact,  while  it  multiplies  the  organs 
through  which  opinion  is  expressed,  increases  the  difficulty  of 
using  them  aright,  because  every  voice  seeks  to  represent 
itself  as  that  of  the  greater,  or  at  least  of  a  growing  number. 

The  press,  and  particularly  the  newspaper  press,  stands  by 
common  consent  first  among  the  organs  of  opinion.  Yet  few 
things  are  harder  than  to  estimate  its  power,  and  state  precisely 
in  what  that  power  consists. 

Newspapers  are  influential  in  three  ways  —  as  narrators,  as 
advocates,  and  as  weathercocks.  They  report  events,  they 
advance  arguments,  they  indicate  by  their  attitude  what  those 
who  conduct  them  and  are  interested  in  their  circulation  take  to 
be  the  prevailing  opinion  of  their  readers.  In  the  first  of  these 
regards  the  American  press  is  the  most  active  in  the  world. 
Nothing  escapes  it  which  can  attract  any  class  of  readers.  It 
does  not  even  confine  itself  to  events  that  have  happened, 
but  is  apt  to  describe  others  which  may  possibly  have  hap¬ 
pened,  however  slight  the  evidence  for  them  :  pariter  facta  atque 
infeda  canebat.  This  habit  affects  its  worth  as  an  historic 
record  and  its  influence  with  sober-minded  people.  Statesmen 
may  be  heard  to  complain  that  once  an  untrue  story  has  been 
set  flying  they  cannot  efface  the  effect  however  complete  the 
contradiction  they  may  give  it ;  and  injustice  is  thus  frequently 
done.  Sometimes,  of  course,  there  is  deliberate  misrepresen¬ 
tation.  But  more  often  the  erroneous  statements  are  the  nat¬ 
ural  result  of  the  high  pressure  under  which  the  newspaper 
business  is  carried  on.  The  appetite  for  news,  and  for  highly 
spiced  or  “sensation”  news,  is  enormous,  and  journalists  work¬ 
ing  under  keen  competition  and  in  unceasing  haste  take  their 
chance  of  the  correctness  of  the  information  they  receive. 

Much  harm  there  is,  but  possibly  as  much  good.  It  is  related 
of  an  old  barrister  that  he  observed  :  “When  I  was  young  I 
lost  a  good  many  causes  which  I  ought  to  have  won,  and  now, 
that  I  have  grown  old  and  experienced,  I  win  a  good  many 
causes  which  I  ought  to  lose.  So,  on  the  whole,  justice  has 
been  done.”  If  in  its  heedlessness  the  press  sometimes  causes 
pain  to  the  innocent,  it  does  a  great  and  necessary  service 
in  exposing  evil-doers,  many  of  whom  would  escape  were  it 
never  to  speak  except  upon  sufficient  evidence.  It  is  a  watch¬ 
dog  whose  noisy  bark  must  be  tolerated,  even  when  the  person 
who  approaches  has  no  bad  intent.  No  doubt  charges  are  so 


276* 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


promiscuously  and  often  so  lightly  made  as  to  tell  less  than 
they  would  in  a  country  where  the  law  of  libel  was  more  fre¬ 
quently  appealed  to.  But  many  abuses  are  unveiled,  many 
more  prevented  by  the  fear  of  publicity. 

Although  the  leading  American  newspapers  contain  far  more 
non-political  matter  than  those  of  Europe,  they  also  contain, 
especially,  of  course,  before  any  important  election,  more  domes¬ 
tic  political  intelligence  than  any,  except  perhaps  two  or  three, 
of  the  chief  English  journals.  Much  of  it  is  inaccurate,  but 
partizanship  distorts  it  no  more  than  in  Europe,  perhaps  less. 
The  public  has  the  benefit  of  hearing  everything  it  can  wish, 
and  more  than  it  ought  to  wish,  to  know  about  every  occur¬ 
rence  and  every  personality.  The  intelligence  is  not  quite  of 
the  same  kind  as  in  England  or  France.  There  are  fewer  reports 
of  speeches,  because  fewer  speeches  of  an  argumentative  nature 
are  made,  but  more  of  the  schemes  and  doings  of  conventions 
and  political  cliques,  as  well  as  of  the  sayings  of  individuals. 

As  the  advocates  of  political  doctrines,  newspapers  are  of 
course  powerful,  because  they  are  universally  read  and  often 
ably  written.  They  are  accused  of  unfairness  and  vitupera¬ 
tion,  but  I  doubt  if  there  is  any  marked  difference  in  this  respect 
between  their  behaviour  and  that  of  European  papers  at  a  time 
of  excitement.  Nor  could  I  discover  that  their  arguments  were 
any  more  frequently  than  in  Europe  addressed  to  prejudice 
rather  than  to  reason  :  indeed  they  are  less  markedly  party 
organs  than  are  those  of  Britain.  In  America,  however,  a  lead¬ 
ing  article  carries  less  weight  of  itself,  being  discounted  by  the 
shrewd  reader  as  the  sort  of  thing  which  the  paper  must  of  course 
be  expected  to  say,  and  is  effective  only  when  it  takes  hold  of 
some  fact  (real  or  supposed),  and  hammers  it  into  the  public 
mind.  This  is  what  the  unclean  politician  has  to  fear.  Mere 
abuse  he  does  not  care  for,  but  constant  references  to  and  com¬ 
ments  on  misdeeds  of  which  he  cannot  clear  himself  tell  in  the 
long  run  against  him. 

The  influence  attributed  to  the  press  is  evidenced  not  only 
by  the  posts  (especially  foreign  legations)  frequently  bestowed 
upon  the  owners  or  editors  of  leading  journals,  but  by  the  cur¬ 
rent  appeals  made  to  good  party  men  to  take  in  only  stanch 
party  papers,  and  by  the  threats  to  “read  out”  of  the  party 
journals  which  show  a  dangerous  independence.  Nevertheless, 
if  the  party  press  be  estimated  as  a  factor  in  the  formation  of 


CHAP.  LXXIX 


ORGANS  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


277 


opinion,  whether  by  argument  or  by  authority,  it  must  be 
deemed  less  powerful  in  America  than  in  Europe,  because  its 
average  public  is  shrewder,  more  independent,  less  readily  im¬ 
pressed  by  the  mysterious  “we.”  I  doubt  if  there  be  any 
paper  by  which  any  considerable  number  of  people  swear ;  and 
am  sure  that  comparatively  few  quote  their  favourite  journal 
as  an  oracle  in  the  way  many  persons  still  do  in  England.  The 
vast  area  of  the  republic  and  the  absence  of  a  capital  prevent 
any  one  paper  from  winning  its  way  to  predominance,  even  in 
any  particular  section  of  the  country.  Herein  one  notes  a 
remarkable  contrast  to  the  phenomena  of  the  Old  World. 
Although  the  chief  American  newspapers  are,  regarded  as  com¬ 
mercial  properties,  “bigger  things”  than  those  of  Europe, 
they  do  not  dominate  the  whole  press  as  a  few  journals  do  in 
most  European  countries.  Or,  to  put  the  same  thing  differ¬ 
ently,  in  England,  and  much  the  same  may  be  said  of  France 
and  Germany,  some  twenty  newspapers  cover  nine-tenths  of 
the  reading  public,  whereas  in  America  any  given  twenty  papers 
would  not  cover  one-third. 

In  those  cities,  moreover,  where  one  finds  really  strong  papers, 
each  is  exposed  to  a  severer  competition  than  in  Europe,  for  in 
cities  most  people  look  at  more  than  one  newspaper.  The  late 
Mr.  Horace  Greeley,  who  for  many  years  owned  and  edited  the 
New  Y ork  Tribune,  is  the  most  notable  case  of  an  editor  who,  by 
his  journalistic  talent  and  great  self-confidence,  acquired  such  a 
personal  influence  as  to  make  multitudes  watch  for  and  follow 
his  deliverances.  He  was  to  the  later  Whig  party  and  the  earlier 
Republican  party  much  what  Katkoff  was  to  the  National  party 
in  Russia  between  1870  and  1880,  and  had,  of  course,  a  far 
greater  host  of  readers. 

It  is  chiefly  in  its  third  capacity,  as  an  index  and  mirror  of 
public  opinion,  that  the  press  is  looked  to.  This  is  the  function 
it  chiefly  aims  at  discharging ;  and  public  men  feel  that  in 
showing  deference  to  it  they  are  propitiating,  and  inviting  the 
commands  of,  public  opinion  itself.  In  worshipping  the  deity 
you  learn  to  conciliate  the  priest.  But  as  every  possible  view 
and  tendency  finds  expression  through  some  organ  in  the  press, 
the  problem  is  to  discover  which  views  have  got  popular  strength 
behind  them.  Professed  party  journals  are  of  little  use,  though 
one  may  sometimes  discover  from  the  way  they  advance  an 
argument  whether  they  think  it  will  really  tell  on  the  oppo- 


278 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


site  party,  or  use  it  only  because  it  falls  within  their  own  pro¬ 
gramme.  More  may  therefore  be  gleaned  from  the  inde¬ 
pendent  or  semi-independent  journals,  whereof  there  are  three 
classes  :  papers  which,  like  two  or  three  in  the  great  cities, 
generally  support  one  party,  but  are  apt  to  fly  off  from  it  when 
they  disapprove  its  conduct,  or  think  the  people  will  do  so ; 
papers  which  devote  themselves  mainly  to  news,  though  they 
may  give  editorial  aid  to  one  or  other  party  according  to  the 
particular  issue  involved,  and  papers  not  professedly,  or  pri¬ 
marily  political.  Of  this  last  class  the  most  important  mem¬ 
bers  are  the  religious  weeklies,  to  whose  number  and  influ¬ 
ence  few  parallels  can  be  discovered  in  Europe.  They  are 
mostly  either  neutral  or  somewhat  loosely  attached  to  their 
party,  usually  the  Republican  party,  because  it  began  as  the 
Free  Soil  party,  and  includes,  in  the  North,  the  greater  number 
of  serious-minded  people.  It  is  only  on  great  occasions,  such 
as  a  presidential  election,  or  when  some  moral  issue  arises, 
that  they  discuss  current  politics  at  length.  When  they  do, 
great  is  their  power,  because  they  are  deemed  to  be  less  “thirled” 
to  a  party  or  a  leader,  because  they  speak  from  a  moral  stand¬ 
point,  and  because  they  are  read  on  Sunday,  a  time  of  leisure, 
when  their  seed  is  more  likely  to  strike  root.  The  other  weekly 
and  monthly  magazines  used  to  deal  less  with  politics  than  did 
the  leading  English  monthlies,  but  some  of  them  are  now  largely 
occupied  with  political  or  politico-social  topics,  and  their  influ¬ 
ence  seems  to  grow  with  the  increasing  amount  of  excellent 
writing  they  contain. 

During  presidential  contests  much  importance  is  attributed 
to  the  attitude  of  the  leading  papers  of  the  great  cities,  for 
the  revolt  of  any  one  from  its  party  —  as,  for  instance,  the 
revolt  of  several  Republican  papers  during  the  election  of  1884 
and  that  of  many  Democratic  papers  in  1896  —  indicates 
discontent  and  danger.  Where  a  schism  exists  in  a  State 
party,  the  bosses  of  one  or  other  section  will  sometimes  try 
to  capture  and  manipulate  the  smaller  country  papers  so  as 
to  convey  the  impression  that  their  faction  is  gaining  ground. 
Newspapers  take  more  notice  of  one  another,  both  by  quoting 
from  friendly  sheets  and  by  attacking  hostile  ones,  than  is 
usual  in  England,  so  that  any  incident  or  witticism  which  can 
tell  in  a  campaign  is  at  once  taken  up  and  read  in  a  day  or  two 
in  every  city  from  Detroit  to  New  Orleans. 


CHAP.  LXXIX 


ORGANS  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


279 


The  Americans  have  invented  an  organ  for  catching,  measur¬ 
ing,  and  indicating  opinion,  almost  unknown  in  Europe,  in 
their  practice  of  citing  the  private  deliverances  of  prominent 
men.  Sometimes  this  is  done  by  publishing  a  letter,  addressed 
not  to  the  newspaper  but  to  a  friend,  who  gives  it  the  publicity 
for  which  it  was  designed.  Sometimes  it  is  announced  how 
the  prominent  man  is  going  to  vote  at  the  next  election.  A 
short  paragraph  will  state  that  Judge  So-and-So,  or  Dr.  Blank, 
an  eminent  clergyman,  is  going  to  “bolt”  the  presidential  or 
State  ticket  of  his  party ;  and  perhaps  the  reasons  assigned 
for  his  conduct  follow.  Of  the  same  nature,  but  more  elaborate, 
is  the  interview,  in  which  the  prominent  man  unbosoms  him¬ 
self  to  a  reporter,  giving  his  view  of  the  political  position  in  a 
manner  less  formal  and  obtrusive,  but  not  less  effective  than 
that  of  a  letter  to  the  editor.  Sometimes,  at  the  editor’s  sug¬ 
gestion,  or  of  his  own  motion,  a  brisk  reporter  waits  on  the 
leading  citizen  and  invites  the  expression  of  his  views,  which 
is  rarely  refused,  though,  of  course,  it  may  be  given  in  a  guarded 
and  unsatisfying  way.  Sometimes  the  leading  citizen  him¬ 
self,  when  he  has  a  fact  on  which  to  comment,  or  views  to 
communicate,  sends  for  the  reporter,  who  is  only  too  glad  to 
attend.  The  plan  has  many  conveniences,  among  which  is 
the  possibility  of  disavowing  any  particular  phrase  as  one 
which  has  failed  to  convey  the  speaker’s  true  meaning.  All 
these  devices  help  the  men  of  eminence  to  impress  their  ideas 
on  the  public,  while  they  show  that  there  is  a  part  of  the  public 
which  desires  such  guidance. 

Taking  the  American  press  all  in  all,  it  seems  to  serve  the 
expression,  and  subserve  the  formation,  of  public  opinion  more 
fully  than  does  the  press  of  any  part  of  the  European  continent, 
and  not  less  fully  than  that  of  England.  Individual  newspapers 
and  those  who  write  in  them  may  enjoy  less  power  than  is  the 
case  in  some  countries  of  the  Old  World ;  but  if  this  be  so,  the 
cause  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  journals  lay  themselves 
out  to  give  news  rather  than  views,  that  they  are  less  generally 
bound  to  a  particular  party,  and  that  readers  are,  except  at 
critical  moments,  less  warmly  interested  in  politics  than  are 
educated  Englishmen,  because  other  topics  claim  a  relatively 
larger  part  of  their  attention.  The  American  press  may  not 
be  above  the  moral  level  of  the  average  good  citizen,  —  in  no 
country  does  one  either  expect  or  find  it  to  be  so,  —  but  it  is 


280 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


above  the  level  of  the  Machine  politicians  in  the  cities.  In 
the  war  waged  against  these  worthies,  the  bolder  and  stronger 
newspapers  have  on  occasion  given  powerful  aid  to  the  cause  of 
reform  by  dragging  corruption  to  light. 

While  believing  that  a  complete  picture  of  current  opinion 
can  be  more  easily  gathered  from  American  than  from  English 
journals,  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  they  supply  all  a  poli¬ 
tician  needs.  Any  one  who  has  made  it  his  business  to  feel 
the  pulse  of  the  public  of  his  own  country  must  be  sensible 
that  when  he  has  been  travelling  abroad  for  a  few  weeks,  he 
is  sure,  no  matter  how  diligently  he  peruses  the  leading  home 
papers  of  all  shades,  to  “lose  touch ”  of  the  current  sentiment 
of  the  country  in  its  actuality.  The  journals  seem  to  convey 
to  him  what  their  writers  wish  to  be  believed,  and  not  neces¬ 
sarily  what  the  people  are  really  thinking ;  and  he  feels  more 
and  more  as  weeks  pass  the  need  of  an  hour’s  talk  with  four 
or  five  discerning  friends  of  different  types  of  thought,  from 
whom  he  will  gather  how  current  facts  strike  and  move  the 
minds  of  his  countrymen.  Every  prudent  man  keeps  a  circle 
of  such  friends,  by  whom  he  can  test  and  correct  his  own  im¬ 
pressions  better  than  by  the  almost  official  utterances  of  the 
party  journals.  So  in  America  there  is  much  to  be  learnt  from 
conversation  with  judicious  observers  outside  politics  and 
typical  representatives  of  political  sections  and  social  classes, 
which  the  most  diligent  study  of  the  press  will  not  give,  not  to 
add  that  it  occasionally  happens  that  the  press  of  a  particular 
city  may  fall,  for  a  time,  under  potent  local  influences  which 
prevent  it  from  saying  all  that  ought  to  be  said. 

Except  during  electoral  campaigns,  public  meetings  play  a 
smaller  part  in  the  political  life  of  the  United  States  than  in 
that  of  Western  Europe.  Meetings  were,  of  course,  more  fre¬ 
quent  during  the  struggle  against  slavery  than  they  need  be  in 
these  quieter  times,  yet  the  difference  between  European  and 
American  practice  cannot  be  wholly  due  to  the  more  stirring 
questions  which  have  latterly  roused  Europeans.  A  meeting  in 
America  is  usually  held  for  some  practical  object,  such  as  the 
selection  of  candidates  or  the  creation  of  an  organization,  less 
often  as  a  mere  demonstration  of  opinion  and  means  of  instruc¬ 
tion.  When  instruction  is  desired,  the  habit  is  to  bring  down  a 
man  of  note  to  give  a  political  lecture,  paying  him  from  $75  to 
$100,  or  perhaps  even  $150,  nor  is  it  thought  unbecoming  for 


CHAP.  LXXIX 


ORGANS  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


281 


senators  and  ex-senators  to  accept  such  fees.  The  meetings 
during  an  election  campaign,  which  are  numerous  enough,  do 
not  always  provide  argumentative  speaking,  for  those  who 
attend  are  assumed  to  be  all  members  of  one  party,  sound 
already,  and  needing  nothing  but  an  extra  dose  of  enthusiasm ; 
but  since  first  the  protective  tariff  and  thereafter  silver  and  the 
currency  became  leading  issues,  the  proportion  of  reasoning 
to  declamation  has  increased.  Members  of  Congress  do  not 
deliver  such  annual  discourses  to  their  constituents  as  it  has 
become  the  fashion  for  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  to 
deliver  in  England ;  and  have  indeed  altogether  an  easier  time 
of  it  as  regards  speaking,  though  a  far  harder  one  as  regards  the 
getting  of  places  for  their  constituents.  American  visitors  to 
England  seem  surprised  and  even  a  little  edified  when  they  find 
how  much  meetings  are  made  to  do  there  in  the  way  of  eliciting 
and  cultivating  opinion  among  the  electors.  I  have  often  heard 
them  praise  the  English  custom,  and  express  the  wish  that  it 
prevailed  in  their  own  country. 

As  the  ceaseless  desire  of  every  public  man  is  to  know  which 
way  the  people  are  going,  and  as  the  polls  are  the  only  sure 
index  of  opinion,  every  election,  however  small,  is  watched 
with  close  attention.  Now  elections  are  in  the  United  States 
as  plentiful  as  revolutions  in  Peru.  The  vote  cast  for  each 
party  in  a  city,  or  State  legislature  district,  or  congressional 
district,  or  State,  at  the  last  previous  election,  is  compared 
with  that  now  cast,  and  inferences  drawn  as  to  what  will  hap¬ 
pen  at  the  next  State  or  presidential  election.  Special  interest 
attaches  to  the  State  pollings  that  immediately  precede  a  presi¬ 
dential  election,  for  they  not  only  indicate  the  momentary 
temper  of  the  particular  voters  but  tell  upon  the  country  gen¬ 
erally,  affecting  that  large  number  who  wish  to  be  on  the  win¬ 
ning  side.  As  happens  in  the  similar  case  of  what  are  called 
“ by-elections”  to  the  House  of  Commons  in  England,  too  much 
weight  is  generally  attributed  to  these  contests,  which  are  some¬ 
times,  though  less  frequently  than  in  England,  decided  by 
purely  local  causes.  Such  elections,  however,  give  the  people 
opportunities  of  expressing  their  displeasure  at  any  recent 
misconduct  chargeable  to  a  party,  and  sometimes  lead  the 
party  managers  to  repent  in  time  and  change  their  course  be¬ 
fore  the  graver  struggle  arrives. 

Associations  are  created,  extended,  and  worked  in  the  United 


282 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


States  more  quickly  and  effectively  than  in  any  other  country. 
In  nothing  does  the  executive  talent  of  the  people  better  shine 
than  in  the  promptitude  wherewith  the  idea  of  an  organization 
for  a  common  object  is  taken  up,  in  the  instinctive  discipline 
that  makes  every  one  who  joins  in  starting  it  fall  into  his  place, 
in  the  practical,  business-like  turn  which  the  discussions  forth¬ 
with  take.  Thus  in  1884,  the  cattlemen  of  the  further  West, 
finding  difficulties  in  driving  their  herds  from  Texas  to  Wyo¬ 
ming  and  Montana,  suddenly  convoked  a  great  convention  in 
Chicago  which  presented  a  plan  for  the  establishment  of  a  broad 
route  from  South  to  North,  and  resolved  on  the  steps  proper 
for  obtaining  the  necessary  legislation.  Here,  however,  we  are 
concerned  with  associations  only  as  organs  for  focussing  and 
propagating  opinion.  The  greater  ones,  such  as  the  temperance 
societies,  ramify  over  the  country  and  constitute  a  species  of 
political  organization  which  figures  in  State  and  even  in  presi¬ 
dential  contests.  Nearly  every  “  cause/’  philanthropic,  eco¬ 
nomic,  or  social,  has  something  of  the  kind.  Local  associations 
or  committees  are  often  formed  in  cities  to  combat  the  Machine 
politicians  in  the  interests  of  municipal  reform ;  while  every 
important  election  calls  into  being  a  number  of  “  campaign 
clubs,”  which  work  while  the  struggle  lasts,  and  are  then  dis¬ 
solved.  For  these  money  is  soon  forthcoming ;  it  is  more 
plentiful  than  in  Europe,  and  subscribed  more  readily  for  politi¬ 
cal  purposes. 

Such  associations  have  great  importance  in  the  development 
of  opinion,  for  they  rouse  attention,  excite  discussion,  formulate 
principles,  submit  plans,  embolden  and  stimulate  their  members, 
produce  that  impression  of  a  spreading  movement  which  goes 
so  far  towards  success  with  a  sympathetic  and  sensitive  people. 
Possunt  quia  posse  videntur  is  doubly  true  in  America  as  regards 
the  spectators  as  well  as  the  actors,  because  the  appearance  of 
strength  gathers  recruits  as  well  as  puts  heart  into  the  original 
combatants.  Unexpected  support  gathers  to  every  rising  cause. 
If  it  be  true  that  individuality  is  too  weak  in  the  country,  strong 
and  self-reliant  statesmen  or  publicists  too  few,  so  much  the 
greater  is  the  value  of  this  habit  of  forming  associations,  for  it 
creates  new  centres  of  force  and  motion,  and  nourishes  young 
causes  and  unpopular  doctrines  into  self-confident  aggressive¬ 
ness.  But  in  any  case  they  are  useful  as  indications  of  the 
tendencies  at  work  and  the  forces  behind  these  tendencies.  By 


CHAP.  LXXIX 


ORGANS  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


283 


watching  the  attendance  at  the  meetings,  the  language  held, 
the  amount  of  zeal  displayed,  a  careful  observer  can  discover 
what  ideas  are  getting  hold  of  the  popular  mind. 

One  significant  difference  between  the  formation  and  expres¬ 
sion  of  opinion  in  the  United  States  and  in  Europe  remains  to 
be  noted.  In  England  and  Wales  about  half  of  the  population 
was  in  1901  to  be  found  in  sixty  cities  with  a  population  exceeding 
50,000.  In  France  opinion  is  mainly  produced  in,  and  policy, 
except  upon  a  few  of  the  broadest  issues,  dictated  by,  the  urban 
population,  though  its  number  falls  much  below  that  of  the  rural. 
In  America  the  cities  with  a  population  exceeding  50,000  inhab¬ 
itants  were  in  1900  seventy-eight  in  number,  with  an  aggregate 
population  of  about  17,000,000,  less  than  25  per  cent  of  the  total 
population.  The  number  of  persons  to  the  square  mile  was 
in  1901  558  in  England  and  Wales,  only  25.6  in  the  United 
States,  excluding  Alaska.  Hence  those  influences  formative  of 
opinion  which  city  life  produces,  the  presence  of  political  leaders, 
the  influence  they  personally  diffuse,  the  striking  out  and  testing 
of  ideas  in  conversation,  may  tell  somewhat  less  on  the  American 
than  they  do  on  the  English  people,  crowded  together  in  their 
little  island,  and  would  tell  much  less  but  for  the  stronger  social 
instincts  of  the  Americans  and  the  more  general  habit  of  reading 
daily  newspapers. 

In  endeavouring  to  gather  the  tendencies  of  popular  opinion, 
the  task  of  an  American  statesman  is  in  some  respects  easier 
than  that  of  his  English  compeer.  As  social  distinctions  count 
for  less  in  America,  the  same  tendencies  are  more  generally 
and  uniformly  diffused  through  all  classes,  and  it  is  not  necessary 
to  discount  so  many  special  points  of  difference  which  may 
affect  the  result.  As  social  intercourse  is  easier,  and  there  is 
less  gene  between  a  person  in  the  higher  and  one  in  the  humbler 
ranks,  a  man  can  better  pick  up  in  conversation  the  sentiments 
of  his  poorer  neighbours.  Moreover,  the  number  of  persons 
who  belong  to  neither  party,  or  on  whom  party  allegiance  sits 
loosely,  is  relatively  smaller  than  in  England,  so  the  unpredict¬ 
able  vote  —  the  doubtful  element  which  includes  those  called 
in  England  “arm-chair  politicians”  —  does  not  so  much  disturb 
calculations.  Nevertheless,  the  task  of  discerning  changes  and 
predicting  consequences  is  always  a  difficult  one,  in  which  the 
most  skilful  observers  may  err.  Public  opinion  does  not  tell 
quite  so  quickly  or  quite  so  directly  upon  legislative  bodies  as 


284 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


in  England,  not  that  legislators  do  not  wish  to  know  it,  but  that 
the  interposition  of  the  Machine  acts  to  some  extent  as  a  sort  of 
non-conductor.  Moreover  the  country  is  large,  the  din  of  voices 
is  incessant,  the  parties  are  in  many  places  nearly  balanced. 
There  are  frequent  small  changes  from  which  it  would  be  rash 
to  infer  any  real  movement  of  opinion,  even  as  he  who  comes 
down  to  the  beach  must  watch  many  wavelets  break  in  ripples 
on  the  sand  before  he  can  tell  whether  the  tide  be  ebbing  or 
flowing. 

It  may  be  asked  how,  if  the  organs  of  public  opinion  give  so 
often  an  uncertain  sound,  public  opinion  can  with  truth  be  said 
not  only  to  reign  but  to  govern.  The  answer  is  that  a  sovereign 
is  not  the  less  a  sovereign  because  his  commands  are  sometimes 
misheard  or  misreported.  In  America  every  one  listens  for  them. 
Those  who  manage  the  affairs  of  the  country  obey  to  the  best  of 
their  hearing.  They  do  not,  as  has  been  heretofore  the  case  in 
Europe,  act  on  their  own  view,  and  ask  the  people  to  ratify  : 
they  take  the  course  which  they  believe  the  people  at  the 
moment  desire.  Leaders  do  not,  as  sometimes  still  happens  in 
England,  seek  to  force  or  anticipate  opinion  ;  or  if  they  do,  they 
suffer  for  the  blunder  by  provoking  a  reaction.  The  people  must 
not  be  hurried.  A  statesman  is  not  expected  to  move  ahead  of 
them ;  he  must  rather  seem  to  follow,  though  if  he  has  the 
courage  to  tell  the  people  that  they  are  wrong,  and  refuse  to  be 
the  instrument  of  their  errors,  he  will  be  all  the  more  respected. 
Those  who  fail  because  they  mistake  eddies  and  cross  currents 
for  the  main  stream  of  opinion,  fail  more  often  from  some  per¬ 
sonal  bias,  or  from  vanity,  or  from  hearkening  to  a  clique  of 
adherents,  than  from  want  of  materials  for  observation.  A  man 
who  can  disengage  himself  from  preconceptions,  who  is  in  genu¬ 
ine  sympathy  with  his  countrymen,  and  possesses  the  art  of 
knowing  where  to  look  for  typical  manifestations  of  their  senti¬ 
ments,  will  find  the  organs  through  which  opinion  finds  expression 
more  adequate  as  well  as  more  abundant  in  America  than  they 
are  in  any  other  country. 


CHAPTER  LXXX 


NATIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  AS  MOULDING  PUBLIC  OPINION 

As  the  public  opinion  of  a  people  is  even  more  directly  than 
its  political  institutions  the  reflection  and  expression  of  its  char¬ 
acter,  we  may  begin  the  analysis  of  opinion  in  America  by  noting 
some  of  those  general  features  of  national  character  which  give 
tone  and  colour  to  the  people’s  thoughts  and  feelings  on  politics. 
There  are,  of  course,  varieties  proper  to  different  classes,  and 
to  different  parts  of  the  vast  territory  of  the  Union ;  but  it  is 
well  to  consider  first  such  characteristics  as  belong  to  the  nation 
as  a  whole,  and  afterwards  to  examine  the  various  classes  and  dis¬ 
tricts  of  the  country.  And  when  I  speak  of  the  nation,  I  mean 
the  native  Americans.  What  follows  is  not  applicable  to  the 
recent  immigrants  from  Europe,  and,  of  course,  even  less  appli¬ 
cable  to  the  Southern  negroes. 

The  Americans  are  a  good-natured  people,  kindly,  helpful  to 
one  another,  disposed  to  take  a  charitable  view  even  of  wrong¬ 
doers.  Their  anger  sometimes  flames  up,  but  the  fire  is  soon 
extinct.  Nowhere  is  cruelty  more  abhorred.  Even  a  mob 
lynching  a  horse  thief  in  the  West  has  consideration  for  the 
criminal,  and  will  give  him  a  good  drink  of  whiskey  before  he  is 
strung  up.  Cruelty  to  slaves  was  unusual  while  slavery  lasted, 
the  best  proof  of  which  is  the  quietness  of  the  slaves  during  the 
war  when  all  the  men  and  many  of  the  boys  of  the  South  were  ‘ 
serving  in  the  Confederate  armies.  As  everybody  knows,  juries 
are  more  lenient  to  offences  of  all  kinds  but  one,  offences  against 
women,  than  they  are  anywhere  in  Europe.  The  Southern 
“ rebels”  were  soon  forgiven;  and  though  civil  wars  are  pro¬ 
verbially  bitter,  there  have  been  few  struggles  in  which  the 
combatants  did  so  many  little  friendly  acts  for  one  another, 
few  in  which  even  the  vanquished  have  so  quickly  buried  their 
resentments.  It  is  true  that  newspapers  and  public  speakers 
say  hard  things  of  their  opponents ;  but  this  is  a  part  of  the 

285 


286 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


game,  and  is  besides  a  way  of  relieving  their  feelings  :  the  bark 
is  sometimes  the  louder  in  order  that  a  bite  may  not  follow. 
Vindictiveness  shown  by  a  public  man  excites  general  dis¬ 
approval,  and  the  maxim  of  letting  bygones  be  bygones  is 
pushed  so  far  that  an  offender's  misdeeds  are  often  forgotten 
when  they  ought  to  be  remembered  against  him. 

All  the  world  knows  that  they  are  a  humorous  people.  They 
are  as  conspicuously  the  purveyors  of  humour  to  the  nineteenth 
century  as  the  French  were  the  purveyors  of  wit  to  the  eighteenth. 
Nor  is  this  sense  of  the  ludicrous  side  of  things  confined  to  a  few 
brilliant  writers.  It  is  diffused  among  the  whole  people  ;  it 
colours  their  ordinary  life,  and  gives  to  their  talk  that  distinc¬ 
tively  new  flavour  which  a  European  palate  enjoys.  Their 
capacity  for  enjoying  a  joke  against  themselves  was  oddly 
illustrated  at  the  outset  of  the  Civil  War,  a  time  of  stern  excite¬ 
ment,  by  the  merriment  which  arose  over  the  hasty  retreat  of 
the  Federal  troops  at  the  battle  of  Bull  Run.  When  William 
M.  Tweed  was  ruling  and  robbing  New  York,  and  had  set  on 
the  bench  men  who  were  openly  prostituting  justice,  the  citizens 
found  the  situation  so  amusing  that  they  almost  forgot  to  be 
angry.  Much  of  President  Lincoln's  popularity,  and  much 
also  of  the  gift  he  showed  for  restoring  confidence  to  the  North 
at  the  darkest  moments  of  the  war,  was  due  to  the  humorous 
way  he  used  to  turn  things,  conveying  the  impression  of  not 
being  himself  uneasy,  even  when  he  was  most  so. 

That  indulgent  view  of  mankind  which  I  have  already  men¬ 
tioned,  a  view  odd  in  a  people  whose  ancestors  were  penetrated 
with  the  belief  in  original  sin,  is  strengthened  by  this  wish  to 
get  amusement  out  of  everything.  The  want  of  seriousness 
which  it  produces  may  be  more  apparent  than  real.  Yet  it  has 
its  significance  ;  for  people  become  affected  by  the  language  they 
‘use,  as  we  see  men  grow  into  cynics  when  they  have  acquired 
the  habit  of  talking  cynicism  for  the  sake  of  effect. 

They  are  a  hopeful  people.  Whether  or  no  they  are  right  in 
calling  themselves  a  new  people,  they  certainly  seem  to  feel  in 
their  veins  the  bounding  pulse  of  youth.  The}r  see  a  long  vista 
of  years  stretching  out  before  them,  in  which  they  will  have 
time  enough  to  cure  all  their  faults,  to  overcome  all  the  obstacles 
that  block  their  path.  They  look  at  their  enormous  territory 
with  its  still  only  half-explored  sources  of  wealth,  they  reckon 
up  the  growth  of  their  population  and  their  products,  they  con- 


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287 


trast  the  comfort  and  intelligence  of  their  labouring  classes  with 
the  condition  of  the  masses  in  the  Old  World.  They  remember 
the  dangers  that  so  long  threatened  the  Union  from  the  slave 
power,  and  the  rebellion  it  raised,  and  see  peace  and  harmony 
now  restored,  the  South  more  prosperous  and  contented  than 
at  any  previous  epoch,  perfect  good  feeling  between  all  sections 
of  the  country.  It  is  natural  for  them  to  believe  in  their  star. 
And  this  sanguine  temper  makes  them  tolerant  of  evils  which 
they  regard  as  transitory,  removable  as  soon  as  time  can  be 
found  to  root  them  up. 

They  have  unbounded  faith  in  what  they  call  the  People 
and  in  a  democratic  system  of  government.  The  great  States 
of  the  European  continent  are  distracted  by  the  contests  of 
Republicans  and  Monarchists,  and  of  rich  and  poor,  —  contests 
which  go  down  to  the  foundations  of  government,  and  in  France 
are  further  embittered  by  religious  passions.  Even  in  England 
the  ancient  Constitution  is  always  under  repair,  and  while 
some  think  it  is  being  ruined  by  changes,  others  hold  that 
further  changes  are  needed  to  make  it  tolerable.  No  such 
questions  trouble  native  American  minds,  for  nearly  everybody 
believes,  and  everybody  declares,  that  the  frame  of  government 
is  in  its  main  lines  so  excellent  that  such  reforms  as  seem  called 
for  need  not  touch  those  lines,  but  are  required  only  to  protect 
the  Constitution  from  being  perverted  by  the  parties.  Hence 
a  further  confidence  that  the  people  are  sure  to  decide  right 
in  the  long  run,  a  confidence  inevitable  and  essential  in  a  govern¬ 
ment  which  refers  every  question  to  the  arbitrament  of  numbers. 
There  have,  of  course,  been  instances  where  the  once  insignifi¬ 
cant  minority  proved  to  have  been  wiser  than  the  majority  of 
the  moment.  Such  was  eminently  the  case  in  the  great  slavery 
struggle.  But  here  the  minority  prevailed  by  growing  into 
a  majority  as  events  developed  the  real  issues,  so  that  this  also 
has  been  deemed  a  ground  for  holding  that  all  minorities  which 
have  right  on  their  side  will  bring  round  their  antagonists,  and 
in  the  long  run  win  by  voting  power.  If  you  ask  an  intelligent 
citizen  why  he  so  holds,  he  will  answer  that  truth  and  justice 
are  sure  to  make  their  way  into  the  minds  and  consciences  of  the 
majority.  This  is  deemed  an  axiom,  and  the  more  readily  so 
deemed  because  truth  is  identified  with  common  sense,  the 
quality  which  the  average  citizen  is  most  confidently  proud  of 
possessing. 


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This  feeling  shades  off  into  another,  externally  like  it,  but  at 
bottom  distinct  —  the  feeling  not  only  that  the  majority,  be 
it  right  or  wrong,  will  and  must  prevail,  but  that  its  being  the 
majority  proves  it  to  be  right.  This  idea,  which  appears  in 
the  guise  sometimes  of  piety  and  sometimes  of  fatalism,  seems 
to  be  no  contemptible  factor  in  the  present  character  of  the 
people.  It  will  be  more  fully  dealt  with  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  native  Americans  are  an  educated  people,  compared  with 
the  whole  mass  of  the  population  in  any  European  country 
except  Switzerland,  parts  of  Germany,  Norway,  Iceland,  and 
Scotland ;  that  is  to  say,  the  average  of  knowledge  is  higher, 
the  habit  of  reading  and  thinking  more  generally  diffused,  than 
in  any  other  country.  They  know  the  Constitution  of  their 
own  country,  they  follow  public  affairs,  they  join  in  local  gov¬ 
ernment  and  learn  from  it  how  government  must  be  carried  on, 
and  in  particular  how  discussion  must  be  conducted  in  meet¬ 
ings,  and  its  results  tested  at  elections.  The  Town  Meeting  was 
for  New  England  the  most  perfect  school  of  self-government 
in  any  modern  country.  In  villages,  men  used  to  exercise 
their  minds  on  theological  questions,  debating  points  of  Chris¬ 
tian  doctrine  with  no  small  acuteness.  Women  in  particular, 
pick  up  at  the  public  schools  and  from  the  popular  magazines 
far  more  miscellaneous  information  than  the  women  of  any  Eu¬ 
ropean  country  possess,  and  this  naturally  tells  on  the  intelli¬ 
gence  of  the  men.  Almost  everywhere  one  finds  women’s  clubs 
in  which  literary,  artistic,  and  Social  questions  are  discussed, 
and  to  which  men  of  mark  are  brought  to  deliver  lectures. 

That  the  education  of  the  masses  is  nevertheless  a  super¬ 
ficial  education  goes  without  saying.  It  is  sufficient  to  enable 
them  to  think  they  know  something  about  the  great  problems 
of  politics  :  insufficient  to  show  them  how  little  they  know. 
The  public  elementary  school  gives  everybody  the  key  to 
knowledge  in  making  reading  and  writing  familiar,  but  it  has 
not  time  to  teach  him  how  to  use  the  key,  whose  use  is  in  fact, 
by  the  pressure  of  daily  work,  almost  confined  to  the  newspaper 
and  the  magazine.  So  we  may  say  that  if  the  political  educa¬ 
tion  of  the  average  American  voter  be  compared  with  that  of 
the  average  voter  in  Europe,  it  stands  high  ;  but  if  it  be  compared 
with  the  functions  which  the  theory  of  the  American  government 
lays  on  him,  which  its  spirit  implies,  which  the  methods  of  its 
party  organization  assume,  its  inadequacy  is  manifest.  This 


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observation,  however,  is  not  so  much  a  reproach  to  the  schools, 
which  generally  do  what  English  schools  omit  —  instruct  the 
child  in  the  principles  of  the  Constitution  —  as  a  tribute  to  the 
height  of  the  ideal  which  the  American  conception  of  popular 
rule  sets  up. 

For  the  functions  of  the  citizen  are  not,  as  has  hitherto  been 
the  case  in  Europe,  confined  to  the  choosing  of  legislators,  who 
are  then  left  to  settle  issues  of  policy  and  select  executive  rulers. 
The  American  citizen  is  one  of  the  governors  of  the  Republic. 
Issues  are  decided  and  rulers  selected  by  the  direct  popular  vote. 
Elections  are  so  frequent  that  to  do  his  duty  at  them  a  citizen 
ought  to  be  constantly  watching  public  affairs  with  a  full  com¬ 
prehension  of  the  principles  involved  in  them,  and  a  judgment 
of  the  candidates  derived  from  a  criticism  of  their  arguments 
as  well  as  a  recollection  of  their  past  careers.  The  instruction 
received  in  the  common  schools  and  from  the  newspapers,  and 
supposed  to  be  developed  by  the  practice  of  primaries  and  con¬ 
ventions,  while  it  makes  the  voter  deem  himself  capable  of 
governing,  does  not  fit  him  to  weigh  the  real  merits  of  statesmen, 
to  discern  the  true  grounds  on  which  questions  ought  to  be  de¬ 
cided,  to  note  the  drift  of  events  and  discover  the  direction  in 
which  parties  are  being  carried.  He  is  like  a  sailor  who  knows 
the  spars  and  ropes  of  the  ship  and  is  expert  in  working  her,  but 
is  ignorant  of  geography  and  navigation ;  who  can  perceive 
that  some  of  the  officers  are  smart  and  others  dull,  but  cannot 
judge  which  of  them  is  qualified  to  use  the  sextant  or  will  best 
keep  his  head  during  a  hurricane. 

They  are  a  moral  and  well-conducted  people.  Setting  aside 
the  colluvies  gentium  which  one  finds  in  Western  mining  camps, 
now  largely  filled  by  recent  immigrants,  and  which  popular 
literature  has  presented  to  Europeans  as  far  larger  than  it  really 
is,  setting  aside  also  the  rabble  of  a  few  great  cities  and  the 
negroes  of  the  South,  the  average  of  temperance,  chastity, 
truthfulness,  and  general  probity  is  somewhat  higher  than  in 
any  of  the  great  nations  of  Europe.  The  instincts  of  the  native 
farmer  or  artisan  are  almost  invariably  kindly  and  charitable. 
He  respects  the  law ;  he  is  deferential  to  women  and  indulgent 
to  children ;  he  attaches  an  almost  excessive  value  to  the  pos¬ 
session  of  a  genial  manner  and  the  observance  of  domestic  duties. 

They  are  also  —  and  here  again  I  mean  the  people  of  native 
American  stock,  especially  in  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States,  on 
u 


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the  whole,  a  religious  people.  It  is  not  merely  that  they  respect 
religion  and  its  ministers,  for  that  one  might  say  of  Russians  or 
Sicilians,  not  merely  that  they  are  assiduous  church-goers  and 
Sunday-school  teachers,  but  that  they  have  an  intelligent 
interest  in  the  form  of  faith  they  profess,  are  pious  without 
superstition,  and  zealous  without  bigotry.  The  importance 
which  some  still,  though  all  much  less  than  formerly,  attach 
to  dogmatic  propositions,  does  not  prevent  them  from  feeling 
the  moral  side  of  their  theology.  Christianity  influences  con¬ 
duct,  not  indeed  half  as  much  as  in  theory  it  ought,  but  prob¬ 
ably  more  than  it  does  in  any  other  modern  country,  and  far 
more  than  it  did  in  the  so-called  ages  of  faith. 

Nor  do  their  moral  and  religious  impulses  remain  in  the  soft 
/  haze  of  self-complacent  sentiment.  The  desire  to  expunge  or 
cure  the  visible  evils  of  the  world  is  strong.  Nowhere  are  so 
many  philanthropic  and  reformatory  agencies  at  work.  Zeal 
outruns  discretion,  outruns  the  possibilities  of  the  case,  in  not 
a  few  of  the  efforts  made,  as  well  by  legislation  as  by  voluntary 
action,  to  suppress  vice,  to  prevent  intemperance,  to  purify 
popular  literature. 

Religion  apart,  they  are  an  unreverential  people.  I  do  not 
mean  irreverent,  —  far  from  it ;  nor  do  I  mean  that  they  have 
not  a  great  capacity  for  hero-worship,  as  they  have  many  a  time 
shown.  I  mean  that  they  are  little  disposed,  especially  in  public 
questions  —  political,  economical,  or  social  —  to  defer  to  the 
opinions  of  those  who  are  wiser  or  better  instructed  than  them¬ 
selves.  Everything  tends  to  make  the  individual  independent 
and  self-reliant.  He  goes  early  into  the  world ;  he  is  left  to 
make  his  way  alone  ;  he  tries  one  occupation  after  another,  if  the 
first  or  second  venture  does  not  prosper ;  he  gets  to  think  that 
each  man  is  his  own  best  helper  and  adviser.  Thus  he  is  led,  I 
will  not  say  to  form  his  own  opinions,  for  few  are  those  who  do 
that,  but  to  fancy  that  he  has  formed  them,  and  to  feel  little 
need  of  aid  from  others  towards  correcting  them.  There  is, 
therefore,  less  disposition  than  in  Europe  to  expect  light  and 
leading  on  public  affairs  from  speakers  or  writers.  Oratory 
is  not  directed  towards  instruction,  but  towards  stimulation. 
Special  knowledge,  which  commands  deference  in  applied  science 
*  or  in  finance,  does  not  command  it  in  politics,  because  that  is 
not  deemed  a  special  subject,  but  one  within  the  comprehension 
of  every  practical  man.  Politics  is,  to  be  sure,  a  profession,  and 


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291 


so  far  might  seem  to  need  professional  aptitudes.  But  the 
professional  politician  is  not  the  man  who  has  studied  states¬ 
manship,  but  the  man  who  has  practised  the  art  of  running 
conventions  and  winning  elections. 

Even  that  strong  point  of  America,  the  completeness  and  highly 
popular  character  of  local  government,  contributes  to  lower  the 
standard  of  attainment  expected  in  a  public  man,  because  the 
citizens  judge  of  all  politics  by  the  politics  they  see  first  and 
know  best,  —  those  of  their  township  or  city,  —  and  fancy  that 
he  who  is  fit  to  be  selectman,  or  county  commissioner,  or  aider- 
man,  is  fit  to  sit  in  the  great  council  of  the  nation.  Like  the 
shepherd  in  Virgil,  they  think  the  only  difference  between  their 
town  and  Rome  is  in  its  size,  and  believe  that  what  does  for 
Lafayetteville  will  do  well  enough  for  Washington.  Hence  when 
a  man  of  statesmanlike  gifts  appears,  he  has  little  encouragement 
to  take  a  high  and  statesmanlike  tone,  for  his  words  do  not  neces¬ 
sarily  receive  weight  from  his  position.  He  fears  to  be  instruc¬ 
tive  or  hortatory,  lest  such  an  attitude  should  expose  him  to 
ridicule  ;  and  in  America  ridicule  is  a  terrible  power.  Nothing 
escapes  it.  Few  have  the  courage  to  face  it.  In  the  indulgence 
of  it  even  this  humane  race  can  be  unfeeling. 

They  are  a  busy  people.  I  have  already  observed  that  the 
leisured  class  is  relatively  small,  is  in  fact  confined  to  a  few 
Eastern  cities.  The  citizen  has  little  time  to  think  about  polit¬ 
ical  problems.  Engrossing  all  the  working  hours,  his  avoca¬ 
tion  leaves  him  only  stray  moments  for  this  fundamental  duty. 
It  is  true  that  he  admits  his  responsibilities,  considers  himself 
a  member  of  a  party,  takes  some  interest  in  current  events. 
But  although  he  would  reject  the  idea  that  his  thinking  should 
be  done  for  him,  he  has  not  leisure  to  do  it  for  himself,  and  must 
practically  lean  upon  and  follow  his  party.  It  astonished  me  in 
1870  and  1881  to  find  how  small  a  part  politics  played  in  con¬ 
versation  among  the  best  educated  classes  and  generally  in  the 
cities.  Since  1896  there  has  been  a  livelier  and  more  constant 
interest  in  public  affairs  ;  yet  even  now  business  matters  so  occupy 
the  mind  of  the  financial  and  commercial  classes,  and  athletic 
competitions  the  minds  of  the  uneducated  classes  and  of  the 
younger  sort  in  all  classes,  that  political  questions  are  apt,  except 
at  critical  moments,  to  fall  into  the  background.1  In  a  presi- 

1  The  increased  space  given  to  athletics  and  games  of  all  sorts  in  the  news¬ 
papers  marks  a  change  in  public  taste  no  less  striking  here  than  it  is  in  Britain. 


292 


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dential  year,  and  especially  during  the  months  of  a  presidential 
campaign,  there  is,  of  course,  abundance  of  private  talk,  as  well 
as  of  public  speaking,  but  even  then  the  issues  raised  are  largely 
personal  rather  than  political  in  the  European  sense.  But  at 
other  times  the  visitor  is  apt  to  feel  —  more,  I  think,  than  he 
feels  anywhere  in  Britain  —  that  his  host  has  been  heavily 
pressed  by  his  own  business  concerns  during  the  day,  and  that 
when  the  hour  of  relaxation  arrives  he  gladly  turns  to  lighter  and 
more  agreeable  topics  than  the  state  of  the  nation.  This  remark 
is  less  applicable  to  the  dwellers  in  villages.  There  is  plenty  of 
political  chat  round  the  store  at  the  cross  roads,  and  though  it  is 
rather  in  the  nature  of  gossip  than  of  debate,  it  seems,  along 
with  the  practice  of  local  government,  to  sustain  the  interest  of 
ordinary  folk  in  public  affairs.1 

The  want  of  serious  and  sustained  thinking  is  not  confined 
to  politics.  One  feels  it  even  more  as  regards  economical  and 
social  questions.  To  it  must  be  ascribed  the  vitality  of  certain 
prejudices  and  fallacies  which  could  scarcely  survive  the  con¬ 
tinuous  application  of  such  vigorous  minds  as  one  finds  among 
the  Americans.  Their  quick  perceptions  serve  them  so  well  in 
business  and  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  private  life  that  they  do 
not  feel  the  need  for  minute  investigation  and  patient  reflection 
on  the  underlying  principles  of  things.  They  are  apt  to  ignore 
difficulties,  and  when  they  can  no  longer  ignore  them,  they  will 
evade  them  rather  than  lay  siege  to  them  according  to  the  rules 
of  art.  The  sense  that  there  is  no  time  to  spare  haunts  an  Ameri¬ 
can  even  when  he  might  find  the  time,  and  would  do  best  for 
himself  by  finding  it. 

Some  one  will  say  that  an  aversion  to  steady  thinking  belongs 
to  the  average  man  everywhere.  True.  But  less  is  expected 
from  the  average  man  in  other  countries  than  from  a  people 
who  have  carried  the  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  further 
than  it  has  ever  been  carried  before.  They  are  tried  by  the 
standard  which  the  theory  of  their  government  assumes.  In 

As  it  is  equally  striking  in  the  British  colonies,  one  may  take  it  as  a  feature  com¬ 
mon  to  the  modern  English-speaking  world,  and  to  that  world  only,  for  it  is  scarcely 
discernible  in  Continental  Europe. 

1  The  European  country  where  the  common  people  best  understand  politics 
is  Switzerland.  That  where  they  talk  most  about  politics  is,  I  think,  Greece. 

I  remember,  for  instance,  in  crossing  the  channel  which  divides  Cephalonia 
from  Ithaca,  to  have  heard  the  boatmen  discuss  a  recent  ministerial  crisis  at 
Athens,  during  the  whole  voyage,  with  the  liveliest  interest  and  apparently 
some  knowledge. 


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293 


other  countries  statesmen  or  philosophers  clo,  and  are  expected 
to  do,  the  solid  thinking  for  the  bulk  of  the  people.  Here  the 
people  are  supposed  to  do  it  for  themselves.  To  say  that  they 
do  it  imperfectly  is  not  to  deny  them  the  credit  of  doing  it 
better  than  a  European  philosopher  might  have  predicted. 

They  are  a  commercial  people,  whose  point  of  view  is  pri¬ 
marily  that  of  persons  accustomed  to  reckon  profit  and  loss. 
Their  impulse  is  to  apply  a  direct  practical  test  to  men  and 
measures,  to  assume  that  the  men  who  have  got  on  fastest  are 
the  smartest  men,  and  that  a  scheme  which  seems  to  pay  well 
deserves  to  be  supported.  Abstract  reasonings  they  dislike, 
subtle  reasonings  they  suspect ;  they  accept  nothing  as  practical 
which  is  not  plain,  downright,  apprehensible  by  an  ordinary 
understanding.  Although  open-minded,  so  far  as  willingness 
to  listen  goes,  they  are  hard  to  convince,  because  they  have 
really  made  up  their  minds  on  most  subjects,  having  adopted 
the  prevailing  notions  of  their  locality  or  party  as  truths  due 
to  their  own  reflection. 

It  may  seem  a  contradiction  to  remark  that  with  this  shrewd¬ 
ness  and  the  sort  of  hardness  it  produces,  they  are  nevertheless 
an  impressionable  people.  Yet  this  is  true.  It  is  not  their 
intellect,  however,  that  is  impressionable,  but  their  imagination 
and  emotions,  which  respond  in  unexpected  ways  to  appeals 
made  on  behalf  of  a  cause  which  seems  to  have  about  it  some¬ 
thing  noble  or  pathetic.  They  are  capable  of  an  ideality  sur¬ 
passing  that  of  Englishmen  or  Frenchmen. 

They  are  an  unsettled  people.  In  no  State  of  the  Union  is 
the  bulk  of  the  population  so  fixed  in  its  residence  as  everywhere 
in  Europe ;  in  some  it  is  almost  nomadic.  Except  in  the 
more  stagnant  parts  of  the  South,  nobody  feels  rooted  to  the 
soil.  Here  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow,  he  cannot  readily 
contract  habits  of  trustful  dependence  on  his  neighbours.  Com¬ 
munity  of  interest,  or  of  belief  in  such  a  cause  as  temperance, 
or  protection  for  native  industry,  unites  him  for  a  time  with 
others  similarly  minded,  but  congenial  spirits  seldom  live  long 
enough  together  to  form  a  school  or  type  of  local  opinion  which 
develops  strength  and  becomes  a  proselytizing  force.  Perhaps 
this  tends  to  prevent  the  growth  of  variety  in  opinion.  When 
a  man  arises  with  some  power  of  original  thought  in  politics, 
he  is  feeble  if  isolated,  and  is  depressed  by  his  insignificance, 
whereas  if  he  grows  up  in  favourable  soil  with  sympathetic 


294 


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PART  IV 


minds  around  him,  whom  he  can  in  prolonged  intercourse  per¬ 
meate  with  his  ideas,  he  learns  to  speak  with  confidence  and 
soars  on  the  wings  of  his  disciples.  One  who  considers  the 
variety  of  conditions  under  which  men  live  in  America  may 
certainly  find  ground  for  surprise  that  there  should  be  so  few 
independent  schools  of  opinion. 

But  even  while  an  unsettled,  they  are  nevertheless  an  asso¬ 
ciative,  because  a  sympathetic  people.  Although  the  atoms 
are  in  constant  motion,  they  have  a  strong  attraction  for  one 
another.  Each  man  catches  his  neighbour’s  sentiment  more 
quickly  and  easily  than  happens  with  the  English.  That  sort 
of  reserve  and  isolation,  that  tendency  rather  to  repel  than  to 
invite  confidence,  which  foreigners  attribute  to  the  Englishman, 
though  it  belongs  rather  to  the  upper  and  middle  class  than  to 
the  nation  generally,  is,  though  not  absent,  yet  less  marked  in 
America.1  It  seems  to  be  one  of  the  notes  of  difference  between 
the  two  branches  of  the  race.  In  the  United  States,  since  each 
man  likes  to  feel  that  his  ideas  raise  in  other  minds  the  same 
emotions  as  in  his  own,  a  sentiment  or  impulse  is  rapidly  propa¬ 
gated  and  quickly  conscious  of  its  strength.  Add  to  this  the 
aptitude  for  organization  which  their  history  and  institutions 
have  educed,  and  one  sees  how  the  tendency  to  form  and  the 
talent  to  work  combinations  for  a  political  or  any  other  object 
has  become  one  of  the  great  features  of  the  country.  Hence, 
too,  the  immense  strength  of  party.  It  rests  not  only  on  interest 
and  habit  and  the  sense  of  its  value  as  a  means  of  working  the 
government,  but  also  on  the  sympathetic  element  and  instinct 
of  combination  ingrained  in  the  national  character. 

They  are  a  changeful  people.  Not  fickle,  for  they  are  if  any¬ 
thing  too  tenacious  of  ideas  once  adopted,  too  fast  bound  by 
party  ties,  too  willing  to  pardon  the  errors  of  a  cherished  leader. 
But  they  have  what  chemists  call  low  specific  heat ;  they  grow 
warm  suddenly  and  cool  as  suddenly ;  they  are  liable  to  swift 
and  vehement  outbursts  of  feeling  which  rush  like  wildfire 
across  the  country,  gaining  glow,  like  the  wheel  of  a  railway 

1 1  do  not  mean  that  Americans  are  more  apt  to  unbosom  themselves  to 
strangers,  but  that  they  have  rather  more  adaptiveness  than  the  English,  and 
are  less  disposed  to  stand  alone  and  care  nothing  for  the  opinion  of  others.  It  is 
worth  noticing  that  Americans  travelling  abroad  seem  to  get  more  easily  into 
touch  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  than  the  English  do  ;  nor  have  they 
the  English  habit  of  calling  those  inhabitants  —  Frenchmen,  for  instance,  or 
Germans  —  “the  natives.” 


CHAP.  LXXX 


NATIONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 


295 


car,  by  the  accelerated  motion.  The  very  similarity  of  ideas 
and  equality  of  conditions  which  makes  them  hard  to  convince 
at  first  makes  a  conviction  once  implanted  run  its  course  the 
more  triumphantly.  They  seem  all  to  take  flame  at  once, 
because  what  has  told  upon  one,  has  told  in  the  same  way  upon 
all  the  rest,  and  the  obstructing  and  separating  barriers  which 
exist  in  Europe  scarcely  exist  here.  Nowhere  is  the  saying 
so  applicable  that  nothing  succeeds  like  success.  The  native 
American  or  so-called  Know-nothing  party  had  in  two  years 
from  its  foundation  become  a  tremendous  force,  running,  and 
seeming  for  a  time  likely  to  carry,  its  own  presidential  candidate. 
In  three  years  more  it  was  dead  without  hope  of  revival.  Now 
and  then  as  for  instance  in  the  elections  of  1874-75,  and  again 
in  those  of  1890,  there  comes  a  rush  of  feeling  so  sudden  and 
tremendous,  that  the  name  of  Tidal  Wave  has  been  invented 
to  describe  it. 

After  this  it  may  seem  a  paradox  to  add  that  the  Americans 
are  a  conservative  people.  Yet  any  one  who  observes  the  power 
of  habit  among  them,  the  tenacity  with  which  old  institutions 
and  usages,  legal  and  theological  formulas,  have  been  clung 
to,  will  admit  the  fact.  Moreover,  prosperity  helps  to  make 
them  conservative.  They  are  satisfied  with  the  world  they  live 
in,  for  they  have  found  it  a  good  world,  in  which  they  have 
grown  rich  and  can  sit  under  their  own  vine  and  fig  tree,  none 
making  them  afraid.  They  are  proud  of  their  history  and  of 
their  Constitution,  which  has  comb  out  of  the  furnace  of  civil 
war  with  scarcely  the  smell  of  fire  upon  it.  It  is  little  to  say 
that  they  do  not  seek  change  for  the  sake  of  change,  because 
the  nations  that  do  this  exist  only  in  the  fancy  of  alarmist  phi¬ 
losophers.  There  are  nations,  however,  whose  impatience  of 
existing  evils,  or  whose  proneness  to  be  allured  by  visions  of  a 
brighter  future,  makes  them  under-estimate  the  risk  of  change, 
nations  that  will  pull  up  the  plant  to  see  whether  it  has  begun 
to  strike  root.  This  is  not  the  way  of  the  Americans.  They 
are  no  doubt  ready  to  listen  to  suggestions  from  any  quarter. 
They  do  not  consider  that  an  institution  is  justified  by  its  exist¬ 
ence,  but  admit  everything  to  be  matter  for  criticism.  Their 
keenly  competitive  spirit  and  pride  in  their  own  ingenuity  have 
made  them  quicker  than  any  other  people  to  adopt  and  adapt 
inventions  :  telephones  were  in  use  in  every  little  town  over 
the  West,  while  in  the  city  of  London  men  were  just  beginning 


296 


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PART  IV 


to  wonder  whether  they  could  be  made  to  pay.  The  Ameri¬ 
cans  have  doubtless  of  late  years  become,  especially  in  the 
West,  an  experimental  people,  so  far  as  politics  and  social  legis¬ 
lation  are  concerned.  Yet  there  is  also  a  sense  in  which  they 
are  at  bottom  a  conservative  people,  in  virtue  both  of  the  deep 
instincts  of  their  race  and  of  that  practical  shrewdness  which 
*  recognizes  the  value  of  permanence  and  solidity  in  institutions. 
They  are  conservative  in  their  fundamental  beliefs,  in  the  struc¬ 
ture  of  their  governments,  in  their  social  and  domestic  usages. 
They  are  like  a  tree  whose  pendulous  shoots  quiver  and  rustle 
with  the  lightest  breeze,  while  its  roots  enfold  the  rock  with  a 
grasp  which  storms  cannot  loosen. 


CHAPTER  LXXXI 


CLASSES  AS  INFLUENCING  OPINION 

These  are  some  of  the  characteristics  of  American  opinion 
in  general,  and  may,  if  I  am  right  in  the  description  given,  be 
discovered  in  all  classes  of  the  native  white  population.  They 
exist,  however,  in  different  measure  in  different  classes,  and  the 
above  account  of  them  needs  to  be  supplemented  by  some 
remarks  on  the  habits  and  tendencies  of  each  class.  I  do  not,  of 
course,  propose  to  describe  the  present  opinions  of  classes,  for 
that  would  require  an  account  of  current  political  questions  : 
my  aim  is  merely  to  state  such  general  class  characters  as  go  to 
affect  the  quality  and  vigour  of  opinion.  Classes  are  in  Amer¬ 
ica  by  no  means  the  same  thing  as  in  the  greater  nations  of 
Europe.  One  must  not,  for  political  purposes,  divide  them  as 
upper  and  lower,  richer  and  poorer,  but  rather  according  to  the 
occupations  they  respectively  follow  and  the  conditions  of  life 
that  constitute  their  environment.  Their  specific  characters, 
as  a  naturalist  would  say,  are  less  marked  even  in  typical  indi¬ 
viduals  than  would  be  the  case  in  Europe,  and  are  in  many 
individuals  scarcely  recognizable.  Nevertheless,  the  differences 
between  one  class  and  another  are  sufficient  to  produce  dis¬ 
tinctly  traceable  influences  on  the  political  opinion  of  the  nation, 
and  to  colour  the  opinions,  perhaps  even  to  determine  the  polit¬ 
ical  attitude,  of  the  district  where  a  particular  class  predomi¬ 
nates. 

I  begin  with  the  farmers,  because  they  are,  if  not  numerically 
the  largest  class,  at  least  the  class  whose  importance  is  most 
widely  felt.  As  a  rule  they  are  owners  of  their  land  ;  and  as 
a  rule  the  farms  are  small,  running  from  forty  or  fifty  up  to 
three  hundred  acres.  In  a  few  places,  especially  in  the  West, 
great  landowners  let  farms  to  tenants,  and  in  some  parts  of  the 
South  one  finds  large  estates  cultivated  by  small  tenants,  often 
negroes.  But  far  more  frequently  the  owner  tills  the  land  and 
the  tiller  owns  it.  The  proportion  of  hired  labourers  to  farmers 

297 


298 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


is  therefore  very  much  smaller  than  in  England,  partly  because 
farms  are  usually  of  a  size  permitting  the  farmer  and  his  family 
to  do  much  of  the  work  by  themselves,  partly  because  machinery 
is  more  extensively  used,  especially  in  the  level  regions  of  the 
West.  The  labourers,  or,  as  they  are  called,  the  “ hired  men,” 
do  not,  taking  the  country  as  a  whole,  form  a  social  stratum 
distinct  from  the  farmers,  and  there  is  so  little  distinction  in 
education  or  rank  between  them  that  one  may  practically  treat 
employer  and  employed  as  belonging  to  the  same  class. 

The  farmer  is  a  keener  and  more  enterprising  man  than  in 
Europe,  with  more  of  that  commercial  character  which  one  ob¬ 
serves  in  Americans,  far  less  anchored  to  a  particular  spot, 
and  of  course  subject  to  no  such  influences  of  territorial  mag¬ 
nates  as  prevail  in  England,  Germany,  or  Italy.  He  has  now, 
in  such  States  as  Illinois  and  Wisconsin,  realized  what  applied 
science  can  do  for  agriculture.  He  is  so  far  a  business  man  as 
sometimes  to  speculate  in  grain  or  bacon.  Yet  he  is  not  free 
from  the  usual  defects  of  agriculturists.  He  is  obstinate,  tena¬ 
cious  of  his  habits,  not  readily  accessible  to  argument.  His 
way  of  life  is  plain  and  simple,  and  he  prides  himself  on  its 
simplicity,  holding  the  class  he  belongs  to  to  be  the  mainstay 
of  the  country,  and  regarding  city-folk  and  lawyers  with  a  mix¬ 
ture  of  suspicion  and  jealousy,  because  he  deems  them  as  in¬ 
ferior  to  himself  in  virtue  as  they  are  superior  in  adroitness, 
and  likely  to  outwit  him.  Sparing  rather  than  stingy  in  his  out¬ 
lays,  and  living  mainly  on  the  produce  of  his  own  fields,  he  has 
so  little  ready  money  that  small  sums  appear  large  to  him ; 
and  as  he  fails  to  see  why  everybody  cannot  thrive  and  be 
happy  on  $1500  a  year,  he  thinks  that  figure  a  sufficient 
salary  for  a  county  or  district  official,  and  regulates  his  notions 
of  payment  for  all  other  officials,  judges  included,  by  the  same 
standard.  To  belong  to  a  party,  and  support  it  by  his  vote, 
seems  to  him  part  of  a  citizen’s  duty,  but  his  interests  in  national 
politics  are  secondary  to  those  he  feels  in  agriculturists’  questions, 
particularly  in  the  great  war  against  monopolies  and  capitalists, 
which  the  power  and  in  some  cases  the  tyranny  of  the  railroad 
companies  has  provoked  in  the  West.  Naturally  a  grumbler, 
as  are  his  brethren  everywhere,  finding  his  isolated  life  dull,  and 
often  unable  to  follow  the  causes  which  depress  the  price  of  prod¬ 
uce,  he  is  the  more  easily  persuaded  that  his  grievances  are 
due  to  the  combinations  of  designing  speculators.  The  agri- 


chap,  lxxxi  CLASSES  AS  INFLUENCING  OPINION 


299 


cultural  newspaper  to  which  he  subscribes  is  of  course  written 
up  to  his  prejudices,  ancl  its  adulation  of  the  farming  class  con¬ 
firms  his  belief  that  he  who  makes  the  wealth  of  the  country  is 
tricked  out  of  his  proper  share  in  its  prosperity.  Thus  he  now 
and  then  makes  desperate  attempts  to  right  himself  by  legisla¬ 
tion,  lending  too  ready  an  ear  to  politicians  who  promise  him 
redress  by  measures  possibly  unjust  and  usually  unwise.  In  his 
impatience  with  the  regular  parties,  he  has  been  apt  to  vote  for 
those  who  call  themselves  a  People’s  or  Farmer’s  party,  and  who 
dangled  before  him  the  hope  of  getting  “cheap  money,”  of  re¬ 
ducing  the  expenses  of  legal  proceedings,  and  of  compelling  the 
railroads  to  carry  his  produce  at  unremunerative  rates.  How¬ 
ever,  after  all  said  and  done,  he  is  an  honest,  kindly  sort  of  man, 
hospitable,  religious,  patriotic  :  the  man  whose  hard  work  has 
made  the  West  what  it  is.  It  is  chiefly  in  the  West  that  one  must 
now  look  for  the  well-marked  type  I  have  tried  to  draw,  yet  not 
always  in  the  newer  West ;  for,  in  regions  like  northern  Minne¬ 
sota,  Wisconsin,  and  Dakota,  the  farming  population  is  mainly 
foreign,  —  Scandinavian  and  German,  —  while  the  native  Ameri¬ 
cans  occupy  themselves  with  trading  and  railroad  management. 
However,  the  Scandinavians  and  Germans  acquire  in  a  few 
years  many  of  the  characteristics  of  the  native  farmer,  and  follow 
the  political  lead  given  by  the  latter.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
Republic,  the  agriculturists  were,  especially  in  the  middle  and 
the  newer  parts  of  the  Southern  States,  the  backbone  of  the 
Democratic  party,  sturdy  supporters  of  Jefferson,  and  after¬ 
wards  of  Andrew  Jackson.  When  the  opposition  of  North  and 
South  began  to  develop  itself  and  population  grew  up  beyond 
the  Ohio,  the  pioneers  from  New  England  who  settled  in  that 
country  gave  their  allegiance  to  the  Whig  party ;  and  in  the 
famous  “log  cabin  and  hard  cider”  campaign,  which  carried 
the  election  of  General  Harrison  as  President,  that  worthy, 
taken  as  a  type  of  the  hardy  backwoodsman,  made  the  Western 
farmer  for  the  first  time  a  noble  and  poetical  figure  to  the  popular 
imagination.  Nowadays  he  is  less  romantic,  yet  still  one  of  the 
best  elements  in  the  country.  He  stood  by  the  Union  during 
the  war,  and  gave  his  life  freely  for  it.  For  many  years  after¬ 
wards  his  vote  carried  the  Western,  and  especially  the  North¬ 
western  States  for  the  Republican  party,  which  was  to  him  still 
the  party  which  saved  the  Union  and  protected  the  negro. 

The  shopkeepers  and  small  manufacturers  may  be  said  to 


300 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


form  a  second  class,  though  in  the  smaller  towns,  of  the  West 
especially,  their  interests  are  so  closely  interwoven  with  those 
of  the  cultivators,  and  their  way  of  life  so  similar,  that  there  is 
little  special  to  remark  about  them.  In  the  larger  towns  they 
are  sharper  and  more  alive  to  what  is  passing  than  the  rural 
population,  but  their  intellectual  horizon  is  not  much  wider. 
A  sort  of  natural  selection  carries  the  more  ambitious  and  eager 
spirits  into  the  towns,  for  the  native  American  dislikes  the 
monotony  and  isolation  of  a  farm  life  with  its  slender  prospect 
of  wealth.  To  keep  a  store  in  a  “corner  lot”  is  the  ambition  of 
the  keen-witted  lad.  The  American  shopkeeper,  it  need  hardly 
be  said,  has  not  the  obsequiousness  of  his  European  congener, 
and  is  far  from  fancying  that  retail  trade  has  anything  degrading 
about  it.  He  is  apt  to  take  more  part  in  local  politics  than  the 
farmer,  but  less  apt  to  become  a  member  of  a  State  legislature, 
because  he  can  seldom  leave  his  store  as  the  farmer  can  at  cer¬ 
tain  seasons  leave  his  land.  He  reads  more  newspapers  than  the 
farmer  does,  and  of  course  learns  more  from  current  talk.  His 
education  has  been  better,  because  city  schools  are  superior  to 
country  ones.  He  is  perhaps  not  so  certain  to  go  solid  for  his 
party.  He  has  less  ground  of  quarrel  with  the  railroads,  but  if 
connected  with  a  manufacturing  industry,  is  of  course  more  likely 
to  be  interested  in  tariff  questions,  or,  in  other  words,  to  be  a 
Protectionist.  His  occupation,  however,  seldom  gives  him 
any  direct  personal  motive  for  supporting  one  party  more  than 
another,  and  he  has  less  of  that  political  timidity  which  Euro¬ 
peans  take  to  be  the  note  of  the  typical  bourgeois  than  the  retail 
dealer  of  France  or  England. 

The  working  men,  by  which  I  mean  those  who  toil  with  their 
hands  for  wages,  form  a  less  well-marked  class  than  is  the  case 
in  most  parts  of  Europe,  and  have  not  so  many  sub-classes 
within  their  own  body,  though  of  course  the  distinction  between 
skilled  and  unskilled  labour  makes  itself  felt,  and  one  may  say, 
speaking  generally,  that  all  unskilled  labourers  are  comparatively 
recent  immigrants.  The  native  work-people  are  of  course 
fairly  educated ;  they  read  the  daily  newspapers,  while  their 
women  may  take  a  weekly  religious  journal  and  a  weekly  or 
monthly  magazine ;  many  of  them,  especially  in  the  smaller 
cities,  belong  to  a  congregation  in  whose  concerns  they  are 
generally  interested.  Most  are  total  abstainers.  Their  wives 
have  probably  had  a  longer  schooling  and  read  more  widely 


301 


chap,  lxxxi  CLASSES  AS  INFLUENCING  OPINION 


than  they  do  themselves.  In  the  smaller  towns  both  in  New 
England  and  the  West,  and  even  in  some  of  the  large  cities, 
such  as  Philadelphia  and  Chicago,  the  richer  part  of  them  own 
the  houses  they  live  in,  wooden  houses  in  the  suburbs  with  a 
little  verandah  and  a  bit  of  garden,  and  thus  feel  themselves  to 
have  a  stake  in  the  country.  Their  womankind  dress  with 
so  much  taste  that  on  Sunday,  or  when  you  meet  them  in 
the  steam  cars,  you  would  take  them  for  persons  in  easy  circum¬ 
stances.  Till  the  latter  part  of  last  century,  strikes  were  less 
frequent  than  in  England,  nor,  in'  spite  of  the  troubles  of  recent 
years,  has  there  hitherto  existed  any  general  sense  of  hostility 
to  employers.  This  is  due  partly  to  the  better  circumstances 
of  the  workmen,  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  passage  from  the 
one  class  to  the  other  is  easy  and  frequent.  Thus,  notwith¬ 
standing  the  existence  of  so-called  Labour  parties,  and  the  crea¬ 
tion  of-  a  vast  organization  embracing  all  trades  over  the  whole 
Union,  there  has  hitherto  been  less  of  collective  class  feeling  and 
class  action  among  workmen  than  in  England,1  certainly  much 
less  than  in  France  or  Germany.  Politicians  have  of  late  years 
begun  to  pose  as  the  special  friends  of  the  working  man.  Al¬ 
though  in  a  country  where  the  popular  vote  is  omnipotent 
there  seems  something  absurd  in  assuming  that  the  working  man 
is  weak  and  stands  in  need  of  special  protection,  still  the  great 
power  of  capital,  the  illegitimate  means  by  which  that  power 
acts  upon  legislatures,  the  growing  disparities  of  fortune,  and  the 
fact  that  rich  men  bear  less  than  their  due  share  of  taxation, 
have  furnished  a  basis  for  labour  agitation.  While  contributing 
as  many  recruits  to  the  army  of  professional  politicians  as  do  the 
other  classes,  the  wage-earning  class  is  no  more  active  in  political 
work  than  they  are,  and  furnishes  few  candidates  for  State  or 
Federal  office.  Till  recently  little  demand  was  made  for  the 
representation  of  labour  as  labour  either  in  Congress  or  in  State 
legislatures.  There  are  of  course  many  members  who  have 
begun  life  as  operatives ;  but  very  few '  in  Congress  (though 
some  in  the  State  legislatures)  whose  special  function  or  claim 
it  is  to  be  the  advocates  of  their  whilom  class.  Such  progress 

1  An  experienced  American  friend  writes  me:  “Although  immigrants  from 
Great  Britain  are  the  best  of  all  our  immigrants,  English  workmen  are  more 
apt  to  stir  up  trouble  with  their  employers  than  those  of  any  other  race.  Em¬ 
ployers  say  that  they  fear  their  English  workmen,  because  they  are  generally 
suspicious,  and  disbelieve  in  the  possibility  of  anything  but  hostility  between 
men  and  masters.” 


302 


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PART  IV 


* 

as  communistic  or  socialistic  movements  have  made  has  been 
chiefly  among  the  immigrants  from  Central  Europe,  Germans, 
Slavs,  and  Italians,  with  a  smaller  contingent  of  Irish  and  Swed¬ 
ish  support,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  say  how  great  this  progress  is, 
for  the  educated  classes  had  known  and  cared  very  little  about 
the  growth  of  new  doctrines  among  the  workers  until  the  out¬ 
break  of  Anarchistic  violence  at  Chicago  in  1886  turned  all  eyes 
upon  a  new  source  of  peril  to  civilization.  One  question,  how¬ 
ever,  which  never  fails  to  excite  the  workmen,  both  natives  and 
immigrants,  is  the  introduction  of  cheap  foreign  labour,  and 
the  bringing  in  of  workmen  to  fill  the  place  of  strikers.  A 
statute  forbids  the  landing  in  the  country  of  persons  coming 
under  a  contract  to  work.  In  the  Pacific  States  the  feeling 
against  the  Chinese,  who  took  lower  wages,  often  one-half  of 
what  whites  obtain,  was  for  a  time  not  merely  the  prime  factor 
in  Californian  State  politics,  but  induced  the  Senate  to  ratify 
treaties  and  Congress  to  pass  Acts,  the  last  one  extremely 
stringent,  forbidding  their  entry.  One  trade,  however,  the 
Chinese  are  permitted  to  follow,  and  have  now  almost  monop¬ 
olized,  that  of  washermen  —  one  cannot  say,  washer-women. 
Even  a  small  city  rarely  wants  its  Chinese  laundry.  The  entry, 
early  in  the  present  century,  of  a  large  number  of  Japanese, 
roused  similar  antagonism,  and  led  to  negotiations  with  the 
government  of  Japan  by  which  the  influx  was  stopped. 

It  will  be  gathered  from  what  I  have  said  that  there  is  no  want 
of  intelligence  or  acuteness  among  the  working  people.  For 
political  purposes,  and  setting  apart  what  are  specifically  called 
labour  questions,  there  is  really  little  difference  between  them 
and  other  classes.  Their  lights  are  as  good  as  those  of  farmers 
or  traders,  their  modes  of  thinking  similar.  They  are,  however, 
somewhat  more  excitable  and  more  easily  fascinated  by  a  vigor¬ 
ous  demagogue,  as  the  success  of  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler 
among  the  shoemakers  of  his  Massachusetts  district  proved.  A 
powerful  speaker  with  a  flow  of  humour  and  audacity  will  go 
farther  with  them  than  with  the  more  commercially-minded 
shopkeeper,  or  the  more  stolid  agriculturist,  if  indeed  one  can 
call  any  American  stolid. 

The  ignorant  masses  of  such  great  cities  as  New  York,  Cincin¬ 
nati,  Chicago,  San  Francisco,  together  with  the  dangerously 
large  “tramp”  class,  are  hardly  to  be  reckoned  with  the  working 
class  I  have  been  describing,  but  answer  better  to  what  is  called 


chap,  lxxxi  CLASSES  AS  INFLUENCING  OPINION 


303 


in  England  “the  residuum.”  They  are  no  longer  Irish  and 
Germans,  for  these  races  have  moved  upward  in  the  social 
scale,  but  chiefly  Poles  and  other  Slavs,  Italians,  Negroes,  and 
such  native  Americans  as  have  fallen  from  their  first  estate  into 
drink  and  penury.  The  most  recent  immigrants  can  hardly 
be  said  to  possess  political  opinions,  for  they  have  not  had  time 
to  learn  to  know  the  institutions  of  their  new  country.  But  as 
to  the  earlier  incomers,  and  especially  the  Irish,  Germans,  and 
Scandinavians,  one  may  note  three  sentiments  which  have 
affected  them,  besides  adhesion  to  the  party  which  snapped 
them  up  when  they  landed,  or  which  manipulates  them  by 
leaders  of  their  own  race.  One  of  these  sentiments  is  religious 
sympathy.  Such  of  them  as  are  Roman  Catholics  have  been 
generally  disposed  to  stand  by  whichever  party  may  obtain  the 
favour,  or  be  readiest  to  serve  the  interests,  of  their  church.1 
Another  is  the  protection  of  the  liquor  traffic.  The  German 
loves  his  beer,  and  deems  a  land  where  this  most  familiar  of 
pleasures  is  unattainable  no  land  of  freedom,  while  the  Irish¬ 
man  stood  by  a  trade  in  which  his  countrymen  are  largely 
engaged.  And,  thirdly,  the  American-Irish  were  for  a  time 
largely  swayed  by  dislike  of  England,  which  has  made  them  de¬ 
sire  to  annoy  her,  and  if  possible  to  stir  up  a  quarrel  between 
her  and  the  land  of  their  adoption.  This  feeling  began  to  decline 
after  1886,  and  is  now  confined  to  a  comparatively  small  part  of 
the  population  of  Irish  origin. 

The  European  reader  must  not  suppose  that  this  lowest  sec¬ 
tion  of  the  labouring  class  is  wholly  composed  of  immigrants, 
nor  that  all  of  the  city-dwelling  immigrants  belong  to  it, 
for  there  are  many  foreigners  whose  education  and  skill  place 
them  at  once  on  a  level  with  the  native  American  workmen.2 
Its  importance  in  politics  arises  less  from  its  number,  than  from 
the  cohesion,  in  every  great  city,  of  so  much  of  it  as  is  massed 
there.  Being  comparatively  ignorant,  and  for  the  most  part 
not  yet  absorbed  into  the  American  population,  it  is  not  moved 
by  the  ordinary  political  forces,  nor  amenable  to  the  ordinary 
intellectual  and  moral  influences,  but  “goes  solid”  as  its  leaders 
direct  it,  a  fact  which  gives  these  leaders  exceptional  weight. 


1  Those  of  the  German  immigrants  who  remain  in  the  great  cities  instead  of 
going  West,  seem  to  be  mostly  Catholics,  at  least  in  name  ;  as  are  also  the 
Poles,  Czechs,  and  Slovaks. 

2  As  to  the  recent  emigrants,  see  Chapter  XCII.  post. 


304 


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PART  IV 


and  may  enable  them,  when  parties  are  nearly  balanced,  to 
dictate  their  terms  to  statesmen.  The  disposition  to  truckle 
to  the  forces  of  disorder,  and  to  misuse  the  power  of  pardoning 
offenders,  which  prominent  State  officials  have  sometimes 
evinced,  is  due  to  the  fear  of  the  so-called  “Labour  Vote/7  a 
vote  which  would  have  much  less  power  were  the  suffrage 
restricted  to  persons  who  have  resided  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
in  the  country.  Nevertheless  the  immigrants  are  not  so  largely 
answerable  for  the  faults  of  American  politics  as  a  stranger 
might  be  led  by  the  language  of  many  Americans  to  believe. 
There  has  been  a  disposition  in  the  United  States  to  use  them, 
and  especially  the  Irish,  much  as  the  cat  is  used  in  the  kitchen  to 
account  for  broken  plates  and  food  which  disappears.  The 
cities  have  no  doubt  suffered  from  the  immigrant  vote.  But 
New  York  was  not  an  Eden  before  the  Irish  came  ;  and  would  not 
become  an  Eden  were  they  all  to  return  to  green  Erin,  or  move 
on  to  arid  Arizona. 

The  capitalist  class  consists  of  large  merchants,  manufacturers, 
bankers,  and  railroad  men,  with  a  few  great  land  speculators 
and  directors  of  trading  or  carrying  companies.  How  much 
capacity  and  energy,  how  much  wealth  and  influence  there  is  in 
this  small  class  everybody  knows.  It  includes  the  best  executive 
ability  of  the  country,  and  far  more  ability  than  is  devoted  to 
the  public  service  of  the  Stat'e.  Though  such  persons  do  not, 
and  hardly  could,  hold  aloof  from  politics  —  some  of  them  are 
indeed  zealous  party  men  —  their  interest  lies  chiefly  in  using 
politics  for  their  own  purposes,  and  especially  in  resisting  the 
attacks  with  which  they  are  threatened,  sometimes  by  the 
popular  movement  against  monopolists  and  great  corporations, 
sometimes  by  men  anxious  to  reduce  the  present  high  tariff 
which  the  manufacturers  declare  to  be  essential  to  their  indus¬ 
tries.  One-half  of  the  capitalists  are  occupied  in  preaching 
laissez  faire  as  regards  railroad  control,  the  other  half  in  resist¬ 
ing  it  in  railroad  rate  matters,  in  order  to  have  their  goods  carried 
more  cheaply,  and  in  tariff  matters,  in  order  to  protect  industries 
threatened  with  foreign  competition. .  Yet  they  manage  to 
hold  well  together.  Their  practical  talent  does  not  necessarily 
imply  political  insight,  any  more  than  moral  elevation,  nor  have 
they  generally  the  taste  or  leisure  to  think  seriously  about  the 
needs  of  the  State.  In  no  country  does  one  find  so  many  men 
of  eminent  capacity  for  business,  shrewd,  inventive,  forcible, 


chap,  lxxxi  CLASSES  AS  INFLUENCING  OPINION 


305 


and  daring,  who  have  so  few  interests  and  so  little  to  say  outside 
the  sphere  of  their  business  knowledge. 

But  the  wealthy  have  many  ways  of  influencing  opinion  and 
the  course  of  events.  Some  of  them  own,  others  find  means 
of  inspiring,  newspapers.  Many  are  liberal  supporters  of  uni¬ 
versities  and  colleges,  and  it  is  alleged  that  they  occasionally 
discourage  the  promulgation,  by  college  teachers,  of  opinions 
they  dislike.  Presidents  of  great  corporations  have  armies  of 
officials  under  their  orders,  who  cannot  indeed  be  intimidated, 
for  public  opinion  would  resent  that,  yet  may  be  suffered  to 
know  what  their  superior  thinks  and  expects.  Cities,  districts 
of  country,  even  States  or  Territories,  have  much  to  hope  or 
fear  from  the  management  of  a  railway,  and  good  reason  to 
conciliate  its  president.  Moreover,  as  the  finance  of  the  coun¬ 
try  is  in  the  hands  of  these  men  and  every  trader  is  affected  by 
financial  changes,  as  they  control  enormous  joint-stock  enter¬ 
prises  whose  shares  are  held  and  speculated  in  by  hosts  of  private 
persons  of  all  ranks,  their  policy  and  utterances  are  watched 
with  anxious  curiosity,  and  the  line  they  take  determines  the 
conduct  of  thousands  not  directly  connected  with  them.  A 
word  from  several  of  the  great  financiers  would  go  a  long  way 
with  leading  statesmen.  They  are  for  the  most  part  a  steadying 
influence  in  politics,  being  opposed  to  sudden  changes  which 
might  disturb  the  money  market  or  depress  trade,  and  especially 
opposed  to  complications  with  foreign  States.  They  are  there¬ 
fore  par  excellence  the  peace  party  in  America,  for  though  some 
might  like  to  fish  in  troubled  waters,  the  majority  would  have  far 
more  to  lose  than  to  gain. 

There  remains  the  group  of  classes  loosely  called  professional 
men,  of  whom  we  may  dismiss  the  physicians  as  neither  bring¬ 
ing  any  distinctive  element  into  politics,  nor  often  taking  an 
active  interest  therein,  and  the  journalists,  because  they  have 
been  considered  in  treating  of  the  organs  of  opinion,  and  the 
clergy  as,  inhibited  by  public  feeling  from  direct  immixture  in 
political  strife.  In  the  anti-slavery  and  Free  Soil  struggles, 
ministers  of  religion  were  prominent,  as  they  are  now  in  the 
temperance  movement,  and  indeed  will  always  be  when  a 
distinctly  moral  issue  is  placed  before  the  country.  But  in 
ordinary  times,  and  as  regards  most  questions,  they  find  it 
prudent  to  rest  content  with  inculcating  such  sound  principles 
as  will  elevate  their  hearers’  views  and  lead  them  to  vote  for 


306 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


the  best  men.  Some  few,  however,  of  exceptional  zeal  or  un¬ 
usually  well-assured  position  do  appear  on  political  platforms, 
and,  like  the  late  Mr.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  justify  their  courage 
by  their  success.  The  Roman  Catholic  prelates  have  great 
influence  with  their  flocks,  but  are  so  sensible  of  the  displeasure 
which  its  exercise  would  cause  among  the  native  Americans  as 
to  be  guarded  in  political  action,  allowing  themselves  a  freer 
hand  in  promoting  temperance  or  other  moral  causes.  Some 
of  them  have  been  among  the  most  prominent  and  influential 
figures  in  the  country. 

The  lawyers,  who  are  both  barristers  and  attorneys  in  one, 
there  being  no  such  distinction  of  the  profession  into  two  branches 
as  exists  in  Britain  and  France,  are  of  all  classes  that  which 
has  most  to  do  with  politics.1  From  their  ranks  comes  a  large 
part,  probably  a  half,  and  the  better  educated  half,  of  the  pro¬ 
fessional  politicians.  Those  who  do  not  make  politics  a  business 
have  usually  something  to  do  with  it,  and  even  those  who  have 
little  to  do  with  it  enjoy  opportunities  of  looking  behind  the 
scenes.  The  necessities  of  their  practice  oblige  them  to  study 
the  Federal  Constitution  and  the  Constitution  of  their  own 
State,  as  well  as  to  watch  current  legislation.  It  is  therefore 
from  the  legal  profession  that  most  of  the  leading  statesmen  have 
been  drawn,  from  the  days  of  Patrick  Henry,  John  Jay,  and 
John  Adams  down  to  those  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  presi¬ 
dential  candidates  of  the  last  generation.  Hence  both  in  great 
cities  and  in  small  ones  the  lawyer  is  favourably  placed  for  in¬ 
fluencing  opinion.  If  he  be  a  man  of  parts,  he  is  apt  to  be  the 
centre  of  local  opinion,  as  Lincoln  was  in  Springfield,  where  he 
practised  law  and  made  his  reputation.2  When  in  some  great 
community,  like  New  York  or  Boston,  a  demonstration  is  or¬ 
ganized,  some  distinguished  advocate,  such  as  Charles  O’Conor 
was  in  New  York,  such  as  Rufus  Choate  was  in  Boston,  used  to  be 
selected  for  the  oration  of  the  day,  because  he  had  the  power 
of  speech,  and  everybody  knew  him.  Thus  the  lawyers,  if 
less  powerful  in  proportion  to  their  numbers  than  the  capitalists, 
are  perhaps  equally  powerful  as  a  whole,  since  more  numerous 
and  more  locally  active.  Of  course  it  is  only  on  a  very  few  pro- 


1  An  account  of  the  American  Bar  will  be  found  in  a  later  chapter. 

2 1  have  heard  townsmen  of  the  great  President  describe  how  the  front  of  his 
house  used  to  be  a  sort  of  gathering  place  on  summer  evenings,  where  his  racy 
talk  helped  to  mould  the  opinion  of  the  place. 


chap,  lx xxi  CLASSES  AS  INFLUENCING  OPINION 


307 


fessional  questions  that  they  act  together  as  a  class.  Their 
function  is  to  educate  opinion  from  the  technical  side,  and  to 
put  things  in  a  telling  way  before  the  people.  Whether  the  indi¬ 
vidual  lawyer  is  or  is  not  a  better  citizen  than  his  neighbours, 
he  is  likely  to  be  a  shrewder  one,  knowing  more  about  government 
and  public  business  than  most  of  them  do,  and  able  at  least  to 
perceive  the  mischiefs  of  bad  legislation,  which  farmers  or  shop¬ 
keepers  may  faintly  realize.  Thus  on  the  whole  the  influence 
of  the  profession  makes  for  good,  and  though  it  is  often  the  in¬ 
strument  by  which  harm  is  wrought,  it  is  as  often  the  means 
of  revealing  and  defeating  the  tricks  of  politicians,  and  of  keep¬ 
ing  the  wholesome  principles  of  the  Constitution  before  the  eyes 
of  the  nation.  Its  action  in  political  life  may  be  compared  with 
its  function  in  judicial  proceedings.  Advocacy  is  at  the  service 
of  the  just  and  the  unjust  equally,  and  sometimes  makes  the 
worse  appear  the  better  cause,  yet  experience  shows  that  the 
sifting  of  evidence  and  the  arguing  of  points  of  law  tend  on  the 
whole  to  make  justice  prevail. 

There  remain  the  men  of  letters  and  artists,  an  extremely 
small  class  outside  a  few  Eastern  cities,  and  the  teachers,  espe¬ 
cially  those  in  colleges  and  universities.  The  influence  of  literary 
men  has  been  felt  more  through  magazines  than  through  books, 
for  native  authorship  suffered  severely,  till  the  enactment  of 
the  Copyright  Act  of  1891,  from  the  deluge  of  cheap  English 
reprints.  That  of  the  teachers  tells  primarily  on  their  pupils, 
and  indirectly  on  the  circles  to  which  those  pupils  belong,  or  in 
which  they  work  when  they  have  left  college.  For  a  long  time, 
and  especially  during  the  struggle  between  Free  Trade  and  Pro¬ 
tection  and  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  municipal  reform  move¬ 
ment  in  the  latter  part  of  last  century,  “college  professors” 
used  to  be  denounced  by  the  professional  politicians  as  unpracti¬ 
cal,  visionary,  pharisaical,  “kid-gloved,”  “high-toned,”  “un- 
American,”  the  fact  being  that  an  impulse  towards  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  party  methods,  civil  service  reform  and  tariff  reform, 
was  coming  from  the  universities,  and  was  felt  in  the  increased 
political  activity  of  the  better  educated  youth.  The  new  gen¬ 
eration  of  lawyers,  clergymen,  and  journalists,  of  teachers  in  the 
higher  schools  and  indeed  of  business  men  also,  many  of  whom 
now  receive  a  university  education,  have  been  inspired  by  the 
universities,  at  first  chiefly  by  the  older  and  more  highly  devel¬ 
oped  institutions  of  the  Eastern  States,  but  latterly  by  the 


308 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


Universities  of  the  West  also,  with  a  more  serious  and  earnest 
view  of  politics  than  had  prevailed  among  the  richer  classes 
since  the  strain  of  the  Civil  War  passed  away.  Their  horizon 
has  been  enlarged,  their  patriotism  tempered  by  a  sense  of 
national  shortcomings,  and  quickened  by  a  higher  ideal  of 
national  well-being.  The  confidence  that  all  other  prosperity 
will  accompany  material  prosperity,  the  belief  that  good  instincts 
are  enough  to  guide  nations  through  practical  difficulties,  errors 
which  led  astray  so  many  worthy  people  in  the  last  generation, 
are  being  dispelled,  and  a  juster  view  of  the  great  problems  of 
democratic  government  presented.  The  seats  of  learning  and 
education  are  at  present  among  the  most  potent  forces  making 
for  progress  and  the  formation  of  sound  opinion  in  the  United 
States,  and  they  increase  daily  in  the  excellence  of  their  teachers 
no  less  than  in  the  number  of  their  students. 

Before  quitting  this  part  of  the  subject  a  few  general  obser¬ 
vations  are  needed  to  supplement  or  sum  up  the  results  of  the 
foregoing  inquiry. 

There  is  in  the  United  States  no  such  general  opposition  as  in 
continental  Europe  of  upper  and  lower  classes,  richer  and  poorer 
classes.  There  is  no  such  jealousy  or  hostility  as  one  finds  in 
France  between  the  bourgeoisie  and  the  operatives.  In  many 
places  class  distinctions  do  exist  for  the  purposes  of  social  inter¬ 
course.  But  it  is  only  in  the  larger  cities  that  the  line  is  sharply 
drawn  between  those  who  call  themselves  gentlemen  and  those 
others  to  whom,  in  talk  among  themselves,  the  former  set  would 
refuse  this  epithet. 

There  is  no  one  class  or  set  of  men  whose  special  function 
it  is  to  form  and  lead  opinion.  The  politicians  certainly  do 
not.  Public  opinion  leads  them. 

Still  less  is  there  any  governing  class.  The  class  whence 
most  office-holders  come  corresponds,  as  respects  education  and 
refinement,  to  what  would  be  called  the  lower  middle  class  in 
Europe.  But  office-holders  are  not  governors. 

Such  class  issues  as  now  exist  or  have  recently  existed,  seldom, 
or  to  a  small  extent,  coincide  with  issues  between  the  two  great 
parties.  They  are  usually  toyed  with  by  both  parties  alike, 
or  if  such  a  question  becomes  strong  enough  to  be  made  the 
basis  of  a  new  party,  that  party  will  usually  stand  by  itself 
apart  from  the  two  old  and  regular  organizations. 

In  Europe,  classes  have  become  factors  in  politics  either  from 


chap,  lxxxi  CLASSES  AS  INFLUENCING  OPINION 


309 


interest  or  from  passion.  Legislation  or  administration  may 
have  pressed  hardly  on  a  class,  and  the  class  has  sought  to  defend 
and  emancipate  itself.  Or  its  feelings  may  have  been  wounded 
by  past  injury  or  insult,  and  it  may  seek  occasions  for  revenge. 
In  America  the  latter  cause  has  never  existed,  and  till  recently 
neither  was  the  former  apparent,  though  of  late  years  complaints 
have  been  made  that  the  law  deals  unfairly  with  labour  unions.1 
Hence  classes  have  not  been  prime  factors  in  American  politics 
or  in  the  formation  of  native  political  opinion.  In  the  main, 
political  questions  proper  have  held  the  first  place  in  a  voter’s 
mind,  and  questions  affecting  h's  class  the  second.2  The  great 
strikes  which  have  of  late  years  convulsed  large  sections  of  the 
country,  and  the  labour  agitation  which  has  accompanied  them, 
have  brought  new  elements  of  class  passion  and  class  interest 
upon  the  scene. 

The  nation  is  not  an  aggregate  of  classes.  They  exist  within 
it,  but  they  do  not  make  it  up.  You  are  not  struck  by  their 
political  significance  as  you  would  be  in  any  European  country. 
The  people  is  one  people,  although  it  occupies  a  wider  territory 
than  any  other  nation,  and  is  composed  of  elements  from  many 
quarters. 

Even  education  makes  less  difference  between  various  sec¬ 
tions  of  the  community  than  might  be  expected.  One  finds 
among  the  better  instructed  many  of  those  prejudices  and 
fallacies  to  which  the  European  middle  classes  are  supposed 
peculiarly  liable.  Among  the  less  instructed  of  the  native 
Americans,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  comprehension  of  public 
affairs,  a  shrewdness  of  judgment,  and  a  generally  diffused 
interest  in  national  welfare,  exceeding  that  of  the  humbler 
classes  in  Europe.  They  have  shown,  and  notably  on  several 
occasions  within  the  present  century,  a  power  of  responding  to 
the  appeals  made  to  them  by  a  highminded  and  courageous 
leader  which  has  startled  and  quelled  the  machine  politicians, 

1  Those  who  argue  that  legislation  is  unjust  to  the  working  man  have  usually 
blamed  it  less  for  what  it  did  than  for  what  it  omitted  or  did  not  prevent. 
Any  statute  which  bore  harshly  on  any  class  as  a  class  would  in  America  be  re¬ 
pealed  forthwith.  There  is  at  present  in  some  States  an  agitation  for  altering 
the  law  which  restrains  what  is  called  coercive  “picketing”  or  molestation  in 
labour  disputes,  and  also  for  providing  some  more  complete  compensation  for 
accidents. 

2  There  are  exceptions  —  e.g.  tariff  questions  are  foremost  in  the  minds  of 
manufacturers,  the  exclusion  of  Oriental  labourers  in  those  of  Californian  work¬ 
ing  men,  transportation  grievances  often  in  those  of  farmers. 


310 


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PART  IV 


and  cheered  the  hearts  of  those  who  have  faith  in  popular 
government. 

This  is  the  strong  point  of  the  nation.  This  is  what  has  given 
buoyancy  to  the  vessel  of  the  State,  and  enabled  her  to  carry 
with  apparent,  though  perhaps  with  diminishing,  ease  the  dead 
weight  of  ignorance  which  European  emigration  continues  to 
throw  upon  her  decks. 


CHAPTER  LXXXII 


LOCAL  TYPES  OF  OPINION -  EAST,  WEST,  AND  SOUTH 

Both  the  general  tendencies  and  the  class  tendencies  in  the 
development  of  public  opinion  which  I  have  attempted  to 
sketch,  may  be  observed  all  over  the  vast  area  of  the  Union. 
Some,  however,  are  more  powerful  in  one  region,  others  in 
another,  while  the  local  needs  and  feelings  of  each  region  tend 
to  give  a  particular  colour  to  its  views  and  direction  to  its 
aims.  One  must  therefore  inquire  into  and  endeavour  to  de¬ 
scribe  these  local  differences,  so  as,  by  duly  allowing  for  them, 
to  correct  what  has  been  stated  generally  with  regard  to  the 
conditions  under  which  opinion  is  formed,  and  the  questions 
which  evoke  it. 

In  an  earlier  chapter  I  have  classified  the  States  into  five 
groups,  the  North-Eastern  or  New  England  States,  the  Middle 
States,  the  North-Western  States,  the  Southern  States,  and  the 
States  of  the  Pacific  Slope.  For  the  purposes  of  our  present 
inquiry  there  is  no  material  difference  between  the  first  two 
of  these  groups,  but  the  differences  between  the  others  are 
significant.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  there  are,  of  course, 
abundance  of  local  differences  within  these  divisions.  Penn¬ 
sylvania,  for  instance,  is  for  many  purposes  unlike  Ohio.  Georgia 
stands  on  a  higher  level  than  Louisiana.  Idaho  is  more  raw 
than  Illinois.  To  go  into  these  minor  points  of  divergence 
would  involve  a  tedious  discussion,  and  perhaps  confuse  the 
reader  after  all,  so  he  must  be  asked  to  understand  that  this 
chapter  endeavours  to  present  only  the  general  aspect  which 
opinion  wears  in  each  section  of  the  country,  and  that  what  is 
said  of  a  section  generally,  is  not  meant  to  be  taken  as  equally 
applicable  to  every  State  within  it. 

In  the  Eastern  States  the  predominant  influence  is  that  of 
capitalists,  manufacturers,  merchants  —  in  a  word,  of  the  com¬ 
mercial  classes.  The  East  finds  the  capital  for  great  under¬ 
takings  all  over  the  country,  particularly  for  the  making  of 

311 


312 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IY 


railroads,  the  stock  of  which  is  chiefly  held  by  Eastern  investors, 
and  the  presidents  whereof  usually  have  their  central  office  in 
New  York,  though  the  line  may  traverse  the  Western  or  South¬ 
ern  States.  The  East  also  conducts  the  gigantic  trade  with 
Europe.  It  ships  the  grain  and  the  cattle,  the  pork  and  the 
petroleum,  it  “  finances’ ;  the  shipping  of  much  of  the  cotton,  it 
receives  and  distributes  nearly  all  the  manufactured  goods  that 
Europe  sends,  as  well  as  most  of  the  emigrants  from  the  ports 
of  the  Old  World.1  The  arms  of  its  great  bankers  and  mer¬ 
chants  stretch  over  the  whole  Union,  making  those  commercial 
influences  which  rule  in  their  own  seat  potent  everywhere. 
Eastern  opinion  is  therefore  the  most  quickly  and  delicately 
sensitive  to  financial  movements  and  European  influences,  as 
well  as  the  most  firmly  bound  to  a  pacific  policy.  As  in  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  trade  interests  made  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut  anxious  to  avoid  a  breach  with  England,  to 
whose  ports  their  vessels  plied,  so  now,  though  the  shipping 
which  enters  Eastern  ports  is  chiefly  European  (British,  Norwe¬ 
gian,  German,  French),  the  mercantile  connections  of  Ameri¬ 
can  and  European  merchants  and  financiers  are  so  close  that 
an  alarm  of  war  might  produce  widespread  disaster. 

The  East  is  also,  being  the  oldest,  the  best  educated  and 
if  no  longer  the  most  intellectually  active  yet  perhaps  the  most 
intellectually  polished,  quarter  of  the  country.2  Not  only  does 
it  contain  more  men  of  high  culture,  but  the  average  of  knowledge 
and  thought  (excluding  the  mob  of  the  great  cities  and  some 
backward  districts  in  the  hills  of  Pennsylvania)  is  higher  than 
elsewhere.  Its  literary  men  and  eminent  teachers  labour  for  the 
whole  country,  and  its  cities,  which  show  the  lowest  element 
of  the  population  in  their  rabble,  show  also  the  largest  number 
of  men  of  light  and  leading  in  all  professions.  Although 
very  able  newspapers  are  published  in  the  West  as  well  as  in 
the  East,  still  the  tone  of  Eastern  political  discussion  has  been 
more  generally  dignified  and  serious-than  in  the  rest  of  the  Union. 
The  influences  of  Europe,  which,  of  course,  play  first  and  chiefly 
upon  the  East,  are,  so  far  as  they  affect  manners  and  morality, 
by  no  means  an  unmixed  good.  But  in  the  realm  of  thought 

1  Some  Germans  and  Italians  enter  by  New  Orleans  or  the  ports  of  Texas. 

2  The  percentage  of  persons  able  to  read  and  write  is  as  high  in  some  of  the 
Western  States,  such  as  Iowa  and  Nebraska,  as  in  New  England,  but  this  may 
be  because  the  recent  immigrants  depress  the  level  of  New  England. 


CHAP.  LXXXII 


LOCAL  TYPES  OF  OPINION 


313 


Europe  and  its  criticism  are  a  stimulative  force,  which  corrects 
any  undue  appreciation  of  national  virtues,  and  helps  forward 
sound  views  in  economics  and  history.  The  leisured  and  well- 
read  class  to  be  found  in  some  Eastern  cities  is  as  cosmopolitan 
in  tone  as  can  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world,  yet  has  not  lost 
.  the  piquancy  of  its  native  soil.  Its  thought  appropriates 
what  is  fresh  and  sound  in  the  literature  or  scientific  work  of 
Germany,  England,  and  France  more  readily  than  any  of  those 
countries  seems  to  learn  from  each  of  the  others.  These  causes, 
added  to  the  fact  that  the  perversions  of  party  government  have 
been  unusually  gross  among  the  irresponsible  masses  that  crowd 
these  very  cities,  has  roused  a  more  strenuous  opposition  to 
the  so-called  “ machine”  than  in  most  other  parts  of  the  country. 
The  Eastern  voter  has  been  generally  less  bound  to  his  party, 
more  accustomed  to  think  for  himself,  and  to  look  for  light, 
when  he  feels  his  own  knowledge  defective,  to  capable  publicists. 
When,  either  in  Federal  or  State  or  city  politics,  an  indepen¬ 
dent  party  arises,  repudiating  the  bad  nominations  of  one  or 
both  of  the  regular  organizations,  it  is  here  that  it  finds  its 
leaders  and  the  greatest  part  of  its  support.  There  has  also  been 
in  New  England  something  of  the  spirit  of  Puritanism,  cold  and 
keen  as  glacier  air,  with  its  high  standard  of  public  duty  and 
private  honour,  its  disposition  to  apply  the  maxims  of  religion 
to  the  conduct  of  life,  its  sense,  much  needed  in  this  tender¬ 
hearted  country,  that  there  are  times  when  Agag  must  be  hewn 
in  pieces  before  the  Lord  in  Gilgal.  If  the  people  of  New  Eng¬ 
land  and  rural  New  York  had  been  left  unpolluted  by  the  tur¬ 
bid  flood  of  foreign  immigration,  they  would  be  the  fittest  of 
any  in  the  world  for  a  democratic  government.  Evils  there 
would  still  be,  as  in  all  governments,  but  incomparably  less  grave 
than  those  which  now  tax  the  patriotism  of  the  men  who  from 
these  States  hold  up  the  banner  of  reform  for  the  whole  Union. 

It  is  impossible  to  draw  a  line  between  the  East  and  the 
West,  because  the  boundary  is  always  moving  westward. 
In  1870  Ohio  was  typically  western  in  character ;  now  it  has 
as  much  in  common  with  Connecticut  or  New  York  as  with 
Kansas  or  Minnesota.  The  most  distinctive  elements  in  the 
Western  States  are  the  farming  class,  which  here  attains  its 
greatest  strength,  and  the  masses  of  Germans  and  Scandinavians, 
who  fill  whole  districts,  often  outnumbering  the  native  Americans. 
For  many  years  these  immigrants  contributed  so  much  more 


314 


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PART  IV 


largely  to  the  voting  than  to  the  thinking  power  of  the  newer 
States,  that  their  presence  was  one  of  the  main  reasons  why 
the  political  power  of  the  West  exceeded  its  political  capacity. 
They  are  honest,  industrious,  and  worthy  people,  the  parents 
of  good  American  citizens,  useful  men  to  clear  the  woods  and 
break  up  the  prairie,  and  now,  having  learnt  the  institutions 
of  the  country,  they  are  no  longer  behind  their  native  born 
neighbors  in  political  intelligence,  nor  less  ready  to  try  experi¬ 
ments  in  legislation  and  in  the  reform  of  election  methods. 
The  predominance  of  the  agricultural  interest  has  the  faults 
and  merits  indicated  in  the  account  already  given  of  the  farm¬ 
ing  class.  Western  opinion,  though  no  longer  unenlightened, 
still  dislikes  theory,  and  holds  the  practical  man  to  be  the  man 
who,  while  discerning  keenly  his  own  interest,  discerns  nothing 
else  beyond  the  end  of  his  nose.  It  has  boundless  confidence 
in  the  future  of  the  country,  of  the  West  in  particular,  of  its 
own  State  above  all,  caring  not  much  for  what  the  East  thinks, 
and  still  less  for  the  judgment  of  Europe.  It  feels  sure  every¬ 
thing  will  come  right,  and  thinks  “ cheap  transportation”  to 
be  the  one  thing  needful.  Reckless  in  enterprises,  it  is  stingy 
in  paying  its  officials,  judges  included  :  good-natured  and  in¬ 
dulgent  to  a  fault,  it  is  nevertheless  displeased  to  hear  that 
its  senator  lives  in  luxury  at  Washington.  Its  townsfolk  are 
so  much  occupied  in  pushing  their  towns,  between  whose  news¬ 
papers  there  is  a  furious  rivalry  —  they  hate  one  another  as 
Athens  hated  Thebes,  or  Florence  Pisa  —  its  rich  men  in  opening 
up  railroads,  its  farmers  in  their  household  and  field  toil,  labour 
being  scarce  and  dear,  that  politics  were  for  a  long  time  left  to 
the  politicians,  who,  however,  were  not  the  worst  specimens  of 
their  class,  and  the  ordinary  voter  stuck  steadily  to  his  party, 
disliking  “  independents  ”  and  “bolters.”  Now,  however,  the 
wave  of  what  is  called  “  radicalism  ”  which  has  from  time  to 
time  surged  up  along  and  beyond  the  Mississippi,  has  brought 
a  keener  interest  into  political  reform  and  legislative  work,  and 
that  splendid  energy  which  the  Western  men  showed  when,  in 
the  Civil  War  days,  their  stout-hearted,  large-limbed  regiments 
poured  down  to  Southern  battle-fields  has  thrown  more  of  itself 
than  it  had  done  since  those  days,  into  plans  for  improving  the 
methods  of  politics  and  curbing  what  is  held  to  be  the  excessive 
power  of  combined  wealth.  The  Western  man  is  no  more  dis¬ 
posed  than  formerly  to  listen  to  philosophical  reasonings,  or 


CHAP.  LXXXII 


LOCAL  TYPES  OF  OPINION 


315 


trouble  himself  about  coming  dangers,  but  his  sentiment  as 
well  as  his  interest  has  been  so  enlisted  in  these  plans,  that  he  is 
not  likely  soon  to  drop  them. 

The  West  may  be  called  the  most  distinctively  American  part 
of  America,  because  the  points  in  which  it  differs  from  the 
East  are  the  points  in  which  America  as  a  whole  differs  from 
Europe.  But  the  character  of  its  population  differs  in  differ¬ 
ent  regions,  according  to  the  parts  of  the  country  from  which 
the  early  settlers  came.  Now  the  settlers  have  generally 
moved  along  parallels  of  latitude,  and  we  have  therefore  the 
curious  result  that  the  characteristics  of  the  older  States  have 
propagated  themselves  westward  in  parallel  lines  so  that  he 
who  travels  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  will 
find  fewer  differences  to  note  than  he  who,  starting  from  Texas, 
travels  north  to  Manitoba.  Thus  northern  Ohio  was  filled 
from  New  England  and  western  New  York,  and  in  its  turn 
colonized  northern  Illinois,  Michigan,  and  much  of  the  farther 
North-west.  Southern  Ohio  and  Illinois,  together  with  great 
part  of  Indiana,  were  peopled  from  Virginia  and  Kentucky, 
and  the  different  quality  of  these  early  settlers  is  still  trace¬ 
able.  Missouri  was  colonized  from  the  older  Slave  States,  and 
retains  traces  of  their  character.1  Kansas  lies  just  west  of  Mis¬ 
souri,  but  it  received  in  the  days  of  the  Free  Soil  struggle  many 
Puritan  immigrants  from  the  Free  States,  and  shows,  though 
it  used  to  be  called  the  State  of  “cranks,”  a  high  type  of 
political  intelligence.  The  Scandinavians  are  chiefly  in  Wis¬ 
consin,  Minnesota,  and  the  two  Dakotas,  the  Germans  numer¬ 
ous  in  Iowa  also,  and  indeed  all  over  these  newer  States, 
including  Texas.  So  far  back  as  1870  Milwaukee  was  a  German 
rather  than  an  American  city ; 2  and  in  1890  it  appeared  that 
there  were  townships  in  Wisconsin  in  which  the  tax  lists  had 
for  years  been  kept  in  German,  and  counties  in  which  a  paid 
interpreter  was  required  to  enable  the  business  of  the  courts  to 
be  transacted.  Oklahoma,  into  which  settlers  have  swarmed 

1  In  Oregon  there  is  a  district  which  was  settled  by  people  from  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee,  rather  exceptionally,  for  the  outflow  of  these  States  seldom 
moved  so  far  to  the  north.  The  descendants  of  these  immigrants  are  now 
less  prosperous  and  enterprising  than  are  those  of  the  men  who  came  from 
the  Free  States. 

2  Asking  my  way  about  the  streets,  I  found  German  more  helpful  than 
English.  In  the  same  year  it  was  noticeable  that  in  Wisconsin  the  paper 
money  (then  alone  in  use)  had  got  a  marked  smell  from  the  use  of  skins  and 
furs  by  the  newly-arrived  Swedes  and  Norwegians. 


316 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


from  all  parts  of  the  North  West  as  well  as  the  South  West,  is 
pre-eminently  the  land  of  sanguine  radicalism  and  experimen¬ 
tal  legislation.  New  Mexico  and  Arizona  were,  till  Congress  in 
1910  passed  an  act  for  their  admission  as  States,  still  Territories, 
and  the  former  has  a  large  Mexican  element.  Yet  over  them, 
too,  the  network  of  party  organization  has  been  spread,  though, 
of  course,  the  sparser  population  feeds  a  feebler  political  life. 

The  Pacific  Slope,  as  its  inhabitants  call  it,  geographically 
includes  the  States  of  Oregon  and  Washington,  but  Oregon 
and  Washington  resemble  the  North-western  States  in  so  many 
respects  that  they  may  better  be  classed  therewith.  California 
and  Nevada  on  the  other  hand,  to  whom  we  may  now  add 
Arizona,  are  distinctly  peculiar.  They  are  more  Western  than 
the  States  I  have  just  been  describing,  with  the  characteristics 
of  those  States  intensified  and  some  new  features  added.  They 
are  cut  off  by  deserts  and  barren  mountain  ranges  from  the 
agricultural  part  of  the  Mississippi  basin,  nor  is  population  ever 
likely  to  become  really  continuous  across  this  wilderness.  Mining 
industries  play  a  larger  part  in  them  than  in  any  other  State, 
except  Colorado.  Their  inhabitants  are  unsettled  and  fluctuat¬ 
ing,  highly  speculative,  as  one  may  expect  those  who  mine  and 
gamble  in  mining  stocks  to  be.  They  used  to  be  chiefly  occupied 
with  questions  of  their  own,  such  as  Oriental  immigration,  the 
management  of  the  great  Central  and  Southern  Pacific  railroad 
system,  which  has  been  accused  of  dominating  the  trade  and 
industries  of  California ;  and  the  reconcilement  of  the  claims 
of  miners  and  agriculturists  to  the  waters  of  the  rivers,  which 
each  set  seeks  to  appropriate,  and  which  the  former  have  asserted 
the  right  to  foul.  Now  forces  and  tendencies,  generally  similar, 
are  at  work  on  both  sides  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  so  are 
the  issues  which  occupy  men’s  minds.  Yet  public  opinion  is 
here,  in  spite  of  the  proverbial  shrewdness,  energy,  and  hardi¬ 
hood  of  the  men  of  the  Pacific,  somewhat  more  fitful  and  gusty, 
less  amenable  to  the  voice  of  sober  reason,  and  less  deferential 
to  the  authority  of  statesmen,  or  even  of  party  than  anywhere 
else  in  the  Union.  “Interests,”  such  as  those  of  a  great  mine¬ 
owning  group,  or  of  a  railroad,  are  immensely  powerful,  and 
the  reactions  against  them  not  less  so. 

Of  the  South,  the  solid  South,  as  it  is  often  called,  because 
its  presidential  vote  has  since  1876  been  cast  almost  entire  for 
the  Democrats,  some  account  will  be  found  in  three  later  chap- 


CHAP.  LXXXII 


LOCAL  TYPES  OF  OPINION 


317 


ters,  one  sketching  its  history  since  the  war  ended,  two  others 
describing  the  condition  of  the  negro  and  his  relations  to  the 
whites.  Here,  therefore,  I  will  speak  only  of  the  general  character 
of  political  opinion  and  action  in  the  former  Slave  States.  The 
phenomena  they  present  are  unexampled.  Equality  before  the 
law  is  in  theory  absolute  and  perfect,  being  secured  by  the 
Federal  Constitution.  Yet  the  political  subjection  of  a  large  part 
(in  one  State  a  majority)  of  the  population  is  no  less  complete. 

There  are  three  orders  of  men  in  the  South. 

The  first  is  the  upper  or  educated  class,  including  the  chil¬ 
dren  of  the  planting  aristocracy  which  ruled  before  the  Civil 
War,  together  with  the  Northern  men  who  have  since  1865 
settled  in  the  towns  for  the  purposes  of  trade  or  manufacture. 
Of  this  order  more  than  nine-tenths  —  those  in  fact  who  have 
survived  from  the  old  aristocracy,  together  with  those  who 
have  since  risen  from  the  humbler  class,  and  with  most  of  the 
newer  arrivals  —  belong  to  the  Democratic  party.  Along  with 
the  high  spirit  and  self-confidence  which  are  proper  to  a  ruling 
race,  these  Southern  men  showed  an  enlargement  of  view 
and  an  aptitude  for  grasping  decided  and  continuous  lines  of 
policy,  in  fact  a  turn  for  statesmanship  as  contrasted  with 
mere  politics,  which  was  less  common  in  the  North,  because 
less  favoured  by  the  conditions  under  which  ambition  has  in 
the  North  to  push  its  way.  The  Southern  man  who  entered 
public  life  had  a  more  assured  position  than  his  rival  from 
a  Northern  State,  because  he  represented  the  opinion  of  a  united 
body  who  stood  by  him,  regarding  him  as  their  champion,  and 
who  expected  from  him  less  subservience  to  their  instructions. 
He  did  not  need  to  court  so  assiduously  the  breath  of  popular 
favour.  He  was  not  more  educated  or  intelligent :  and  had 
lived  in  a  less  stimulating  atmosphere.  But  he  had  courage 
and  a  clear  vision  of  his  objects,  the  two  gifts  essential  for 
a  statesman ;  while  the  united  popular  impulse  behind  him 
supplied  a  sort  of  second  patriotism.  The  element  of  gain 
entered  somewhat  less  into  Southern  politics,  partly  because 
the  country  is  poor  :  and  though  the  South  begins  to  be  com¬ 
mercialized,  the  sensitiveness  on  the  “point  of  honour”  and  a 
flavour  of  punctiliousness  in  manners,  recall  the  olden  time*. 
Opinion  in  the  Slave  States  before  the  war,  in  spite  of  the 
divisions  between  Democrats  and  Whigs,  was  generally  bold, 
definite,  and  consistent,  because  based  on  a  few  doctrines.  It 


318 


PUBLIC OPINION 


PART  IV 


■was  the  opinion  of  a  small  class  who  were  largely  occupied 
with  public  affairs,  and  fond  of  debating  them  upon  first  prin¬ 
ciples  and  the  words  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  It  has 
preserved  this  quality,  while  losing  its  old  fierceness  and  better 
recognizing  the  conditions  under  which  it  must  work  in  a  Fed¬ 
eral  republic.  On  the  other  hand,  the  extreme  strength  of 
party  feeling,  due  to  the  extreme  sensitiveness  regarding  the 
negro,  has  prevented  the  growth  of  independent  opinion,  and 
of  the  tendency  which  in  the  North  is  called  Mugwumpism. 
And  although  the  leading  statesmen  are  not  inferior  to  those 
whom  the  North  sends  to  Washington,  the  total  number  of 
thoughtful  and  enlightened  men  is,  in  proportion  to  the  popu¬ 
lation,  smaller  than  in  the  Northeast,  smaller  even  than  in 
such  Western  States  as  Illinois  or  Ohio. 

I  have  used  the  past  tense  in  describing  these  phenomena, 
because  the  South  is  changing,  and  the  process  is  now  scarcely 
swifter  in  the  West  than  in  those  parts  of  Tennessee,  North 
Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Alabama  where  the  coal  and  iron  de¬ 
posits  have  recently  been  opened  up.  Most  parts,  however,  are 
still  thinly  settled  by  whites,  and  so  poor  that  a  traveller  finds  it 
hard  to  understand  how,  when  still  poorer,  the  people  managed 
to  resist  for  four  years  the  armies  of  the  wealthy  and  populous 
North.  There  is  therefore  less  eagerness  and  hopefulness  than 
in  the  West,  less  searching  discussion  and  elaborate  organiza¬ 
tion  than  in  the  East,  less  of  everything  that  is  characteristi¬ 
cally  democratic.  The  Machine  has,  in  some  States,  been 
brought  to  no  such  terrible  perfection  as  in  the  North,  because 
the  need  of  it  was  not  felt  where  one  party  was  sure  of  victory, 
and  because  talent  or  social  position  usually  designated  the 
men  to  be  selected  as  candidates,  or  the  men  whose  voice  would 
determine  the  selection.  Of  late  years,  however,  the  aristocratic 
element  in  Southern  politics  has  grown  weaker,  and  merits 
that  were  deemed  characteristic  of  Southern  statesmen  are 
more  rarely  seen.  Those  who  regret  that  there  has  not  been, 
since  the  Civil  War  generation  died  out,  a  stronger  group  of 
leaders  sent  from  the  South  to  Washington,  attribute  the  fact 
to  the  superior  attractions  of  a  business  career  in  a  region  which 
is  growing  and  developing  so  fast  and  to  the  departure  of 
some  of  the  ablest  intellects  to  Northern  cities  where  they  ex¬ 
pect  to  find  a  larger  field  for  their  talents. 

The  second  order  consists  of  those  who  used  to  be  called  the 


CHAP.  LXXXII 


LOCAL  TYPES  OF  OPINION 


319 


Mean  Whites.  Their  condition  strengthens  the  impression  of 
half  civilization  which  the  rural  districts  of  the  South  produce 
upon  the  traveller,  and  which  comes  painfully  home  to  him  in 
the  badness  of  the  inns.  While  slavery  lasted,  these  whites 
were,  in  the  lowlands  of  the  planting  States,  a  wretched,  be¬ 
cause  economically  superfluous,  class.  There  was  no  room  for 
them  as  labourers,  since  the  slaves  did  the  work  on  the  planta¬ 
tions  ;  they  had  not  the  money  to  purchase  land  and  machin¬ 
ery  for  themselves,  nor  the  spirit  to  push  their  way  in  the 
towns,  while  the  system  of  large  slave-worked  properties  made, 
as  the  latifundia  did  long  ago  in  Italy,  the  cultivation  of  small 
farms  hopeless,  and  the  existence  of  a  thriving  free  peasantry 
impossible.  The  planters  disliked  this  class  and  kept  them 
off  their  estates  as  much  as  possible ;  the  slaves  despised  them, 
and  called  them  “poor  white  trash.”  In  South  Carolina  and 
the  Gulf  States,  they  picked  up  a  wretched  livelihood  by  rais¬ 
ing  some  vegetables  near  their  huts,  and  killing  the  wild  crea¬ 
tures  of  the  woods,  while  a  few  hung  round  the  great  houses 
to  look  out  for  a  stray  job.  Shiftless,  ignorant,  improvident, 
with  no  aims  in  the  present  nor  hopes  for  the  future,  citizens 
in  nothing  but  the  possession  of  votes,  they  were  a  standing 
reproach  to  the  system  that  produced  them,  and  the  most 
convincing  proof  of  its  economic  as  well  as  moral  failure.  In 
the  northerly  Slave  States,  they  were  better  off,  and  in  the 
highlands  of  Western  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  North 
Carolina,  where  there  were  few  or  no  slaves,  they  had,  along 
with  much  rudeness  and  ignorance,  the  virtues  of  simple  moun¬ 
taineers.  Their  progress  since  the  war  has  been  marked,  both 
near  the  mining  and  manufacturing  towns,  which  give  work 
and  furnish  markets,  and  in  the  cotton-bearing  uplands,  where 
many  have  acquired  farms  and  prospered  as  tillers  of  the  soil. 
Everywhere,  however,  they  remain,  in  point  of  education  and 
enlightenment,  behind  the  small  farmers  or  artisans  of  the 
North  and  West.  Before  the  war  they  followed,  as  a  matter 
of  course  (except  in  the  mountains,  where  the  conditions  were 
different),  the  lead  of  the  planting  class,  not  more  out  of  defer¬ 
ence  to  it  than  from  aversion  to  the  negroes.  The  less  a  man 
had  to  be  proud  of,  the  more  proud  was  he  of  his  colour. 
Since  the  war,  they  have  been  no  less  anxious  than  their  richer 
neighbours  to  exclude  the  negroes  from  any  share  in  the  gov¬ 
ernment.  But  they  are  no  longer  mere  followers.  They  have 


320 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


begun  to  think  and  act  for  themselves ;  and,  though  one  of  the 
first  signs  of  independence  was  shown  in  the  acceptance  of  the 
impracticable  projects  that  were  for  a  time  advocated  by  the 
Farmers’  Alliance,  they  have  become  a  body  which  has  views, 
and  with  whose  views  it  is  necessary  to  reckon. 

The  negroes  constitute  about  one-third  of  the  population  of 
the  old  Slave  States,  and  in  two  States  (Mississippi  and  South 
Carolina)  they  are  in  a  majority,  being  nearly  equal  to  the 
whites  in  Louisiana  and  Georgia.  Though  their  presence  is 
the  dominant  factor  in  Southern  politics,  they  cannot  be  said 
to  form  or  influence  opinion  ;  and  it  is  not  their  votes,  but  the 
efforts  made  to  prevent  them  from  voting,  that  have  influenced 
the  course  of  events.  I  reserve  for  subsequent  chapters  an 
account  of  their  singular  position. 

Remembering  that  of  the  whole  population  of  the  Union, 
nearly  one-third  is  in  the  Southern  States,  and  that  the  major¬ 
ity  of  that  one-third,  viz.  the  lower  part  of  the  poor  whites  and 
nearly  all  the  negroes,  has  no  political  knowledge  or  capacity, 
nothing  that  can  be  called  rational  opinion,  and  remembering 
also  the  large  mass  of  recently  arrived  and  ignorant  immigrants, 
it  will  be  seen  how  far  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  are 
from  being  a  democracy  enlightened  through  and  through.  If 
one  part  of  the  people  is  as  educated  and  capable  as  that  of 
Switzerland,  another  is  as  ignorant  and  politically  untrained 
as  that  of  Russia. 

Of  the  four  divisions  of  the  country  above  described,  the 
West  (including  Oregon  and  Washington)  has  already  the 
largest  vote,  and  since  it  grows  faster  than  the  others,  will 
soon  be  indisputably  predominant.  But  as  it  grows,  it  loses 
some  of  its  distinctive  features,  becoming  more  like  the  East 
and  falling  more  and  more  under  Eastern  influences,  both  intel¬ 
lectual  and  financial.  It  must  not  therefore  be  supposed  that 
what  is  now  typically  Western  opinion  will  be  the  reigning 
opinion  of  the  future.  The  Pacific  States  will  in  time  be  drawn 
closer  to  those  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  losing  something 
of  such  specific  quality  as  they  still  possess ;  and  centres  of 
literary  activity,  such  as  now  exist  chiefly  in  the  Atlantic 
States,  will  be  more  and  more  scattered  over  the  whole  country. 
Opinion  will  therefore  be  more  homogeneous,  or  at  least  less 
local,  in  the  future  than  it  has  been  in  the  past ;  even  as  now 
it  is  less  determined  by  local  and  State  influences  than  it  was 
in  the  earlier  days  of  the  Republic. 


CHAPTER  LXXXIII 


THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 

The  last  few  chapters  have  attempted  to  explain  what  are 
the  conditions  under  which  opinion  is  formed  in  America, 
what  national  qualities  it  reflects,  how  it  is  affected  by  class 
interests  or  local  circumstances,  as  well  as  through  what  organs 
it  manifests  itself.  We  must  now  inquire  how  it  acts,  and  for 
this  purpose  try  to  answer  three  questions. 

By  whom  is  public  opinion  formed  ?  i.e.  by  the  few  or  by  the 
many  ? 

How  does  it  seek  to  grasp  and  use  the  legal  machinery  which 
the  Constitutions  (Federal  and  State)  provide? 

What  means  has  it  of  influencing  the  conduct  of  affairs  other¬ 
wise  than  through  the  regular  legal  machinery? 

It  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  phenomena  which  mark  the 
growth  of  opinion  in  America  if  we  compare  them  with  those 
of  some  European  country.  As  Britain  is  the  country  in 
which  public  opinion  has  been  longest  and  with  least  inter¬ 
ruption  installed  in  power,  and  in  which  the  mass  of  the  people 
are  more  largely  than  elsewhere  interested  in  public  affairs,1 
Britain  supplies  the  fittest  materials  for  a  comparison. 

In  Britain  political  supremacy  belongs  to  the  householder 
voters,  who  number  (over  the  whole  United  Kingdom)  about 
7,500,000,  being  rather  less  than  two-thirds  of  the  adult  male 
population.  Public  opinion  ought  in  theory  to  reside  in  them. 
Practically,  however,  as  everybody  knows,  most  of  them  have 
little  that  can  be  called  political  opinion.  It  is  the  creation 
and  possession  of  a  much  smaller  number. 

An  analysis  of  public  opinion  in  Britain  will  distinguish 
three  sets  of  persons  —  I  do  not  call  them  classes,  for  they  do 
not  coincide  with  social  grades  —  those  who  make  opinion, 

1  Always  excepting  Switzerland,  Norway,  and  Greece,  whose  conditions 
are,  however,  too  dissimilar  from  those  of  America  to  make  a  comparison  profit¬ 
able. 


Y 


321 


322 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


those  who  receive  and  hold  opinion,  those  who  have  no  opinions 
at  all. 

The  first  set  consists  of  practical  politicians  (i.e.  a  certain 
number  of  members  of  the  Lower  House  and  a  much  smaller 
fraction  of  the  Upper,  together  with  men  taking  an  active 
part  in  local  party  organizations),  journalists  and  other  public 
writers,  and  a  small  fringe  of  other  persons,  chiefly  professional 
men,  who  think  and  talk  constantly  about  public  affairs.  Within 
this  set  of  men,  who  are  to  be  counted  by  hundreds  rather  than 
by  thousands,  it  is  the  chiefs  of  the  great  parties  who  have  the 
main  share  in  starting  opinion,  the  journalists  in  propagating  it. 
Debates  in  Parliament  do  something,  and  the  speeches  which 
custom,  recent,  but  strong  and  increasing,  requires  the  leaders 
to  deliver  up  and  down  the  country,  and  which  are  of  course 
reported,  replace  Parliament  when  it  is  not  sitting.  The  func¬ 
tion  of  the  dozen  best  thinkers  and  talkers  in  each  party  is  now 
not  merely,  as  in  the  last  generation,  to  know  and  manage 
Parliament,  to  watch  foreign  affairs,  and  prepare  schemes  of 
domestic  legislation,  but  to  inspire,  instruct,  stimulate,  and  attach 
the  outside  public.  So  too  members  of  the  Houses  of  Parlia¬ 
ment  find  that  the  chief  utility  of  their  position  lies  in  its  enabling 
them  to  understand  the  actualities  of  politics  better  than  they 
could  otherwise  do,  and  to  gain  a  hearing  outside  for  what  they 
may  have  to  say  to  their  fellow-countrymen.  This  small  set 
of  persons  constitutes  what  may  be  called  the  working  staff  of 
the  laboratory ;  it  is  among  them,  by  the  reciprocal  action  and 
reaction  on  one  another  of  the  chiefs,  the  followers,  and  the 
press,  that  opinion  receives  its  first  shape.1 

The  second  set  of  persons  consists  of  those  who  watch  public 

1  Small  as  it  may  still  seem  to  an  American,  the  class  that  forms  public 
opinion  has  been  steadily  widening  in  England.  Last  century  it  consisted 
only  of  the  then  ruling  class,  —  the  great  families,  —  the  Houses  of  Parlia¬ 
ment,  a  certain  number  of  lawyers,  with  a  very  few  journalists  and  clergymen, 
and  a  sort  of  fringe  of  educated  men  and  monied  men  brought  into  relations 
with  the  rulers.  This  was  the  England  which  allowed  George  III.  to  alienate 
and  lose  the  North  American  Colonies.  Even  then,  no  doubt,  the  mass  of 
voters  outside  (extremely  small  when  compared  with  the  numbers  of  to-day) 
counted  for  something,  for  there  was  always  a  possibility  of  their  interfering 
when  some  feeling  spread  among  them,  one  or  other  of  the  parties  being  ready 
to  stimulate  and  use  such  a  feeling,  and  a  general  election  enabling  it  to  find 
expression  in  the  counties  and  in  a  few  of  the  boroughs.  When  the  Reform 
Bill  of  1832  enlarged  the  suffrage,  and  almost  extinguished  the  pocket  boroughs 
what  had  been  the  ruling  class  sank  into  being  merely  the  office-holding  class  ; 
and  now,  though  it  died  hard,  its  monopoly  of  office  has  departed  as  its  monopoly 
of  sitting  in  Parliament  did  in  1832. 


CHAP,  l xxxiii  THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


323 


affairs  with  a  certain  measure  of  interest.  When  an  impor¬ 
tant  question  arises,  they  look  at  the  debates  in  Parliament  or 
some  platform  deliverance  hy  a  leader,  and  they  have  at  all 
times  a  notion  of  what  is  passing  in  the  political  world.  They 
now  and  then  attend  a  public  meeting.  They  are  not  univer¬ 
sally,  but  now  pretty  largely,  enrolled  as  members  of  some  politi¬ 
cal  association.  When  an  election  arrives  they  go  to  vote  of 
their  own  accord.  They  talk  over  politics  after  dinner  or  coming 
into  town  by  a  suburban  train.  The  proportion  of  such  persons 
is  larger  in  the  professional  classes  (and  especially  among  the 
lawyers)  than  in  the  mercantile,  larger  in  the  upper  mercantile 
than  among  the  working  men  of  the  towns,  larger  among  skilled 
than  unskilled  artisans,  larger  in  the  North  than  in  the  South, 
larger  among  the  town  workmen  than  among  the  more  recently 
enfranchised  agricultural  labourers.  It  varies  in  different  parts 
of  the  country,  and  is  perhaps  relatively  smaller  in  London 
than  in  other  cities.  If  still  less  than  a  third  of  the  total  num¬ 
ber  of  voters,  it  is  nevertheless  an  increasing  proportion.1 

The  third  set  includes  all  the  rest  of  the  voters.  Though 
they  possess  political  power,  and  are  better  pleased  to  have  it, 
they  do  not  really  care  about  it  - —  that  is  to  say,  politics  occupy 
no  appreciable  space  in  their  thoughts  and  interests.  Some  of 
them  vote  at  elections  because  they  consider  themselves  to 
belong  to  a  party,  or  fancy  that  on  a  given  occasion  they  have 
more  to  expect  from  the  one  party  than  from  the  other  ;  or 
because  they  are  brought  up  on  election  day  by  some  one  who 
can  influence  them.  The  number  who  vote  tends  to  increase 
with  the  importation  of  party  into  municipal  and  other  local 
contests  ;  and  from  the  same  cause  some  now  enrol  themselves 
in  party  associations.  Others  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  go 
to  the  polls.  No  one,  except  on  the  stump,  can  attribute  inde¬ 
pendent  political  thinking  to  this  mass  of  persons,  because  their 
knowledge  and  interest,  though  growing  under  the  influence  of 
the  privileges  they  enjoy,  are  still  slight.  Many  have  not  even 
political  prepossessions,  and  will  stare  or  smile  when  asked  to 
which  party  they  belong.  They  count  for  little  except  at 
elections,  and  then  chiefly  as  instruments  to  be  used  by  others. 


1  In  Chapter  LVII.,  ante,  I  have  attempted  to  distinguish  an  Inner  and 
Outer  Circle  of  persons  who  take  an  active  part  in  political  work.  What  I 
here  call  the  first  or  opinion-making  set  would  lie  almost  w’holly  within  the 
Inner  Circle,  and  would  be  much  smaller  than  that  circle. 


324 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


So  far  as  the  formation  or  exercise  of  opinion  goes,  they  may  be 
left  out  of  sight.1 

It  is  obviously  impossible  to  draw  a  sharp  line  between  the 
second  set  and  the  third,  or  to  estimate  their  relative  numbers, 
because  when  politics  are  dull  many  persons  subside  into  in¬ 
difference  whom  the  advent  of  a  crisis  may  again  arouse.  And 
of  course  there  are  plenty  of  people  in  the  second  set  who, 
though  interested  in  politics,  have  no  real  knowledge  or  judg¬ 
ment  about  them.  Such  considerations,  however,  do  not  touch 
the  point  of  the  present  analysis,  which  is  to  distinguish  between 
the  citizens  who  originate  opinion  (the  first  set),  those  who  hold 
and  somewhat  modify  it  (the  second  set),  and  those  who  are 
rather  to  be  deemed,  and  even  that  only  if  they  can  be  brought 
to  the  poll,  mere  ballot-markers.  The  first  set  do  the  thinking  ; 
they  scatter  forth  the  ideas  and  arguments.  The  second  set 
receive  and  test  what  is  set  before  them.  What  their  feeling 
or  judgment  approves  they  accept  and  give  effect  to  by  their 
votes  ;  what  they  dislike  or  suspect  is  refused  and  falls  dead,  or 
possibly  sets  them  the  other  way.  The  measure  of  the  worth 
of  a  view  or  proposal  —  I  do  not  mean  its  intrinsic  worth,  but 
its  power  of  pleasing  the  nation  —  is,  however,  not  merely  the 
breadth  of  the  support  it  obtains,  but  also  the  zeal  which  it 
inspires  in  those  who  adopt  it.  Although  persons  in  the  second 
set  usually  belong  to  one  or  other  party,2  and  are  therefore 
prima  facie  disposed  to  accept  whatever  comes  from  their  party 
leaders,  yet  the  degree  of  cordiality  with  which  they  accept 
indicates  to  a  leader  how  their  minds  are  moving,  and  becomes 
an  element  in  his  future  calculations.  Thus  the  second  set, 


1  What  is  said  here  cannot  of  course  be  proved,  but  will  commend  itself  to 
any  one  who,  knowing  a  large  constituency,  compares  the  number  of  persons 
who  attend  public  meetings  at  an  election  and  can  be  trusted  to  come  of  them¬ 
selves  to  the  polls  with  the  total  number  of  voters  on  the  lists.  In  the  Lon¬ 
don  constituencies  I  doubt  if  more  than  10  per  cent  of  the  nominal  voting 
strength  show  their  interest  in  either  of  these  ways.  From  25  to  35  per  cent 
do  not  even  vote.  The  voting  proportion  is  larger  in  the  northern  and  in  the 
west  Midland  towns  and  in  Scotland.  In  the  old  days  of  small  constituencies, 
when  it  might  have  been  supposed  that  the  restriction  of  the  franchise  would 
have  made  it  more  prized,  inexperienced  candidates  were  always  struck  by  the 
small  percentage,  out  of  those  whom  they  personally  canvassed,  who  seemed 
to  care  about  politics,  or  even  deemed  themselves  steady  party  men. 

2  The  increasingly  party  character  of  municipal  contest  tends  to  draw  an 
always  larger  number  of  persons  from  the  third  class  into  the  second,  because 
being  dragged  up  to  vote  at  a  municipal  election  they  acquire,  if  not  opinions, 
at  least  the  habit  of  party  action  and  of  repeating  party  cries. 


CHAP,  lxxxiii  THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


325 


although  receptive  rather  than  creative,  has  an  important  func¬ 
tion  in  moulding  opinion,  and  giving  it  the  shape  and  colour  it 
finally  takes  when  it  has  crystallized  under  the  influence  of  a 
party  struggle.  The  third  set  can  scarcely  be  called  a  factor  in 
the  formation  of  opinion,  except  in  so  far  as  one  particular  pro¬ 
posal  or  cry  may  prove  more  attractive  to  it  than  another.  It 
has  some  few  fixed  ideas  or  prejudices  which  a  statesman  must 
bear  in  mind,  but  in  the  main  it  is  passive,  consisting  of  persons 
who  either  follow  the  lead  of  members  of  the  first  or  second  sets 
or  who  are  too  indifferent  to  move  at  all. 

The  United  States  present  different  phenomena.  There 
what  I  have  called  the  first  set  is  extremely  small.  The  third 
set  is  relatively  smaller  than  in  England,  and  but  for  the  recent 
immigrants  and  the  negroes  would  be  insignificant.  It  is  in  the 
second  set  that  opinion  is  formed  as  well  as  tested,  created  as 
well  as  moulded.  Political  light  and  heat  do  not  radiate  out 
from  a  centre  as  in  England.  They  are  diffused  all  through  the 
atmosphere,  and  are  little  more  intense  in  the  inner  sphere  of 
practical  politicians  than  elsewhere.  The  ordinary  citizens 
are  interested  in  politics,  and  watch  them  with  intelligence,  the 
same  kind  of  intelligence  (though  a  smaller  quantity  of  it)  as 
they  apply  to  their  own  business.  They  are  forced  by  incessant 
elections  to  take  a  more  active  part  in  public  affairs  than  is 
taken  by  any  European  people.  They  think  their  own  compe¬ 
tence  equal  to  that  of  their  representatives  and  office-bearers  ; 
and  they  are  not  far  wrong.  They  do  not  therefore  look  up  to 
their  statesmen  for  guidance,  but  look  around  to  one  another, 
carrying  to  its  extreme  the  principle  that  in  the  multitude  of 
counsellors  there  is  wisdom. 

In  America,  therefore,  opinion  is  not  made  but  grows.  Of 
course  it  must  begin  somewhere  ;  but  it  is  often  hard  to  say 
where  or  how.  As  there  are  in  the  country  a  vast  number  of 
minds  similar  in  their  knowledge,  beliefs,  and  attitude,  with  few 
exceptionally  powerful  minds  appfying  themselves  to  politics, 
it  is  natural  that  the  same  idea  should  often  occur  to  several  or 
many  persons  at  the  same  time,  that  each  event  as  it  occurs 
should  produce  the  same  impression  and  evoke  the  same  com¬ 
ments  over  a  wide  area.  When  everybody  desires  to  agree  with 
the  majority,  and  values  such  accord  more  highly  than  the  credit 
of  originality,  this  tendency  is  all  the  stronger.  An  idea  once 
launched,  or  a  view  on  some  current  question  propounded,  flies 


326 


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PART  IV 


everywhere  on  the  wings  of  a  press  eager  for  novelties.  Pub¬ 
licity  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  obtain ;  but  as  it  is 
attainable  by  all  notions,  phrases,  and  projects,  wise  and  foolish 
alike,  the  struggle  for  existence  —  that  is  to  say,  for  public 
attention  —  is  severe. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  deny  that  here,  as  everywhere  else  in  the 
world,  some  one  person  or  group  must  make  a  beginning,  but 
seek  to  point  out  that,  whereas  in  Europe  it  is  patent  who  does 
make  the  beginning,  in  America  a  view  often  seems  to  arise 
spontaneously,  and  to  be  the  work  of  many  rather  than  of  few. 
The  individual  counts  for  less,  the  mass  counts  for  more.  In 
propagating  a  doctrine  not  hitherto  advocated  by  any  party, 
the  methods  used  are  similar  to  those  of  England.  A  central 
society  is  formed,  branch  societies  spring  up  over  the  country, 
a  journal  (perhaps  several  journals)  is  started,  and  if  the  move¬ 
ment  thrives,  an  annual  convention  of  its  supporters  is  held, 
at  which  speeches  are  made  and  resolutions  adopted.  If  any 
striking  personality  is  connected  with  the  movement  as  a  leader, 
as  Garrison  was  with  Abolitionism,  he  cannot  but  become  a 
sort  of  figure-head.  Yet  it  happens  more  rarely  in  America 
than  in  England  that  an  individual  leader  gives  its  character 
to  a  movement,  partly  because  new  movements  less  often  begin 
among,  or  are  taken  up  by,  persons  already  known  as  practical 
politicians. 

As  regards  opinion  on  the  main  questions  of  the  hour,  such  as 
the  extension  of  slavery  long  was,  and  questions  affecting  rail¬ 
ways,  trusts,  the  currency,  the  tariff,  are  now,  it  rises  and  falls, 
much  as  in  any  other  country,  under  the  influence  of  events  which 
seem  to  make  for  one  or  the  other  of  the  contending  views. 
There  is  this  difference  between  America  and  Europe,  that  in  the 
former  speeches  seem  to  influence  the  average  citizen  less,  be¬ 
cause  he  is  more  apt  to  do  his  own  thinking  ;  newspaper  invec¬ 
tive  less,  because  he  is  used  to  it ;  current  events  rather  more, 
because  he  is  better  informed  of  them.  Party  spirit  is  probably 
no  stronger  in  America  than  in  England,  so  far  as  a  man’s  think¬ 
ing  and  talking  go,  but  it  tells  more  upon  him  when  he  comes 
to  vote. 

An  illustration  of  what  has  been  said  may  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  the  proportion  of  persons  who  actually  vote  at  an  election 
to  those  whose  names  appear  on  the  voting  list  is  larger  in 
America  than  in  Europe.  In  some  English  constituencies  this 


CHAP,  lxxxiii  THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


327 


percentage  is  from  60-70  per  cent,  though  at  exciting  moments 
it  is  larger  than  this,  taking  the  country  as  a  whole.  At  the 
general  election  of  1910  it  exceeded  80  per  cent.  In  America 
80  per  cent  may  be  a  fair  average  in  presidential  elections,  which 
call  out  the  heaviest  vote,  and  in  some  recent  contests  this 
proportion  was  exceeded.  Something  may  be  ascribed  to  the 
more  elaborate  local  organization  of  American  parties  ;  but 
against  this  ought  to  be  set  the  fact  that  the  English  voting  mass 
includes  not  quite  two-thirds,  the  American  nearly  the  whole, 
of  the  adult  male  population,  and  that  the  English  voters  are  the 
more  solid  and  wrell-to-do  part  of  the  population. 

Is  there,  then,  in  the  United  States,  no  inner  sphere  of  think¬ 
ers,  writers,  and  speakers,  corresponding  to  what  we  have  called 
the  “first  set”  in  England? 

There  are  individual  men  corresponding  to  individuals  in  that 
English  set,  and  probably  quite  as  numerous.  There  are  jour¬ 
nalists  of  great  ability,  there  are  a  few  literary  men,  clergymen 
and  teachers,  a  good  many  lawyers,  some  business  men,  some 
few  politicians.  But  they  are  isolated  and  unorganized,  and 
do  not  constitute  a  class.  Most  of  them  are  primarily  occupied 
with  their  own  avocations,  and  have  only  spare  time  to  give  to 
political  thinking  or  writing.  They  are  mostly  resident  in  or 
near  the  Eastern  and  four  or  five  of  the  largest  Western  cities, 
and  through  many  large  tracts  of  country  scarce  any  are  to  be 
found.  In  England  the  profession  of  opinion-making  and  lead¬ 
ing  is  the  work  of  specialists  ;  in  America,  except  as  regards  the 
few  journalists  and  statesmen  aforesaid,  of  amateurs.  As  the 
books  of  amateurs  have  merits  wdiich  those  of  professional 
authors  are  apt  to  want,  so  something  is  gained  by  the  absence 
of  the  professional  element  from  American  political  opinion. 
But  that  which  these  amateurs  produce  is  less  coherent,  less 
abundant,  and  less  promptly  effective  upon  the  mass  of  the  citi¬ 
zens  than  the  corresponding  English  product.  In  fact,  the 
individual  Americans  whom  we  are  considering  can  (except  the 
journalists  and  statesmen  aforesaid)  be  distinguished  from  the 
mass  of  citizens  only  by  their  superior  intellectual  competence 
and  their  keener  interest  in  public  affairs.  (Of  the  “professional 
politicians”  there  is  no  question,  because  it  is  in  the  getting  and 
keeping  of  places  that  these  gentlemen  are  occupied.)  We  may 
therefore  repeat  the  proposition,  that  in  America  opinion  does 
not  originate  in  a  particular  class,  but  grows  up  in  the  nation  at 


328 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


large,  though,  of  course,  there  are  leading  minds  in  the  nation 
who  have  more  to  do  with  its  formation  than  the  run  of  their 
fellow-citizens.  A  good  instance  of  the  power  such  men  may 
exercise  is  afforded  by  the  success  of  the  civil  service  reform 
movement,  which  began  among  a  few  enlightened  citizens  in  the 
Eastern  States,  who  by  degrees  leavened,  or  were  thought  to  be 
leavening,  the  minds  of  their  fellows  to  such  an  extent  that  Con¬ 
gress  was  forced,  sorely  against  the  grain,  to  bring  in  and  pass 
the  appropriate  legislation.  Other  instances  may  be  found  in 
the  swift  success  obtained  by  those  who  advocated  the  secret 
or  “Australian”  ballot,  a  measure  not  specially  desired  by  the 
“politicians,”  and  in  the  spread  of  the  recent  legislation  estab¬ 
lishing  statutory  primaries,  which  was  advocated  in  the  West 
by  a  comparatively  small  number  of  reformers  and  then  found 
support  from  a  large  body  of  citizens  who  had  come  to  dislike 
the  Machine  and  its  ways. 

An  illustration  of  a  different  kind,  but  not  less  striking,  was 
the  victory  of  the  agitation  for  international  copyright.  A  few 
literary  men,  seconded  after  a  while  by  a  very  few  publishers, 
had  for  weary  years  maintained  what  seemed  a  hopeless  struggle 
for  the  extension  to  foreign  authors  of  the  right  to  acquire  copy¬ 
right  in  America,  theretofore  reserved  to  citizens  only.  These 
men  were  at  first  ridiculed.  People  asked  how  they  could  expect 
that  the  nation,  whose  chief  reading  was  in  European  books, 
sold  very  cheap  because  the  author  received  no  profit,  would 
raise  the  price  of  these  books  against  itself  ?  Neither  Republicans 
nor  Democrats  had  anything  to  gain  by  passing  the  bill,  and 
Congress,  by  large  majorities,  rejected  or  refused  to  advance 
(which  came  to  the  same  thing)  every  bill  presented  to  it.  The 
agitators,  however,  persevered,  receiving  help  from  a  sympathetic 
press,  and  so  worked  upon  the  honour  and  good  sense  of  the 
people  that  Congress  at  last  came  round.  The  hostile  interests 
fought  hard,  and  extorted  some  concessions.  But  in  1891  the 
bill  was  passed.1 

We  may  now  ask  in  what  manner  opinion,  formed  or  forming, 
is  able  to  influence  the  conduct  of  affairs  ? 

The  legal  machinery  through  which  the  people  are  by  the 
Constitution  (Federal  and  State)  invited  to  govern  is  that  of 

1  “Never  despair  of  America!”  was  the  exclamation  of  an  eminent  literary 
man  (the  late  Mr.  R.  W.  Gilder),  who  had  been  one  of  the  most  active  pro¬ 
moters  of  the  measure. 


CHAP,  lxxxiii  THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


329 


elections.  Occasionally,  when  the  question  of  altering  a  State 
Constitution  comes  up,  the  citizen  votes  directly  for  or  against 
a  proposition  put  to  him  in  the  form  of  a  constitutional  amend¬ 
ment  ;  but  otherwise  it  is  only  by  voting  for  a  man  as  candidate 
that  he  can  (except  of  course  in  the  few  States  which  have 
adopted  the  Initiative  and  Referendum)  give  expression  to  his 
views,  and  directly  support  or  oppose  some  policy.  Now,  in 
every  country,  voting  for  a  man  is  an  inadequate  way  of  ex¬ 
pressing  one’s  views  of  policy,  because  the  candidate  is  sure  to 
differ  in  one  or  more  questions  from  many  of  those  who  belong 
to  the  party.  It  is  especially  inadequate  in  the  United  States, 
because  the  strictness  of  party  discipline  leaves  little  freedom 
of  individual  thought  or  action  to  the  member  of  a  legislature, 
because  the  ordinary  politician  has  little  interest  in  anything 
but  the  regular  party  programme,  and  because  in  no  party  are 
the  citizens  at  large  permitted  to  select  their  candidate,  seeing 
that  he  is  found  for  them  and  forced  on  them  by  the  profes¬ 
sionals  of  the  party  organization.  While,  therefore,  nothing  is 
easier  than  for  opinion  which  runs  in  the  direct  channel  of  party 
to  give  effect  to  itself  frequently  and  vigorously,  nothing  is 
harder  than  for  opinion  which  wanders  out  of  that  channel  to 
find  a  legal  and  regular  means  of  bringing  itself  to  bear  upon 
those  who  govern  either  as  legislators  or  executive  officers. 
This  is  the  weak  point  of  the  American  party  system,  perhaps 
of  every  party  system,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  incle- 
pendent-minded  citizen,  as  it  is  the  strong  point  from  that  of 
the  party  manager.  A  body  of  unorganized  opinion  is,  there¬ 
fore,  helpless  in  the  face  of  compact  parties.  It  is  obliged  to 
organize.  When  organized  for  the  promotion  of  a  particular 
view  or  proposition,  it  has  in  the  United  States  three  courses 
open  to  it. 

The  first  is  to  capture  one  or  other  of  the  great  standing 
parties,  i.e.  to  persuade  or  frighten  that  party  into  adopting 
this  view  as  part  of  its  programme,  or,  to  use  the  technical 
term,  making  it  a  plank  of  the  platform,  in  which  case  the  party 
candidates  will  be  bound  to  support  it.  This  is  the  most  effec¬ 
tive  course,  but  the  most  difficult ;  for  a  party  is  sure  to  have 
something  to  lose  as  well  as  to  gain  by  embracing  a  new  dogma. 
Why  should  such  parties  as  those  of  America  have  lately  been, 
trouble  themselves  with  taking  up  new  questions,  unless  they  are 
satisfied  they  will  gain  thereby?  Their  old  dogmas  are  indeed 


330 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


worn  threadbare,  but  have  been  hitherto  found  sufficient  to 
cover  them. 

The  second  course  is  for  the  men  who  hold  the  particular 
view  to  declare  themselves  a  new  party,  put  forward  their  own 
programme,  run  their  own  candidates.  Besides  being  costly 
and  troublesome,  this  course  would  be  thought  ridiculous 
where  the  view  or  proposition  is  not  one  of  first-rate  importance, 
which  has  already  obtained  wide  support.  Where,  however,  it 
is  applicable,  it  is  worth  taking,  even  when  the  candidates  cannot 
be  carried,  for  it  serves  as  an  advertisement,  and  it  alarms  the 
old  party,  from  which  it  withdraws  voting  strength  in  the  per¬ 
sons  of  the  dissidents. 

The  third  is  to  cast  the  voting  weight  of  the  organized  pro¬ 
moters  of  the  doctrine  or  view  in  question  into  the  scale  of  which¬ 
ever  party  shows  the  greatest  friendliness,  or  seems  most  open 
to  conversion.  As  in  many  States  the  regular  parties  are  pretty 
equally  balanced,  even  a  comparatively  weak  body  of  opinion 
may  decide  the  result.  Such  a  body  does  not  necessarily  for¬ 
ward  its  own  view,  for  the  candidates  whom  its  vote  carries  are 
nowise  pledged  to  its  programme.1  But  it  has  made  itself  felt, 
shown  itself  a  power  to  be  reckoned  with,  improved  its  chances  of 
capturing  one  or  other  of  the  regular  parties,  or  of  running  candi¬ 
dates  of  its  own  on  some  future  occasion.  When  this  transfer 
of  the  solid  vote  of  a  body  of  agitators  is  the  result  of  a  bargain 
with  the  old  party  which  gets  the  vote,  it  is  called  “selling 
out”  ;  and  in  such  cases  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  bargain 
secures  one  or  two  offices  for  the  incpming  allies  in  consideration 
of  the  strength  they  have  brought.  But  if  the  new  group  be 
honestly  thinking  of  its  doctrines  and  not  of  the  offices,  the  terms 
it  will  ask  will  be  the  nomination  of  good  candidates,  or  a  more 
friendly  attitude  towards  the  new  view. 

These  are  the  ways  in  which  either  the  minority  of  a  party, 
holding  some  doctrine  outside  the  regular  party  programme, 
or  a  new  group  aspiring  to  be  a  party,  may  assert  itself  at  elec¬ 
tions.  The  third  is  applicable  wherever  the  discipline  of  the 


1  The  practice  of  interrogating  candidates  with  a  view  to  obtain  pledges 
from  them  to  vote  in  a  particular  sense  is  less  used  in  America  than  in  Eng¬ 
land.  The  rigour  of  party  discipline,  and  the  fact  that  business  is  divided 
between  the  Federal  and  the  State  legislatures  may  have  something  to  do  with 
this  difference.  However,  American  candidates  are  sometimes  pressed  by 
questions  and  demands  from  groups  advocating  moral  reforms,  such  as  liquor 
prohibition. 


chap,  lx xxii i  THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


331 


section  which  has  arisen  within  a  party  is  so  good  that  its  mem¬ 
bers  can  be  trusted  to  break  away  from  their  former  affiliation, 
and  vote  solid  for  the  side  their  leaders  have  agreed  to  favour. 
It  is  a  potent  weapon,  and  liable  to  be  abused.  But  in  a  coun¬ 
try  where  the  tide  runs  against  minorities  and  small  groups,  it  is 
most  necessary.  The  possibility  of  its  employment  acts  as  a 
check  on  the  regular  parties,  disposing  them  to  abstain  from 
legislation  which  might  irritate  any  body  of  growing  opinion  and 
tend  to  crystallize  it  as  a  new  organization,  and  making  them 
more  tolerant  of  minor  divergences  from  the  dogmas  of  the  ortho¬ 
dox  programme  than  their  fierce  love  of  party  uniformity  would 
otherwise  permit. 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  the  case  of  persons  advo-' 
eating  some  specific  opinion  or  scheme.  As  respects  the  ordi¬ 
nary  conduct  of  business  by  officials  and  legislators,  the  fear  of 
popular  displeasure  to  manifest  itself  at  the  next  election  is, 
of  course,  the  most  powerful  of  restraining  influences.  Under 
a  system  of  balanced  authorities,  such  fear  helps  to  prevent  or 
remove  deadlocks  as  well  as  the  abuse  of  power  by  any  one 
authority.  A  President  (or  State  governor)  who  has  vetoed 
bills  passed  by  Congress  (or  his  State  legislature)  is  emboldened 
to  go  on  doing  so  when  he  finds  public  opinion  on  his  side  ;  and 
Congress  (or  the  State  legislature)  will  hesitate,  though  the  req¬ 
uisite  majority  may  be  forthcoming,  to  pass  these  bills  over  the 
veto.  A  majority  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  or  in  a  State 
legislative  body,  which  has  abused  the  power  of  closing  debate 
by  the  “previous  question77  rule,  may  be  frightened  by  expres¬ 
sions  of  popular  disapproval  from  repeating  the  offence.  When 
the  two  branches  of  a  legislature  differ,  and  a  valuable  bill  has 
failed,  or  when  there  has  been  vexatious  filibustering,  public 
opinion  fixes  the  blame  on  the  party  primarily  responsible  for 
the  loss  of  good  measures  or  public  time,  and  may  punish  it  at 
the  next  election.  Thus,  in  many  ways  and  on  many  occasions, 
though  not  so  often  or  so  fully  as  is  needed,  the  vision  of  the 
polls,  seen  some  months  or  even  years  off,  has  power  to  terrify 
and  warn  selfish  politicians.  As  the  worth  of  courts  of  law  is  to 
be  estimated,  not  merely  by  the  offences  they  punish  and  the 
suits  they  try,  but  even  more  by  the  offences  from  which  the 
fear  of  penalties  deters  bad  men,  and  by  the  payments  which  the 
prospect  of  a  writ  extracts  from  reluctant  debtors,  so  a  healthy 
and  watchful  public  opinion  makes  itself  felt  in  preventing  fool- 


332 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


ish  or  corrupt  legislation  and  executive  jobbery.  Mischief  is 
checked  in  America  more  frequently  than  anywhere  else  by  the 
fear  of  exposure,  or  by  newspaper  criticisms  on  the  first  stage 
of  a  bad  scheme.  And,  of  course,  the  frequency  of  elections  — 
in  most  respects  a  disadvantage  to  the  country  —  has  the  merit 
of  bringing  the  prospect  of  punishment  nearer. 

It  will  be  asked  how  the  fear  is  brought  home,  seeing  that  the 
result  of  a  coming  election  must  usually  be  uncertain.  Some¬ 
times  it  is  not  brought  home.  The  erring  majority  in  a  legisla¬ 
ture  may  believe  they  have  the  people  with  them,  or  the  governor 
may  think  his  jobs  will  be  forgotten.  Generally,  however, 
there  are  indications  of  the  probable  set  of  opinion  in  the  lan¬ 
guage  held  by  moderate  men  and  the  less  partisan  newspapers. 
When  some  of  the  organs  of  the  party  which  is  in  fault  begin  to 
blame  it,  danger  is  in  the  air,  for  the  other  party  is  sure  to  use 
the  opening  thus  given  to  it.  And  hence,  of  course,  the  control 
of  criticism  is  most  effective  where  parties  are  nearly  balanced. 
Opinion  seems  to  tell  with  special  force  when  the  question  is 
between  a  legislative  body  passing  bills  or  ordinances,  and  a 
president  or  governor,  or  mayor,  vetoing  them,  the  legislature 
recoiling  whenever  they  think  the  magistrate  has  got  the  people 
behind  him.  Even  small  fluctuations  in  a  vote  produce  a  great 
impression  on  the  minds  of  politicians. 

The  constancy  or  mutability  of  electoral  bodies  is  a  difficult 
phenomenon  to  explain,  especially  where  secret  voting  prevails, 
and  a  dangerous  one  to  generalize  on.  The  tendency  of  the 
electoral  vote  in  any  constituency  to  shift  from  Tory  to  Whig 
or  Whig  to  Tory,  used  in  England  to  be  deemed  to  indicate 
the  presence  of  a  corrupt  element.  It  was  a  black  mark  against 
a  borough.  In  America  it  sometimes  deserves  the  same  inter¬ 
pretation,  for  there  are  corruptible  masses  in  not  a  few  districts. 
But  there  are  also  cases  in  which  it  points  to  the  existence  of  an 
exceptionally  thoughtful  and  unprejudiced  element  in  the  popu¬ 
lation,  an  element  which  rejects  party  dictation,  and  seeks  to 
cast  its  vote  for  the  best  man.  The  average  American  voter  is 
more  likely  to  consider  himself  attached  to  a  party  than  the 
English,  and  is,  I  think,  less  capricious,  and  therefore  if  a  transfer 
of  votes  from  one  party  to  the  other  does  not  arise  from  some 
corrupt  influence,  it  betokens  serious  disapproval  on  the  part 
of  the  Bolters.  Fluctuations  are  most  frequent  in  some  of  the 
less  sober  and  steady  Western  States,  and  in  some  of  the  most 


CHAP,  lxxxiii  THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


333 


enlightened,  such  as  New  York  and  Massachusetts.  In  the 
former  the  people  may  be  carried  away  by  a  sudden  impulse ; 
in  the  latter  there  is  a  section  which  judges  candidates  more  by 
personal  merits  than  by  party  professions. 

These  defects  wThich  may  be  noted  in  the  constitutional 
mechanism  for  enabling  public  opinion  to  rule  promptly  and 
smoothly,  are,  in  a  measure,  covered  by  the  expertness  of 
Americans  in  using  all  kinds  of  voluntary  and  private  agencies 
for  the  diffusion  and  expression  of  opinion.  Where  the  object 
is  to  promote  some  particular  cause,  associations  are  formed  and 
federated  to  one  another,  funds  are  collected,  the  press  is  set  to 
work,  lectures  are  delivered.  When  the  law  can  profitably  be 
invoked  (which  is  often  the  case  in  a  country  governed  by  con¬ 
stitutions  standing  above  the  legislature),  counsel  are  retained 
and  suits  instituted,  all  with  the  celerity  and  skill  which  long 
practice  in  such  work  has  given.  If  the  cause  has  a  moral  bear¬ 
ing,  efforts  are  made  to  enlist  the  religious  or  semi-religious 
magazines,  and  the  ministers  of  religion.1  Deputations  proceed 
to  Washington  or  to  the  State  capital,  and  lay  siege  to  individual 
legislators.  Sometimes  a  distinct  set  of  women’s  societies  is 
created,  whose  action  on  and  through  women  is  all  the  more 
powerful  because  the  deference  shown  to  the  so-called  weaker 
sex  enables  them  to  do  what  would  be  resented  in  men.  Once 
in  Iowa,  when  a  temperance  ticket  was  being  run  at  the  elections, 
parties  of  ladies  gathered  in  front  of  the  polling  booths  and  sang 
hymns  all  day  while  the  citizens  voted.  Every  one  remembers 
the  “Women’s  Whisky  War”  when,  in  several  Western  States, 
bands  of  women  entered  the  drinking  saloons  and,  by  entreaties 
and  reproaches,  drove  out  the  customers.  In  no  country  has 
any  sentiment  which  touches  a  number  of  persons  so  many  ways 
of  making  itself  felt ;  though,  to  be  sure,  when  the  first  and  chief 
effort  of  every  group  is  to  convince  the  world  that  it  is  strong, 
and  growing  daily  stronger,  great  is  the  difficulty  of  determining 
whether  those  who  are  vocal  are  really  numerous  or  only  noisy. 

For  the  promotion  of  party  opinion  on  the  leading  questions 
that  divide  or  occupy  parties,  there  exist,  of  course,  the  regular 
party  organizations,  whose  complex  and  widely  ramified  mechan¬ 
ism  has  been  described  in  an  earlier  chapter.  Opinion  is,  how¬ 
ever,  the  thing  with  which  this  mechanism  is  at  present  least 

1  In  Philadelphia,  during  a  struggle  against  the  City  Boss,  the  clergy  were 
requested  to  preach  election  sermons. 


334 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


occupied.  Its  main  objects  are  the  selection  of  the  party 
candidates  and  the  conduct  of  the  canvass  at  elections.  Traces 
of  the  other  purpose  remain  in  the  practice  of  adopting,  at  State 
and  national  conventions,  a  platform,  or  declaration  of  prin¬ 
ciples  and  views,  which  is  the  electoral  manifesto  of  the  party, 
embodying  the  tenets  Avhich  it  is  supposed  to  live  for.  A  con¬ 
vention  is  a  body  fitted  neither  by  its  numbers  nor  its  composi¬ 
tion  for  the  discussion  and  sifting  of  political  doctrines ;  but, 
even  if  it  were  so  fitted,  that  is  not  the  work  to  which  its  masters 
would  set  it.  A  “platform”  is  invariably  prepared  by  a  small 
committee,  and  usually  adopted  by  the  general  committee,  and 
by  the  convention,  with  little  change.  Its  tendency  is  neither 
to  define  nor  to  convince,  but  rather  to  attract  and  to  confuse. 
It  is  a  mixture  of  denunciation,  declamation,  and  conciliation. 
It  reprobates  the  opposite  party  for  their  past  misdeeds,  and 
“views  with  alarm”  their  present  policy.  It  repeats  the  tale  of 
the  services  which  the  party  of  those  who  issue  it  has  rendered 
in  the  past,  is  replete  with  sounding  democratic  generalities,  and 
attempts  so  to  expand  and  expound  the  traditional  party  tenets 
as  to  make  these  include  all  sound  doctrines,  and  deserve  the 
support  of  all  good  citizens.  Seldom  in  recent  years  have  either 
platforms  or  the  process  that  produces  them  had  a  powerful  in¬ 
fluence  on  the  maturing  and  clarification  of  political  opinion. 
However,  in  such  times  as  that  which  immediately  preceded  the 
Civil  War,  and  again  in  the  Silver  struggle  of  1896,  conventions 
have  recorded  the  acceptance  of  certain  vital  propositions,  and 
rejection  of  certain  dangerous  proposals,  by  one  or  other  of  the 
great  parties,  and  they  may  again  have  to  do  so,  not  to  add  that 
an  imprudent  platform  lays  a  party  open  to  damaging  attacks. 
When  any  important  election  comes  off,  the  party  organization 
sends  its  speakers  out  on  stumping  tours,  and  distributes  a 
flood  of  campaign  literature.  At  other  times  opinion  moves  in  a 
different  plane  from  that  of  party  machinery,  and  is  scarcely 
affected  by  it. 

One  might  expect  that  in  the  United  States  the  thoughts  of 
the  people  would  be  more  equably  and  uniformly  employed  on 
politics  than  in  European  countries.  The  contrary  is  the  case. 
Opinion,  no  doubt,  is  always  alive  and  vigilant,  always  in  process 
of  formation,  growth,  and  decay.  But  its  activity  is  less  con¬ 
tinuous  and  sustained  than  in  Europe,  because  there  is  a  greater 
difference  between  the  spring-tide  of  a  presidential  campaign 


chap,  lx xxiii  THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


335 


year  and  the  neap-tides  of  the  three  off  years  than  there  is 
between  one  year  and  another  under  the  European  system  of 
chambers  which  may  be  dissolved  and  ministries  which  may  be 
upset  at  any  moment.  Excitement  at  one  time  is  succeeded  by 
exhaustion  at  another.  America  suffers  from  a  sort  of  intermit¬ 
tent  fever  —  what  one  may  call  a  quintan  ague.  Every  fourth 
year  there  come  terrible  shakings,  passing  into  the  hot  fit  of  the 
presidential  election;  then  follows  what  physicians  call  “the 
interval”  ;  then  again  the  fit.  In  Europe  the  persons  who  move 
in  the  inner  sphere  of  politics,  give  unbroken  attention  to  political 
problems,  always  discussing  them  both  among  themselves  and  be¬ 
fore  the  people.  As  the  corresponding  persons  in  America  are  not 
organized  into  a  class,  and  to  some  extent  not  engaged  in  practical 
politics,  the  work  of  discussion  has  been  left  to  be  done,  in  the 
three  “off  years,”  by  the  journalists  and  a  few  of  the  more  active 
and  thoughtful  statesmen,  with  casual  aid  from  such  private 
citizens  as  may  be  interested.  Now  many  problems  require 
uninterrupted  and  what  may  be  called  scientific  or  professional 
study.  Foreign  policy  obviously  presents  such  problems.  The 
shortcomings  of  modern  England  in  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs 
have  been  not  unreasonably  attributed  to  the  fact  that,  while  the 
attention  of  her  statesmen  is  constantly  distracted  from  them  by 
domestic  struggles,  her  people  have  not  been  accustomed  to 
turn  their  eyes  abroad  except  when  some  exciting  event,  such 
as  the  Egyptian  troubles  of  1882-5  or  the  Bulgarian  massacre 
of  1876,  forces  them  to  do  so.  Hence  a  State  like  Germany, 
where  a  strong  throne  can  keep  a  strong  minister  in  power  for 
a  long  period,  obtains  advantages  which  must  be  credited  not 
wholly  to  the  wisdom  of  the  statesmen,  but  also  to  the  diffi¬ 
culties  under  which  their  rivals  in  more  democratic  countries 
labour.  America  has  had  few  occasions  for  giving  her  attention 
to  foreign  affairs,  but  some  of  her  domestic  difficulties  are  such 
as  to  demand  that  careful  observation  and  unbroken  reflection 
which  neither  her  executive  magistrates,  nor  her  legislatures,  nor 
any  leading  class  among  her  people  now  give. 

Those  who  know  the  United  States  and  have  been  struck  by 
the  quantity  of  what  is  called  politics  there,  may  think  that 
this  description  underrates  the  volume  and  energy  of  public 
political  discussion.  I  admit  the  endless  hubbub,  the  constant 
elections  in  one  district  or  another,  the  paragraphs  in  the  news¬ 
papers  as  to  the  movements  or  intentions  of  this  or  that  promi- 


336 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


nent  man,  the  reports  of  what  is  doing  in  Congress,  and  in  the 
State  legislatures,  the  decisions  of  the  Federal  Courts  in  con¬ 
stitutional  questions,  the  rumours  about  new  combinations,  the 
revelations  of  Ring  intrigues,  the  criticisms  on  appointments. 
It  is  nevertheless  true  that  in  proportion  of  the  number  of  words 
spoken,  articles  printed,  telegrams  sent,  and  acts  performed, 
less  than  is  needed  is  done  to  form  serious  political  thought, 
and  bring  practical  problems  towards  a  solution.  I  once  trav¬ 
elled  through  Transylvania  with  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  in  a  peasant’s 
wagon,  a  rude  long,  low  structure  filled  with  hay.  The 
roads  were  rough  and  stony,  the  horses  jangled  their  bells,  the 
driver  shouted  to  the  horses  and  cracked  his  whip,  the  wheels 
clanked,  the  boards  rattled,  we  were  deafened  and  shaken  and 
jolted.  We  fancied  ourselves  moving  rapidly  so  long  as  we 
looked  straight  in  front,  but  a  glance  at  the  trees  on  the  roadside 
showed  that  the  speed  was  about  three  miles  an  hour.  So  the 
pother  and  din  of  American  politics  keep  the  people  awake,  and 
give  them  a  sense  of  stir  and  motion,  but  the  machine  of  govern¬ 
ment  carries  them  slowly  onward.  Fortunately  they  have  no 
need  to  hurry.  It  is  not  so  much  by  or  through  the  machinery 
of  government  as  by  their  own  practical  good  sense,  which  at 
last  finds  a  solution  the  politicians  may  have  failed  to  find,  that 
the  American  people  advance.  When  a  European  visitor  dines 
with  a  company  of  the  best  citizens  in  such  a  city  as  Chicago  or 
Boston,  Cleveland  or  Baltimore,  he  is  struck  by  the  acuteness, 
the  insight,  the  fairness,  with  which  the  condition  and  require¬ 
ments  of  the  country  are  discussed,  the  freedom  from  such  pas¬ 
sion  or  class  feeling  as  usually  clouds  equally  able  Europeans, 
the  substantial  agreement  between  members  of  both  the  great 
parties  as  to  the  reforms  that  are  wanted,  the  patriotism  which 
is  so  proud  of  the  real  greatness  of  the  Union  as  frankly  to  ac¬ 
knowledge  its  defects,  the  generous  appreciation  of  all  that  is 
best  in  the  character  or  political  methods  of  other  nations. 
One  feels  what  a  reserve  fund  of  wisdom  and  strength  the  coun¬ 
try  has  in  such  men,  who,  so  far  from  being  aristocrats  or  recluses, 
are  usually  the  persons  whom  their  native  fellow-townsmen  best 
know  and  most  respect  as  prominent  in  business  and  in  the  pro¬ 
fessions.  In  ordinary  times  the  practical  concern  of  such  men 
with  either  national  or  local  politics  is  no  greater,  possibly  less, 
than  that  of  the  leaders  of  business  in  an  English  town  towards 
its  municipal  affairs.  But  when  there  comes  an  uprising  against 


CHAP,  lxxxiii  THE  ACTION  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 


337 


the  bosses,  it  is  these  men  who  are  called  upon  to  put  themselves 
at  the  head  of  it ;  or  when  a  question  like  that  of  civil  service  re¬ 
form  has  been  before  the  nation  for  some  time,  it  is  their  opinion 
which  strikes  the  keynote  for  that  of  their  city  or  district,  and 
which  shames  or  alarms  the  professional  politicians.  Men  of  the 
same  type,  though  individually  less  conspicuous  than  those 
whom  I  take  as  examples,  are  to  be  found  in  many  of  the  smaller 
towns,  especially  in  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States,  and  as  time 
goes  on  their  influence  grows.  Much  of  the  value  of  this  most 
educated  and  reflective  class  in  America  consists  in  their  being 
no  longer  blindly  attached  to  their  party,  because  more  alive  to 
the  principles  for  which  parties  ought  to  exist.  They  may  be 
numerically  a  small  minority  of  the  voters,  but  as  in  many 
States  the  two  regular  parties  command  a  nearly  equal  normal 
voting-  strength,  a  small  section  detached  from  either  party  can 
turn  an  election  by  throwing  its  vote  for  the  candidate,  to  which¬ 
ever  party  he  belongs,  whom  it  thinks  capable  and  honest. 
Thus  an  independent  group  wields  a  power  altogether  dispro¬ 
portionate  to  its  numbers,  and  by  a  sort  of  side  wind  cannot  only 
make  its  hostility  feared,  but  secure  a  wider  currency  for  its 
opinions.  What  opinion  chiefly  needs  in  America  in  order  to 
control  the  politicians  is  not  so  much  men  of  leisure,  for  men  of 
leisure  may  be  dilettantes  and  may  lack  a  grip  of  realities,  but 
a  more  sustain^!  activity  on  the  part  of  the  men  of  vigorously 
independent  minds,  a  more  sedulous  effort  on  their  part  to  impress 
their  views  upon  the  masses,  and  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  the 
ordinary  well-meaning  but  often  inattentive  citizens  to  prefer 
the  realities  of  good  administration  to  outworn  party  cries. 


CHAPTER  LXXXIV 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  MAJORITY 

The  expression  “ tyranny  of  the  majority”  is  commonly  used 
to  denote  any  abuse  by  the  majority  of  the  powers  which  they 
enjoy,  in  free  countries,  under  and  through  the  law,  and  in  all 
countries  outside  the  law.  Such  abuse  will  not  be  tyrannous 
in  the  sense  of  being  illegal,  as  men  called  a  usurper  like  Dionysius 
of  Syracuse  or  Louis  Napoleon  in  France  a  tyrant,  for  in  free 
countries  whatever  the  majority  chooses  to  do  in  the  prescribed 
constitutional  way  will  be  legal.  It  will  be  tyrannous  in  the 
sense  of  the  lines 

“O  it  is  excellent 

To  have  a  giant’s  strength,  but  it  is  tyrannous 
To  use  it  like  a  giant.” 

That  is  to  say,  tyranny  consists  in  the  wanton  or  inequitable 
use  of  strength  by  the  stronger,  in  the  use  of  it  to  do  things 
which  one  equal  would  not  attempt  against  another.  A  majority 
is  tyrannical  when  it  decides  without  hearing  the  minority, 
when  it  suppresses  fair  and  temperate  criticism  on  its  own  acts, 
when  it  insists  on  restraining  men  in  matters  where  restraint  is 
not  required  by  the  common  interest,  when  it  forces  men  to 
contribute  money  to  objects  which  they  disapprove  and  which 
the  common  interest  does  not  demand,  when  it  subjects  to  social 
penalties  persons  who  disagree  from  it  in  matters  not  vital  to 
the  common  welfare.  The  element  of  tyranny  lies  in  the  wan¬ 
tonness  of  the  act,  a  wantonness  springing  from  the  insolence 
which  sense  of  overwhelming  power  breeds,  or  in  the  fact  that  it 
is  a  misuse  for  one  purpose  of  authority  granted  for  another. 
It  consists  not  in  the  form  of  the  act,  which  may  be  perfectly 
legal,  but  in  the  spirit  and  temper  it  reveals,  and  in  the  sense 
of  injustice  and  oppression  which  it  evokes  in  the  minority. 

Philosophers  have  long  since  perceived  that  the  same  ten¬ 
dencies  to  a  wanton  or  unjust  abuse  of  power  which  exist  in  a 

338 


CHAP,  lxxxiv  THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  MAJORITY 


339 


despot  or  a  ruling  oligarchy  may  be  expected  in  a  democracy 
from  the  ruling  majority,  because  they  are  tendencies  incidental  x 
to  human  nature.1  The  danger  was  felt  and  feared  by  the 
sages  of  1787,  and  a  passage  in  the  Federalist  (No.  L.)  dwells 
on  the  safeguards  which  the  great  size  of  a  Federal  republic, 
and  the  diverse  elements  of  which  it  will  be  composed,  offer 
against  the  tendency  of  a  majority  to  oppress  a  minority. 

Since  Tocqueville  dilated  upon  this  as  the  capital  fault  of  the 
American  government  and  people,  Europeans,  already  prepared 
to  expect  to  find  the  tyranny  of  the  majority  a  characteristic 
sin  of  democratic  nations,  have  been  accustomed  to  think  of  the 
United  States  as  disgraced  by  it,  and  on  the  strength  of  this 
instance  have  predicted  it  as  a  necessary  result  of  the  growth 
of  democracy  in  the  Old  World.  It  is  therefore  worth  while 
to  inquire  what  foundation  exists  for  the  reproach  as  addressed 
to  the  Americans  of  to-day. 

We  may  look  for  signs  of  this  tyranny  in  three  quarters  — 
firstly,  in  the  legislation  of  Congress ;  secondly,  in  the  consti¬ 
tutions  and  statutes  of  the  States  ;  thirdly,  in  the  action  of 
public  opinion  and  sentiment  outside  the  sphere  of  law. 

The  Federal  Constitution,  which  has  not  only  limited  the 
competence  of  Congress,  but  hedged  it  round  with  many  posi¬ 
tive  prohibitions,  has  closed  some  of  the  avenues  by  which  a 
majority  might  proceed  to  abuse  its  powers.  Freedom  of  speech, 
freedom  of  religion,  opportunities  for  debate,  are  all  amply 
secured.  The  power  of  taxation,  and  that  of  regulating  com¬ 
merce,  might  conceivably  be  used  to  oppress  certain  classes  of 
persons,  as,  for  instance,  if  a  prohibitory  duty  were  to  be  laid 
on  certain  articles  which  a  minority  desired  and  the  majority  con¬ 
demned  the  use  of.  But  nothing  of  the  sort  has  been  attempted. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  expediency  of  the  present 
tariff,  which,  no  doubt,  favours  one  class,  it  cannot  be  said  to 
oppress  any  class.  In  its  political  action,  as,  for  instance, 
during  the  struggle  over  slavery,  when  for  a  while  it  refused 
to  receive  Abolitionist  petitions,  and  even  tried  to  prevent  the 
transmission  by  mail  of  Abolitionist  matter,  and  again  during 
and  after  the  war  in  some  of  its  reconstruction  measures,  the 

1  The  comparison  of  the  majority  to  an  absolute  monarch  is  as  old  as  Aris¬ 
totle.  p.6vapxo s  6  Srj/xos  ylverai  ( Polit .  iv.  4,  26)  ;  ucnrep  rvp&vvip  to)  8rjp.cp 
Xapi^bpLevoL  {Ibid.  ii.  12,  4).  In  the  Greek  cities,  where  the  respect  for  law 
was  weak,  a  triumphant  party  frequently  overrode  the  law,  just  as  the  tyrants 

did. 


340 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


majority,  under  the  pressure  of  excitement,  exercised  its  powers 
harshly  and  unwisely.  But  such  political  action  is  hardly  the 
kind  of  action  to  which  the  charge  we  are  examining  applies. 

In  the  States,  a  majority  of  the  citizens  may  act  either  directly 
in  enacting  (or  amending)  a  constitution,  or  through  their 
legislature  by  passing  statutes.  We  might  expect  to  find 
instances  of  abuse  of  power  more  in  the  former  than  in  the  latter 
class  of  cases,  because,  though  the  legislature  is  habitually  and 
the  people  of  the  State  only  intermittently  active,  the  legislatures 
have  now  been  surrounded  by  a  host  of  constitutional  limitations 
which  a  tyrannical  majority  would  need  some  skill  to  evade. 
However,  one  discovers  wonderfully  little  in  the  State  Constitu¬ 
tions  now  in  force  of  which  a  minority  can  complain.  These 
instruments  contain  a  great  deal  of  ordinary  law  and  admin¬ 
istrative  law.  If  the  tendency  to  abuse  legislative  power  to  the 
injury  of  any  class  were  general,  instances  of  it  could  not  fail  to 
appear.  One  does  not  find  them.  There  are  some  provisions 
strictly  regulating  corporations,  and  especially  railroads  and 
banks,  which  may  perhaps  be  unwise,  and  which  in  limiting  the 
modes  of  using  capital  apply  rather  to  the  rich  than  to  the  masses. 
But  such  provisions  cannot  be  called  wanton  or  oppressive. 

The  same  remark  applies  to  the  ordinary  statutes  of  the 
States,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain  their  character. 
They  can  rarely  be  used  to  repress  opinion  or  its  expression, 
because  the  State  Constitutions  contain  ample  guarantees  for 
free  speech,  a  free  press,  and  the  right  of  public  meeting.  For 
the  same  reason,  they  cannot  encroach  on  the  personal  liberty 
of  the  citizen,  nor  on  the  full  enjoyment  of  private  property. 
In  all  such  fundamentals  the  majority  has  prudently  taken  the 
possible  abuse  of  its  power  out  of  the  hands  of  the  legislature. 

When  we  come  to  minor  matters,  we  are  met  by  the  difficulty 
of  determining  what  is  a  legitimate  exercise  of  legislative  author¬ 
ity.  Nowhere  are  men  agreed  as  to  the  limits  of  state  inter¬ 
ference.  Some  few  think  that  law  ought  not  to  restrict  the  sale 
of  intoxicants  at  all ;  many  more  that  it  ought  not  to  make  the 
procuring  of  them,  for  purposes  of  pleasure,  difficult  or  impossible. 
Others  hold  that  the  common  welfare  justifies  prohibition. 
Some  deem  it  unjust  to  tax  a  man,  and  especially  an  unmarried 
man,  for  the  support  of  public  schools,  or  at  any  rate  of  public 
schools  other  than  elementary.  To  most  Roman  Catholics  it 
seems  unjust  to  refuse  denominational  schools  a  share  of  the 


CHAP,  lxxxiv  THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  MAJORITY 


341 


funds  raised  by  taxing,  among  other  citizens,  those  who  hold 
it  a  duty  to  send  their  children  to  schools  in  which  their  own 
faith  is  inculcated.  Some  think  a  law  tyrannical  which  forbids 
a  man  to  exclude  others  from  ground  which  he  keeps  waste  and 
barren,  while  others  blame  the  law  which  permits  a  man  to  reserve, 
as  they  think,  tyrannically,  large  tracts  of  country  for  his  own 
personal  enjoyment.  So  any  form  of  state  establishment  or  en¬ 
dowment  of  a  particular  creed  or  religious  body  will  by  some  be 
deemed  an  abuse,  by  others  a  wise  and  proper  use  of  state 
authority.  Remembering  such  differences  of  opinion,  all  I  can 
say  is  that  even  those  who  take  the  narrower  view  of  state 
functions  will  find  little  to  censure  in  the  legislation  of  American 
States.  They  may  blame  the  restriction  or  prohibition  of  the 
sale  of  intoxicants.  They  may  think  that  the  so-called  “  moral 
legislation”  for  securing  the  purity  of  literature,  and  for  protect¬ 
ing  the  young  against  cigarettes  and  other  temptations,  attempts 
too  much.  They  may  question  the  expediency  of  the  legislation 
intended  for  the  benefit  of  working  men.  But  there  are  few  of 
these  provisions  which  can  be  called  harsh  or  t}7rannical,  which 
display  a  spirit  that  ignores  or  tramples  on  the  feelings  or  rights 
of  a  minority.  The  least  defensible  statutes  are  perhaps  those 
which  California  has  aimed  at  the  Chinese  (who  are  not  technically 
a  minority  since  they  are  not  citizens  at  all),  and  those  by  which 
some  Southern  States  have  endeavoured  to  accentuate  the  sepa¬ 
ration  between  whites  and  negroes,  forbidding  them  to  be  taught 
in  the  same  schools  or  colleges  or  to  travel  in  the  same  cars. 

We  come  now  to  the  third  way  in  which  a  majority  may 
tyrannize,  i.e.  by  the  imposition  of  purely  social  penalties,  from 
mere  disapproval  up  to  insult,  injury,  and  boycotting.  The 
greatest  of  Athenian  statesmen  claimed  for  his  countrymen  that 
they  set  an  example  to  the  rest  of  Greece  in  that  enlightened 
toleration  which  does  not  even  visit  with  black  looks  those 
who  hold  unpopular  opinions,  or  venture  in  anywise  to  differ 
from  the  prevailing  sentiment.  Such  enlightenment  is  doubtless 
one  of  the  latest  fruits  and  crowns  of  a  high  civilization,  and  all 
the  more  to  be  admired  when  it  is  not  the  result  of  indifference, 
but  coexists  with  energetic  action  in  the  field  of  politics  or  religion 
or  social  reform. 

If  social  persecution  exists  in  the  America  of  to-day,  it  is 
only  in  a  few  dark  corners.  One  may  travel  all  over  the  North 
and  West,  mingling  with  all  classes  and  reading  the  newspapers, 


342 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


without  hearing  of  it.  As  respects  religion,  so  long  as  one  does 
not  openly  affront  the  feelings  of  one’s  neighbours,  one  may  say 
what  one  likes,  and  go  or  not  go  to  church.  Doubtless  a  man, 
and  still  more  a  woman,  may  be  better  thought  of,  especially  in  a 
country  place  or  small  town,  for  being  a  church  member  and 
Sunday-school  teacher.  But  no  one  suffers  in  mind,  body,  or 
estate  for  simply  holding  aloof  from  a  religious  or  any  other 
voluntary  association.  He  would  be  more  likely  to  suffer  in  an 
English  village.  Even  in  the  South,  where  a  stricter  standard 
of  orthodoxy  is  maintained  among  the  Protestant  clergy  than  in 
the  North  or  West,  a  layman  may  think  as  he  pleases.  It  is  the 
same  as  regards  social  questions,  and  of  course  as  regards  politics. 
To  boycott  a  man  for  his  politics,  or  even  to  discourage  his  shop 
in  the  way  not  uncommon  in  parts  of  rural  England  and  Ireland, 
would  excite  indignation  in  America ;  as  the  attempts  of  some 
labour  organizations  to  boycott  firms  resisting  strikes  have 
aroused  strong  displeasure.  If  in  the  South  a  man  took  to 
cultivating  the  friendship  of  negroes  and  organizing  them  in  clubs, 
or  if  in  the  far  West  a  man  made  himself  the  champion  of  the 
Indians,  he  might  find  his  life  become  unpleasant,  though  one 
hears  little  of  recent  instances  of  the  kind.  In  any  part  of  the 
country  he  who  should  use  his  rights  of  property  in  a  hard  or 
unneighbourty  way,  who,  for  instance,  should  refuse  all  access 
to  a  waterfall  or  a  beautiful  point  of  view,  would  be  reprobated 
and  sent  to  Coventry.  I  know  of  no  such  cases ;  perhaps  the 
fear  of  general  disapproval  prevents  their  arising. 

In  saying  that  there  is  no  social  persecution,  I  do  not  deny 
that  in  some  places,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  smaller  towns  of 
the  West,  there  may  sometimes  have  been  too  little  allowance 
for  difference  of  tastes  and  pursuits,  too  much  disposition  to 
expect  every  family  to  conform  to  the  same  standard  of  propriety, 
and  follow  the  same  habits  of  life.  A  person  acting,  however 
innocently,  without  regard  to  the  beliefs  and  prejudices  of  his 
neighbours  might  be  talked  about,  and  perhaps  looked  askance 
upon.  Many  a  man  used  to  the  variety  of  London  or  Washing¬ 
ton  would  feel  the  monotony  of  Western  life,  and  the  uniform  ap¬ 
plication  of  its  standards,  irksome  and  even  galling.  But,  so  far 
as  I  could  ascertain,  he  would  have  nothing  specific  to  complain 
of.  And  these  Western  towns  become  every  day  more  like  the 
cities  of  the  East.  Taking  the  country  all  in  all,  it  is  hard  to 
imagine  more  complete  liberty  than  individuals  and  groups  enjoy 


CHAP,  lxxxiv  THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  MAJORITY 


343 


either  to  express  and  propagate  their  views,  or  to  act  as  they 
please  within  the  limits  of  the  law,  limits  which,  except  as  re¬ 
gards  the  sale  of  intoxicants,  are  drawn  as  widely  as  in  Western 
Europe. 

In  the  earlier  half  of  last  century  it  was  very  different  Con¬ 
gress  was  then  as  now  debarred  from  oppressive  legislation.  But 
in  some  Northern  States  the  legislatures  were  not  slow  to  deal 
harshly  with  persons  or  societies  who  ran  counter  to  the  domi¬ 
nant  sentiment.  The  persecution  by  the  legislature  of  Con¬ 
necticut,  as  well  as  by  her  own  townsfolk,  of  Miss  Prudence 
Crandall,  a  benevolent  Quakeress  who  had  opened  a  school  for 
negro  children,  is  a  well-remembered  instance.  A  good  many 
rigidly  Puritanic  statutes  stood  unrepealed  in  New  England, 
though  not  always  put  in  force  against  the  transgressor.  In 
the  Slave  States  laws  of  the  utmost  severity  punished  whoso¬ 
ever  should  by  word  or  act  assail  the  “ peculiar  institution.” 
Even  more  tyrannical  than  the  laws  was  the  sentiment  of  the 
masses.  In  Boston  a  mob,  a  well-dressed  mob,  largely  com¬ 
posed  of  the  richer  sort  of  people,  hunted  Garrison  for  his  life 
through  the  streets  because  he  was  printing  an  Abolitionist 
journal;  a  mob  in  Illinois  shot  Elijah  Lovejoy  for  the  same 
offence  ;  and  as  late  as  1844  another  Illinois  crowd  killed  Joseph 
Smith,  the  Mormon  prophet,  who,  whatever  may  be  thought  of 
his  honesty  or  his  doctrines,  was  as  much  entitled  to  the  protec¬ 
tion  of  the  laws  as  any  other  citizen.  In  the  South,  as  every 
one  knows,  there  was  a  reign  of  terror  as  regards  slavery.  Any 
one  suspected  of  Abolitionism  might  think  himself  lucky  if  he 
escaped  with  tar  and  feathers,  and  was  not  shot  or  flogged  almost 
to  death.  This  extreme  sensitiveness  was  of  course  confined  to  a 
few  burning  questions ;  but  the  habit  of  repressing  by  law 
or  without  law  obnoxious  opinions  was  likely  to  spread,  and  did 
spread,  at  least  in  the  South,  to  other  matters  also.  As  regards 
thought  and  opinion  generally  over  the  Union,  Tocqueville  de¬ 
clares  :  — 

“  Je  ne  connais  pas  de  pays  ou  il  regne,  en  general,  moms  d’indepen- 
dance  d’esprit  et  de  veritable  liberte  de  discussion  qu’en  Amerique.  La 
majorite  trace  un  cercle  formidable  autour  de  la  pensee.  Au  dedans  de 
ces  limites,  l’ecrivain  est  libre,  mais  malheur  a  lui  s’il  ose  en  sortir  !  Ce 
n’est  pas  qu’il  ait  a  craindre  un  auto-da-fe,  mais  il  est  en  butte  a  des 
d^gouts  de  tout  genre  et  a  des  persecutions  de  tous  les  jours.  La  carriere 
politique  lui  est  fermee  :  il  a  offense  la  seule  puissance  qui  ait  la  faculty 
de  l’ouvrir.  On  lui  refuse  tout,  jusqu’a  la  gloire.”  —  Vol.  ii.  ch.  7. 


344 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


He  ascribes  not  only  the  want  of  great  statesmen,  but  the  low 
level  of  literature,  learning,  and  thought,  to  this  total  absence 
of  intellectual  freedom. 

It  is  hard  for  any  one  who  knows  the  Northern  States  now 
to  believe  that  this  can  have  been  a  just  description  of  them 
so  lately  as  1832.  One  is  tempted  to  think  that  Tocqueville’s 
somewhat  pessimistic  friends'  in  New  England,  mortified  by  the 
poverty  of  intellectual  production  around  them,  may  have  exag¬ 
gerated  the  repressive  tendencies  in  which  they  found  the  cause 
of  that  poverty.  We  can  now  see  that  the  explanation  was  erro¬ 
neous.  Freedom  does  not  necessarily  increase  fertility.  As  they 
erred  in  their  diagnosis,  they  may  have  erred  in  their  observation 
of  the  symptoms. 

Assuming,  however,  that  the  description  was  a  just  one, 
how  are  we  to  explain  the  change  to  the  absolute  freedom  and 
tolerance  of  to-day,  when  every  man  may  sit  under  his  own  vine 
and  fig-tree  and  say  and  do  (provided  he  drink  not  the  juice  of 
that  vine)  what  he  pleases,  none  making  him  afraid  ? 

One  may  suspect  that  Tocqueville,  struck  by  the  enormous 
power  of  general  opinion,  attributed  too  much  of  the  submissive¬ 
ness  which  he  observed  to  the  active  coercion  of  the  majority, 
and  too  little  to  that  tendency  of  the  minority  to  acquiescence 
which  will  be  discussed  in  the  next  succeeding  chapter.  Setting 
this  aside,  however,  and  assuming  that  the  majority  did  in  those 
days  really  tyrannize,  several  causes  may  be  assigned  for  its 
having  ceased  to  do  so.  One  is  the  absence  of  violent  passions. 
Slavery,  the  chief  source  of  ferocity,  was  to  the  heated  minds 
of  the  South  a  matter  of  life  or  death ;  Abolitionism  seemed  to 
many  in  the  North  a  disloyal  heresy,  the  necessary  parent  of 
disunion.  Since  the  Civil  War  there  has  been  no  crisis  calcu¬ 
lated  to  tempt  majorities  to  abuse  their  legal  powers.  Partisan¬ 
ship  has  for  years  past  been  more  intense  in  Great  Britain  — 
not  to  say  Ireland  —  and  France  than  in  America.  When 
Tocqueville  saw  the  United  States,  the  democratic  spirit  was  in 
the  heyday  of  its  youthful  strength,  flushed  with  self-confidence, 
intoxicated  with  the  exuberance  of  its  own  freedom.  The  first 
generation  of  statesmen  whose  authority  had  restrained  the 
masses,  had  just  quitted  the  stage.  The  anarchic  teachings  of 
Jefferson  had  borne  fruit.  Administration  and  legislation, 
hitherto  left  to  the  educated  classes,  had  been  seized  by  the  rude 
hands  of  men  of  low  social  position  and  scanty  knowledge. 


CHAP,  lxxxi v  THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  MAJORITY 


345 


A  reign  of  brutality  and  violence  had  set  in  over  large  regions  of 
the  country.  Neither  literature  nor  the  universities  exercised 
as  yet  any  sensible  power.  The  masses  were  so  persuaded  of 
their  immense  superiority  to  all  other  peoples,  past  as  well  as 
present,  that  they  would  listen  to  nothing  but  flattery,  and  their 
intolerance  spread  from  politics  into  every  other  sphere.  Our 
European  philosopher  may  therefore  have  been  correct  in  his 
description  of  the  facts  as  he  saw  them  :  he  erred  in  supposing 
them  essential  to  a  democratic  government.  As  the  nation 
grew,  it  purged  away  these  faults  of  youth  and  inexperience  : 
the  stern  discipline  of  the  Civil  War  taught  it  sobriety,  and  in 
giving  it  something  to  be  really  proud  of,  cleared  away  the  fumes 
of  self-conceit. 

The  years  which  have  passed  since  the  war  have  been  years 
of  immensely  extended  and  popularized  culture  and  enlighten¬ 
ment.  Bigotry  in  religion  and  in  everything  else  has  been 
broken  down.  The  old  landmarks  have  been  removed  :  the 
habits  and  methods  of  free  inquiry,  if  not  generally  practised, 
have  at  least  become  superficially  familiar  ;  the  “latest  results/’ 
as  people  call  them,  of  European  thought  have  been  brought  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  native  Americans  more  fully  than  to  the 
masses  of  Europe.  At  the  same  time,  as  all  religious  and  socio¬ 
religious  questions,  except  those  which  relate  to  education,  are 
entirely  disjoined  from  politics  and  the  State,  neither  those  who 
stand  by  the  old  views,  nor  those  who  embrace  the  new,  carry  that 
bitterness  into  their  controversies  which  is  natural  in  countries 
where  religious  questions  are  also  party  questions,  where  the 
clergy  are  a  privileged  and  salaried  order,  where  the  throne  is 
held  bound  to  defend  the  altar,  and  the  workman  is  taught  to 
believe  that  both  are  leagued  against  him.  The  influence  of 
these  causes  will,  it  may  be  predicted,  be  permanent.  Should 
passion  again  invade  politics,  or  should  the  majority  become 
convinced  that  its  interests  will  be  secured  by  overtaxing  the 
few,  one  can  imagine  the  tendency  of  fifty  years  ago  reappear¬ 
ing  in  new  forms.  But  in  no  imaginable  future  is  there  likely 
to  be  any  attempt  to  repress  either  by  law  or  by  opinion  the 
free  exercise  and  expression  of  speculative  thought  on  morals, 
on  religion,  and  indeed  on  every  matter  not  within  the  immediate 
range  of  politics. 

If  the  above  account  be  correct,  the  tyranny  of  the  majority 
is  no  longer  a  blemish  on  the  American  system,  and  the  charges 


346 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


brought  against  democracy  from  the  supposed  example  of 
America  are  groundless.  As  tyranny  is  one  of  those  evils 
which  tends  to  perpetuate  itself,  those  who  had  been  oppressed 
revenging  themselves  by  becoming '  oppressors  in  their  turn, 
the  fact  that  a  danger  once  dreaded  has  now  disappeared  is  no 
small  evidence  of  the  recuperative  forces  of  the  American 
government,  and  the  healthy  tone  of  the  American  people. 


CHAPTER  LXXXV 


THE  FATALISM  OF  THE  MULTITUDE 

One  feature  of  thought  and  sentiment  in  the  United  States 
needs  special  examination  because  it  has  been  by  most  observ¬ 
ers  either  ignored  or  confounded  with  a  phenomenon  which  is 
at  bottom  quite  different.  This  is  a  fatalistic  attitude  of  mind, 
which,  since  it  disposes  men  to  acquiesce  in  the  rule'  of  num¬ 
bers,  has  been,  when  perceived,  attributed  to  or  identified  with 
what  is  commonly  called  the  Tyranny  of  the  Majority.  The  ten¬ 
dency  to  fatalism  is  never  far  from  mankind.  It  is  one  of  the 
first  solutions  of  the  riddle  of  the  earth  propounded  by  meta¬ 
physics.  It  is  one  of  the  last  propounded  by  science.  It  has 
at  all  times  formed  the  background  to  religions.  No  race  is 
naturally  less  disposed  to  a  fatalistic  view  of  things  than  is  the 
Anglo-American,  with  its  restless  self-reliant  energy. 

Nil  actum  reputans  dum  quid  restaret  agendum, 

its  slender  taste  for  introspection  or  meditation.  Nevertheless, 
even  in  this  people  the  conditions  of  life  and  politics  have  bred 
a  sentiment  or  tendency  which  seems  best  described  by  the 
name  of  fatalism. 

In  small  and  rude  communities,  every  free  man,  or  at  least 
every  head  of  a  household,  feels  his  own  significance  and  real¬ 
izes  his  own  independence.  He  relies  on  himself,  he  is  little 
interfered  with  by  neighbours  or  rulers.1  His  will  and  his 
action  count  for  something  in  the  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  the 
community  he  belongs  to,  yet  common  affairs  are  few  com¬ 
pared  to  those  in  which  he  must  depend  on  his  own  exertions. 
The  most  striking  pictures  of  individualism  that  literature 
has  preserved  for  us  are  those  of  the  Homeric  heroes,  and  of 
the  even  more  terrible  and  self-reliant  warriors  of  the  Norse 

1  The  kind  of  self-reliant  attitude  I  am  seeking  to  describe  is  quite  a  different 
thing  from  the  supposed  “state  of  nature”  in  which  a  man  has  no  legal  rela¬ 
tions  with  his  fellows.  It  may  exist  (as  in  early  Rome)  among  the  members 
of  a  community  closely  united  by  legal  ties. 

347 


348 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


sagas,  men  like  Ragnar  Lodbrog  and  Egil  son  of  Skallagrim, 
who  did  not  regard  even  the  gods,  but  trusted  their  own  might 
and  main.  In  more  developed  states  of  society  organized  on 
an  oligarchic  basis,  such  as  were  the  feudal  kingdoms  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  or  in  socially  aristocratic  countries  such  as  most 
parts  of  Europe  have  remained  down  to  our  own  time,  the  bulk 
of  the  people  are  no  doubt  in  a  dependent  condition,  but  each 
person  derives  a  certain  sense  of  personal  consequence  from  the 
strength  of  his  group  and  of  the  person  or  family  at  the  head 
of  it.  Moreover,  the  upper  class,  being  the  class  which  thinks 
and  writes,  as  well  as  leads  in  action,  impresses  its  own  type 
upon  the  character  of  the  whole  nation,  and  that  type  is  still 
individualistic,  with  a  strong  consciousness  of  personal  free  will, 
and  a  tendency  for  each  man,  if  not  to  think  for  himself,  at 
least  to  value  and  to  rely  on  his  own  opinion. 

Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  the  aristocratic  structure  of 
society  has  been  dissolved,  that  the  old  groups  have  disap¬ 
peared,  that  men  have  come  to  feel  themselves  members  rather 
of  the  nation  than  of  classes,  or  families,  or  communities  within 
the  nation,  that  a  levelling  process  has  destroyed  the  ascen¬ 
dency  of  birth  and  rank,  that  large  landed  estates  no  longer 
exist,  that  many  persons  in  what  was  previously  the  humbler 
class  have  acquired  possession  of  property,  that  knowledge 
is  easily  accessible  and  the  power  of  using  it  no  longer  confined 
to  the  few.  Under  such  conditions  of  social  equality  the  habit 
of  intellectual  command  and  individual  self-confidence  will  have 
vanished  from  the  leading  class,  which  creates  the  type  of 
national  character,  and  will  exist  nowhere  in  the  nation. 

Let  us  suppose,  further,  that  political  equality  has  gone 
hand  in  hand  with  the  levelling  down  of  social  eminence. 
Every  citizen  enjoys  the  same  right  of  electing  the  represen¬ 
tatives  and  officials,  the  same  right  of  himself  becoming  a  rep¬ 
resentative  or  an  official.  Every  one  is  equally  concerned  in 
the  conduct  of  public  affairs,  and  since  no  man’s  opinion,  how¬ 
ever  great  his  superiority  in  wealth,  knowledge,  or  personal 
capacity,  is  legally  entitled  to  any  more  weight  than  another’s, 
no  man  is  entitled  to  set  special  value  on  his  own  opinion, 
or  to  expect  others  to  defer  to  it ;  for  pretensions  to  authority 
will  be  promptly  resented.  All  disputes  are  referred  to  the 
determination  of  the  majority,  there  being  no  legal  distinc¬ 
tion  between  the  naturally  strong  and  naturally  weak,  be- 


CHAP,  lxxxv  THE  FATALISM  OF  THE  MULTITUDE 


349 


tween  the  rich  and  the  poor,  between  the  wise  and  the  fool¬ 
ish.  In  such  a  state  of  things  the  strong  roan’s  self-confidence 
and  sense  of  individual  force  will  inevitably  have  been  lowered, 
because  he  will  feel  that  he  is  only  one  of  many,  that  his  vote 
or  voice  counts  for  no  more  than  that  of  his  neighbour,  that 
he  can  prevail,  if  at  all,  only  by  keeping  himself  on  a  level 
with  his  neighbour  and  recognizing  the  latter’s  personality  as 
being  every  whit  equal  to  his  own. 

Suppose,  further,  that  all  this  takes  place  in  an  enormously 
large  and  populous  country,  where  the  governing  voters  are 
counted  by  so  many  millions  that  each  individual  feels  himself 
a  mere  drop  in  the  ocean,  the  influence  which  he  can  exert 
privately,  whether  by  his  personal  gifts  or  by  his  wealth,  being- 
confined  to  the  small  circle  of  his  town  or  neighbourhood.  On 
all  sides  there  stretches  round  him  an  illimitable  horizon ;  and 
beneath  the  blue  vault  which  meets  that  horizon  there  is  every¬ 
where  the  same  busy  multitude  with  its  clamour  of  mingled 
voices  which  he  hears  close  by.  In  this  multitude  his  own 
being  seems  lost.  He  has  the  sense  of  insignificance  which 
overwhelms  us  when  at  night  we  survey  the  host  of  heaven, 
and  know  that  from  even  the  nearest  fixed  star  this  planet  of 
ours  is  invisible. 

In  such  a  country,  where  complete  political  equality  is 
strengthened  and  perfected  by  complete  social  equality,  where 
the  will  of  the  majority  is  absolute,  unquestioned,  always 
invoked  to  decide  every  question,  and  where  the  numbers 
which  decide  are  so  vast  that  one  comes  to  regard  them  as  one 
regards  the  largely  working  forces  of  nature,  we  may  expect  to 
find  certain  feelings  and  beliefs  dominant  in  the  minds  of  men. 

One  of  these  is  that  the  majority  must  prevail.  All  free 
government  rests  on  this  belief,  for  there  is  no  other  way  of 
working  free  government.  To  obey  the  majority  is,  therefore, 
both  a  necessity  and  a  duty,  a  duty  because  the  alternative 
would  be  ruin  and  the  breaking  up  of  laws. 

Out  of  this  dogma  there  grows  up  another  which  is  less  dis¬ 
tinctly  admitted,  and  indeed  held  rather  implicitly  than  con¬ 
sciously,  that  the  majority  is  right.  And  out  of  both  of  these 
there  grows  again  the  feeling,  still  less  consciously  held,  but 
not  less  truly  operative,  that  it  is  vain  to  oppose  or  censure 
the  majority. 

It  may  seem  that  there  is  a  long  step  from  the  first  of  these 


350 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


propositions  to  the  second  and  third ;  and  that,  in  fact,  the 
very  existence  of  a  minority  striving  with  a  majority  implies 
that  there  must  be  many  who  hold  the  majority  to  be  wrong, 
and  are  prepared  to  resist  it.  Men  do  not  at  once  abandon 
their  views  because  they  have  been  outvoted ;  they  reiterate 
their  views,  they  reorganize  their  party,  they  hope  to  prevail, 
and  often  do  prevail  in  a  subsequent  trial  of  strength. 

All  this  is  doubtless  involved  in  the  very  methods  of  popular 
government.  But  it  is,  nevertheless,  true  that  the  belief  in 
the  right  of  the  majority  lies  very  near  to  the  belief  that  the 
majority  must  be  right.  As  self-government  is  based  on  the 
notion  that  each  man  is  more  likely  to  be  right  than  to  be 
wrong,  and  that  one  man’s  opinion  must  be  treated  as  equally 
good  with  another’s,  there  is  a  presumption  that  when  twenty 
thousand  vote  one  way,  and  twenty-one  thousand  another,  the 
view  of  the  greater  number  is  the  better  view.  The  habit  of 
deference  to  a  decision  actually  given  strengthens  this  presump¬ 
tion,  and  weaves  it  into  the  texture  of  every  mind.  A  con¬ 
scientious  citizen  feels  that  he  ought  to  obey  the  determination 
of  the  majority,  and  naturally  prefers  to  think  that  which  he 
obeys  to  be  right.  A  citizen  languidly  interested  in  the  ques¬ 
tion  at  issue  finds  it  easier  to  comply  with  and  adopt  the  view 
of  the  majority  than  to  hold  out  against  it.  A  small  number 
of  men  with  strong  convictions  or  warm  party  feeling  will,  for 
a  time,  resist.  But  even  they  feel  differently  towards  their 
cause  after  it  has  been  defeated  from  what  they  did  while  it 
had  still  a  prospect  of  success.  They  know  that  in  the  same 
proportion  in  which  their  supporters  are  dismayed,  the  majority 
is  emboldened  and  confirmed  in  its  views.  It  will  be  harder 
to  fight  a  second  battle  than  it  was  to  fight  the  first,  for  there 
is  (so  to  speak)  a  steeper  slope  of  popular  disapproval  to  be 
climbed.  Thus,  just  as  at  the  opening  of  a  campaign,  the 
event  of  the  first  collisions  between  the  hostile  armies  has 
great  significance,  because  the  victory  of  one  is  taken  as  an 
omen  and  a  presage  by  both,  so  in  the  struggles  of  parties 
success  at  an  incidental  election  works  powerfully  to  strengthen 
those  who  succeed,  and  depress  those  who  fail,  for  it  inspires 
self-confidence  or  self-distrust,  and  it  turns  the  minds  of  waverers. 
The  very  obscurity  of  the  causes  which  move  opinion  adds 
significance  to  the  result.  So  in  the  United  States,  when 
the  elections  in  any  State  precede  by  a  few  weeks  a  presiden- 


CHAP,  lxxxv  THE  FATALISM  OF  THE  MULTITUDE 


351 


tial  contest,  their  effect  has  sometimes  been  so  great  as  vir¬ 
tually  to  determine  that  contest  by  filling  one  side  with  hope 
and  the  other  with  despondency.  Those  who  prefer  to  swim 
with  the  stream  are  numerous  everywhere,  and  their  votes 
have  as  much  weight  as  the  votes  of  the  keenest  partisans. 
A  man  of  convictions  may  insist  that  the  arguments  on  both 
sides  are  after  the  polling  just  what  they  were  before.  But 
the  average  man  will  repeat  his  arguments  with  less  faith, 
less  zeal,  more  of  a  secret  fear  that  he  may  be  wrong,  than  he 
did  while  the  majority  was  still  doubtful ;  and  after  every 
reassertion  by  the  majority  of  its  judgment,  his  knees  grow 
feebler,  till  at  last  they  refuse  to  carry  him  into  the  combat. 

The  larger  the  scale  on  which  the  majority  works,  the  more 
potent  are  these  tendencies.  When  the  scene  of  action  is  a 
small  commonwealth,  the  individual  voters  are  many  of  them 
personally  known  to  one  another,  and  the  motives  which  deter¬ 
mine  their  votes  are  understood  and  discounted.  When  it  is  a 
moderately-sized  country,  the  towns  or  districts  which  compose 
it  are  not  too  numerous  for  reckoning  to  overtake  and  imagina¬ 
tion  to  picture  them,  and  in  many  cases  their  action  can  be 
explained  by  well-known  causes  which  may  be  represented  as 
transitory.  But  when  the  theatre  stretches  itself  to  a  conti¬ 
nent,  when  the  number  of  voters  is  counted  by  many  millions, 
the  wings  of  imagination  droop,  and  the  huge  voting  mass 
ceases  to  be  thought  of  as  merely  so  many  individual  human 
beings  no  wiser  or  better  than  one’s  own  neighbours.  The 
phenomenon  seems  to  pass  into  the  category  of  the  phenomena 
of  nature,  governed  by  far-reaching  and  inexorable  laws  whose 
character  science  has  only  imperfectly  ascertained,  and  which 
she  can  use  only  by  obeying.  It  inspires  a  sort  of  awe,  a  sense 
of  individual  impotence,  like  that  which  man  feels  when  he 
contemplates  the  majestic  and  eternal  forces  of  the  inanimate 
world.  Such  a  feeling  is  even  stronger  when  it  operates,  not 
on  a  cohesive  minority  which  had  lately  hoped,  or  may  yet 
hope,  to  become  a  majority,  but  on  a  single  man  or  small 
group  of  persons  cherishing  some  opinion  which  the  mass 
disapproves.  Thus  out  of  the  mingled  feelings  that  the  multi¬ 
tude  will  prevail,  and  that  the  multitude,  because  it  will  pre¬ 
vail,  must  be  right,  there  grows  a  self-distrust,  a  despondency, 
a  disposition  to  fall  into  line,  to  acquiesce  in  the  dominant 
opinion,  to  submit  thought  as  well  as  action  to  the  encompass- 


352 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


ing  power  of  numbers.  Now  and  then  a  resolute  man  will, 
like  Athanasius,  stand  alone  against  the  world.  But  such  a 
man  must  have,  like  Athanasius,  some  special  spring  of  inward 
strength ;  and  the  difficulty  of  winning  over  others  against  the 
overwhelming  weight  of  the  multitude  will,  even  in  such  a 
man,  dull  the  edge  of  enterprise.  An  individual  seeking  to 
make  his  view  prevail,  looks  forth  on  his  hostile  fellow-country¬ 
men  as  a  solitary  swimmer,  raised  high  on  a  billow  miles  from 
land,  looks  over  the  countless  waves  that  divide  him  from 
the  shore,  and  quails  to  think  how  small  the  chance  that  his 
strength  can  bear  him  thither. 

This  tendency  to  acquiescence  and  submission,  this  sense  of 
the  insignificance  of  individual  effort,  this  belief  that  the  affairs 
'  of  men  are  swayed  by  large  forces  whose  movement  may  be 
studied  but  cannot  be  turned,  I  have  ventured  to  call  the 
Fatalism  of  the  Multitude.  It  is  often  confounded  with  the 
tyranny  of  the  majority,  but  is  at  bottom  different,  though, 
of  course,  its  existence  makes  abuses  of  power  by  the  majority 
easier,  because  less  apt  to  be  resented.  But  the  fatalistic  atti¬ 
tude  I  have  been  seeking  to  describe  does  not  imply  any  compul¬ 
sion  exerted  by  the  majority.  It  may  rather  seem  to  soften  and 
make  less  odious  an  exercise  of  their  power,  may  even  dispense 
with  that  exercise,  because  it  disposes  a  minority  to  submit 
without  the  need  of  a  command,  to  spontaneously  renounce 
its  own  view  and  fall  in  with  the  view  which  the  majority  has 
expressed.  In  the  fatalism  of  the  multitude  there  is  neither 
legal  nor  moral  compulsion ;  there  is  merely  a  loss  of  resisting 
power,  a  diminished  sense  of  personal  responsibility,  and  of  the 
duty  to  battle  for  one’s  own  opinions,  such  as  has  been  bred  in 
some  peoples  by  the  belief  in  an  overmastering  fate.  It  is  true 
that  the  force  to  which  the  citizen  of  the  vast  democracy  sub¬ 
mits  is  a  moral  force,  not  that  of  an  unapproachable  Allah,  nor 
of  the  unchangeable  laws  of  matter.  But  it  is  a  moral  force 
acting  on  so  vast  a  scale,  and  from  causes  often  so  obscure,  that 
its  effect  on  the  mind  of  the  individual  may  well  be  compared 
with  that  which  religious  or  scientific  fatalism  engenders. 

No  one  will  suppose  that  the  above  sketch  is  intended  to 
apply  literally  to  the  United  States,  where  in  some  matters 
legal  restrictions  check  a  majority,  where  local  self-government 
gives  the  humblest  citizen  a  sphere  for  public  action,  where 
individualism  is  still  in  many  forms  and  directions  so  vigorous. 


CHAP,  lxxxv  THE  FATALISM  OF  THE  MULTITUDE 


353 


An  American  explorer,  an  American  settler  in  new  lands,  an 
American  man  of  business  pushing  a  great  enterprise,  is  a 
being  as  bold  and  resourceful  as  the  world  has  ever  seen.  All 
I  seek  to  convey  is  that  there  are  in  the  United  States  signs 
of  such  a  fatalistic  temper,  signs  which  one  must  expect  to 
find  wherever  a  vast  population  governs  itself  under  a  system 
of  complete  social  and  political  equality,  and  which  may  grow 
more  frequent  as  time  goes  on. 

There  exist  in  the  American  Republic  several  conditions 
which  specially  tend  to  create  such  a  temper. 

One  of  these  is  the  unbounded  freedom  of  discussion.  Every 
view,  every  line  of  policy,  has  its  fair  chance  before  the  people. 
No  one  can  say  that  audience  has  been  denied  him,  and  com¬ 
fort  himself  with  the  hope  that,  when  he  is  heard,  the  world 
will  come  round  to  him.  Under  a  repressive  government,  the 
sense  of  grievance  and  injustice  feeds  the  flame  of  resistance 
in  a  persecuted  minority.  But  in  a  country  like  this,  where 
the  freedom  of  the  press,  the  right  of  public  meeting,  and  the 
right  of  association  and  agitation  have  been  legally  extended 
and  are  daily  exerted  more  widely  than  anywhere  else  in  the 
world,  there  is  nothing  to  awaken  that  sense.  He  whom  the 
multitude  condemns  or  ignores  has  no  further  court  of  appeal 
to  look  to.  Rome  has  spoken.  His  cause  has  been  heard  and 
judgment  has  gone  against  him. 

Another  is  the  intense  faith  which  the  Americans  have  in 
the  soundness  of  their  institutions,  and  in  the  future  of  their 
country.  Foreign  critics  have  said  that  they  think  themselves 
the  special  objects  of  the  care  of  Divine  Providence.  If  this 
be  so,  it  is  matter  neither  for  surprise  nor  for  sarcasm.  They 
are  a  religious  people.  They  are  trying,  and  that  on  the  larg¬ 
est  scale,  the  most  remarkable  experiment  in  government  the 
world  has  yet  witnessed.  They  have  more  than  once  been  sur¬ 
rounded  by  perils  which  affrighted  the  stoutest  hearts,  and 
they  have  escaped  from  these  perils  into  peace  and  prosperity. 
There  is  among  pious  persons  a  deep  conviction  —  one  may 
often  hear  it  expressed  on  platforms  and  from  pulpits  with  evi¬ 
dent  sincerity  —  that  God  has  specially  chosen  the  nation  to 
work  out  a  higher  type  of  civilization  than  any  other  State  has 
yet  attained,  and  that  this  great  work  will  surely  be  brought 
to  a  happy  issue  by  the  protecting  hand  that  has  so  long  guided 
it.  And,  even  when  the  feeling  does  not  take  a  theological  ex- 
2a 


354 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


pression,  the  belief  in  what  is  called  the  “  Mission  of  the  Re¬ 
public’7  for  all  humanity  is  scarcely  less  ardent.  But  the 
foundation  of  the  Republic  is  confidence  in  the  multitude,  in 
its  honesty  and  good  sense,  in  the  certainty  of  its  arriving  at 
right  conclusions.  Pessimism  is  the  luxury  of  a  handful ;  op¬ 
timism  is  the  private  delight,  as  well  as  public  profession,  of 
nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  out  of  every  thousand,  for  no¬ 
where  does  the  individual  associate  himself  more  constantly 
and  directly  with  the  greatness  of  his  country. 

Now,  such  a  faith  in  the  people,  and  in  the  forces  that  sway 
them,  disposes  a  man  to  acquiescence  and  submission.  He  can¬ 
not  long  hold  that  he  is  right  and  the  multitude  wrong.  He 
cannot  suppose  that  the  country  will  ultimately  suffer  because 
it  refuses  to  adopt  what  he  urges  upon  it.  As  he  comes  of  an 
energetic  stock,  he  will  use  all  proper  means  to  state  his  views, 
and  give  them  every  chance  of  prevailing.  But  he  submits 
more  readily  than  an  Englishman  would  do,  ay,  even  to  what 
an  Englishman  would  think  an  injury  to  his  private  rights. 
When  his  legal  right  has  been  infringed,  an  American  will  con¬ 
fidently  proceed  to  enforce  at  law  his  claim  to  redress,  knowing 
that  even  against  the  government  a  just  cause  will  prevail. 
But  if  he  fails  at  law,  the  sense  of  his  individual  insignificance 
will  still  his  voice.  It  may  seem  a  trivial  illustration  to  ob¬ 
serve  that  when  a  railway  train  is  late,  or  a  wagon  drawn  up 
opposite  a  warehouse  door  stops  the  street  car  for  a  few  minutes, 
the  passengers  take  the  delay  far  more  coolly  and  uncomplain¬ 
ingly  than  Englishmen  would  do.  But  the  feeling  is  the  same 
as  that  which  makes  good  citizens  bear  with  the  tyranny  of 
Bosses.  It  is  all  in  the  course  of  nature.  Others  submit ;  why 
should  one  man  resist?  What  is  he  that  he  should  make  a 
fuss  because  he  loses  a  few  minutes,  or  is  taxed  too  highly? 
The  sense  of  the  immense  multitude  around  him  presses  down 
the  individual;  and,  after  all,  he  reflects,  “ things  will  come 
out  right”  in  the  end. 

It  is  hard  adequately  to  convey  the  impression  which  the 
vastness  of  the  country  and  the  swift  growth  of  its  population 
make  upon  the  European  traveller.  I  well  remember  how  it 
once  came  on  me  after  climbing  a  high  mountain  in  an  Eastern 
State.  All  around  was  thick  forest ;  but  the  setting  sun  lit  up 
peaks  sixty  or  seventy  miles  away,  and  flashed  here  and  there 
on  the  windings  of  some  river  past  a  town  so  far  off  as  to  seem 


CHAP,  lxxxv  THE  FATALISM  OF  THE  MULTITUDE 


355 


only  a  spot  of  white.  I  opened  my  map,  a  large  map,  which  I 
had  to  spread  upon  the  rocks  to  examine,  and  tried  to  make 
out,  as  one  would  have  done  in  Scotland  or  Switzerland,  the 
points  in  the  view.  The  map,  however,  was  useless,  because 
the  whole  area  of  the  landscape  beneath  me  covered  only  two 
or  three  square  inches  upon  it.  From  such  a  height  in  Scot¬ 
land  the  eye  would  have  ranged  from  sea  to  sea.  But  here 
when  one  tried  to  reckon  how  many  more  equally  wide  stretches 
of  landscape  lay  between  this  peak  and  the  Mississippi,  which 
is  itself  only  a  third  of  the  way  across  the  continent,  the  cal¬ 
culation  seemed  endless  and  was  soon  abandoned.  Many  an 
Englishman  comes  by  middle  life  to  know  nearly  all  England 
like  a  glove.  He  has  travelled  on  all  the  great  railroads ; 
there  is  hardly  a  large  town  in  which  he  has  not  acquaintances, 
hardly  a  country  whose  scenery  is  not  familiar  to  him.  But  no 
American  can  be  familiar  with  more  than  a  small  part  of  his 
country,  for  his  country  is  a  continent.  And  all  Americans 
live  their  life  through  under  the  sense  of  this  prodigious  and 
daily  growing  multitude  around  them,  which  seems  vaster  the 
more  you  travel,  and  the  more  you  realize  its  uniformity. 

We  need  not  here  inquire  whether  the  fatalistic  attitude  I 
have  sought  to  sketch  is  the  source  of  more  good  or  evil.  It 
seems  at  any  rate  inevitable  :  nor  does  it  fail  to  produce  a  sort 
of  pleasure,  for  what  the  individual  loses  as  an  individual  he 
seems  in  a  measure  to  regain  as  one  of  the  multitude.  If  the 
individual  is  not  strong,  he  is  at  any  rate  as  strong  as  any  one 
else.  His  will  counts  for  as  much  as  any  other  will.  He  is 
overborne  by  no  superiority.  Most  men  are  fitter  to  make  part 
of  the  multitude  than  to  strive  against  it.  Obedience  is  to 
most  sweeter  than  independence ;  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
inspires  in  its  children  a  stronger  affection  than  any  form  of 
Protestantism,  for  she  takes  their  souls  in  charge,  and  assures 
them  that,  with  obedience,  all  will  be  well. 

That  which  we  are  presently  concerned  to  note  is  how  greatly 
such  a  tendency  as  I  have  described  facilitates  the  action  of 
opinion  as  a  governing  power,  enabling  it  to  prevail  more 
swiftly  and  more  completely  than  in  countries  where  men  have 
not  yet  learned  to  regard  the  voice  of  the  multitude  as  the 
voice  of  fate.  Many  submit  willingly ;  some  unwillingly,  yet 
they  submit.  Rarely  does  any  one  hold  out  and  venture  to  tell 
the  great  majority  of  his  countrymen  that  they  are  wrong. 


356 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


Moreover,  public  opinion  acquires  a  solidity  which  strength¬ 
ens  the  whole  body  politic.  Questions  on  which  the  masses 
have  made  up  their  minds  pass  out  of  the  region  of  practical 
discussion.  Controversy  is  confined  to  minor  topics,  and  how¬ 
ever  vehemently  it  may  rage  over  these,  it  disturbs  the  great 
underlying  matters  of  agreement  no  more  than  a  tempest  stirs 
the  depths  of  the  Atlantic.  Public  order  becomes  more  easily 
maintained,  because  individuals  and  small  groups  have  learned 
to  submit  even  when  they  feel  themselves  aggrieved.  The  man 
who  murmurs  against  the  world,  who  continues  to  preach  a 
hopeless  cause,  incurs  contempt,  and  is  apt  to  be  treated  as  a 
sort  of  lunatic.  He  who  is  too  wise  to  murmur  and  too  proud 
to  go  on  preaching  to  unheeding  ears  comes  to  think  that  if 
his  doctrine  is  true,  yet  the  time  is  not  ripe  or  it.  He  may  be 
in  error ;  but  if  he  is  right,  the  world  will  ultimately  see  that 
he  is  right  even  without  his  effort.  One  way  or  another  he 
finds  it  hard  to  believe  that  this  vast  mass  and  force  of  popular 
thought  in  which  he  lives  and  moves  can  be  ultimately  wrong. 
Securus  iudicat  orbis  terrarum. 


CHAPTER  LXXXVI 


WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  FAILS 

Without  anticipating  the  criticism  of  democratic  govern¬ 
ment  to  be  given  in  a  later  chapter,  we  may  wind  up  the  exami¬ 
nation  of  public  opinion  by  considering  what  are  its  merits 
as  a  governing  and  overseeing  power,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
what  defects,  due  either  to  inherent  weakness  or  to  the  want 
of  appropriate  machinery,  prevent  it  from  attaining  the  ideal 
which  the  Americans  have  set  before  themselves.  I  begin 
with  the  defects. 

The  obvious  weakness  of  government  by  opinion  is  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  ascertaining  it.  English  administrators  in  India  la¬ 
ment  the  impossibility  of  learning  the  sentiments  of  the  natives, 
because  in  the  East  the  populations,  the  true  masses,  are  dumb. 
The  press  is  written  by  a  handful  of  persons  who,  in  becoming 
writers,  have  ceased  to  belong  to  the  multitude,  and  the  mul¬ 
titude  does  not  read.  The  difficulties  of  Western  statesmen 
are  due  to  an  opposite  cause.  The  populations  are  highly 
articulate.  Such  is  the  din  of  voices  that  it  is  hard  to  say 
which  cry  prevails,  which  is  swelled  by  many,  which  only  by 
a  few,  throats.  The  organs  of  opinion  seem  almost  as  numerous 
as  the  people  themselves,  and  they  are  all  engaged  in  represent¬ 
ing  their  own  view  as  that  of  “the  people.”  Like  other  valu¬ 
able  articles,  genuine  opinion  is  surrounded  by  counterfeits. 
The  one  positive  test  applicable  is  that  of  an  election,  and  an 
election  can  at  best  do  no  more  than  test  the  division  of  opinion 
between  two  or  three  great  parties,  leaving  subsidiary  issues 
uncertain,  while  in  many  cases  the  result  depends  so  much  on 
the  personal  merits  of  the  candidates  as  to  render  interpreta¬ 
tion  difficult.  An  American  statesman  is  in  no  danger  of 
consciously  running  counter  to  public  opinion,  but  how  is  he 
to  discover  whether  any  particular  opinion  is  making  or  losing 
way,  how  is  he  to  gauge  the  voting  strength  its  advocates  can 
put  forth,  or  the  moral  authority  its  advocates  can  exert? 

357 


358 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


Elections  cannot  be  further  multiplied,  for  they  are  too  numer¬ 
ous  already.  The  referendum,  or  plan  of  submitting  a  specific 
question  to  the  popular  vote,  is  the  logical  resource,  but  it  is 
troublesome  and  costly  to  take  the  votes  of  millions  of  people 
over  an  area  so  large  as  that  of  one  of  the  greater  States ;  much 
more  then  is  the  method  difficult  to  apply  in  Federal  matters. 
This  is  the  first  drawback  to  the  rule  of  public  opinion.  The 
choice  of  persons  for  offices  is  only  an  indirect  and  often  unsat¬ 
isfactory  way  of  declaring  views  of  policy,  and  as  the  elections 
at  which  such  choices  are  made  come  at  fixed  intervals,  time 
is  lost  in  waiting  for  the  opportunity  of  delivering  the  popular 
judgment. 

The  framers  of  the  American  Constitution  may  not  have 
perceived  that  in  labouring  to  produce  a  balance,  as  well  between 
the  national  and  State  governments  as  between  the  Executive 
and  Congress,  in  weakening  each  single  authority  in  the  govern¬ 
ment  by  dividing  powers  and  functions  among  each  of  them, 
they  were  throwing  upon  the  nation  at  large,  that  is,  upon 
unorganized  public  opinion,  more  work  than  it  had  ever  dis¬ 
charged  in  England,  or  could  duly  discharge  in  a  country  so 
divided  by  distances  and  jealousies  as  the  United  States  then 
were.  Distances  and  jealousies  have  been  lessened.  But  as 
the  progress  of  democracy  has  increased  the  self-distrust  and 
submission  to  the  popular  voice  of  legislators,  so  the  defects 
incident  to  a  system  of  restrictions  and  balances  have  been 
aggravated.  Thus  the  difficulty  inherent  in  government  by 
public  opinion  makes  itself  seriously  felt.  It  can  express 
desires,  but  has  not  the  machinery  for  turning  them  into  prac¬ 
tical  schemes.  It  can  determine  ends,  but  is  less  fit  to  examine 
and  select  means.  Yet  it  has  weakened  the  organs  by  which 
the  business  of  finding  appropriate  means  ought  to  be  discharged. 

American  legislatures  are  bodies  with  limited  powers  and  sit¬ 
ting  for  short  terms.  Their  members  are  less  qualified  for  the 
work  of  constructive  legislation  than  are  those  of  most  Euro¬ 
pean  chambers.  They  are  accustomed  to  consider  themselves 
delegates  from  their  respective  States  and  districts,  respon¬ 
sible  to  those  districts,  rather  than  councillors  of  the  whole 
nation  labouring  for  its  general  interests ;  and  they  have  no 
executive  leaders,  seeing  that  no  official  sits  either  in  Congress 
or  in  a  State  legislature.  Hence  if  at  any  time  the  people  desire 
measures  which  do  not  merely  repeal  a  law  or  direct  an  appro- 


chap,  lxxxvi  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  FAILS 


359 


priation,  but  establish  some  administrative  scheme,  or  mark  out 
some  positive  line  of  financial  policy,  or  provide  some  body  of 
rules  for  dealing  with  such  a  topic  as  bankruptcy,  railroad  or 
canal  communications,  the  management  of  public  lands,  and  so 
forth,  the  people  cannot  count  on  having  their  wishes  put  into 
tangible  workable  shape.  When  members  of  Congress  or  of  a 
State  legislature  think  the  country  desires  legislation,  they  begin 
to  prepare  bills,  but  the  want  of  leadership  and  of  constructive 
skill  often  prevents  such  bills  from  satisfying  the  needs  of  the 
case,  and  a  timidity  which  fears  to  go  beyond  what  opinion 
desires,  may  retard  the  accomplishment  of  the  public  wish ; 
while,  in  the  case  of  State  legislatures,  constructive  skill  is 
seldom  present.  Public  opinion  is  slow  and  clumsy  in  grap¬ 
pling  with  large  practical  problems.  It  looks  at  them,  talks 
incessantly  about  them,  complains  of  Congress  for  not  solving 
them,  is  distressed  that  they  do  not  solve  themselves.  But 
they  remain  unsolved.  Vital  decisions  have  usually  hung  fire 
longer  than  they  would  have  been  likely  to  do  in  European 
countries.  The  war  of  1812  seemed  on  the  point  of  breaking 
out  over  and  over  again  before  it  came  at  last.  The  absorption 
of  Texas  was  a  question  of  many  years.  The  Extension  of 
Slavery  question  came  before  the  nation  in  1819 ;  after  1840  it 
was  the  chief  source  of  trouble ;  year  by  year  it  grew  more 
menacing ;  year  by  year  the  nation  was  seen  more  clearly  to  be 
drifting  towards  the  breakers.  Everybody  felt  that  something 
must  be  done.  But  it  was  the  function  of  no  one  authority  in 
particular  to  discover  a  remedy,  as  it  would  have  been  the  func¬ 
tion  of  a  cabinet  in  Europe.  I  do  not  say  the  sword  might  not 
in  any  case  have  been  invoked,  for  the  temperature  of  Southern 
feeling  had  been  steadily  rising  to  war  point.  But  the  history 
of  1840-60  leaves  an  impression  of  the  dangers  which  may 
result  from  fettering  the  constitutional  organs  of  government, 
and  trusting  to  public  sentiment  to  bring  things  right.  Some 
other  national  questions,  less  dangerous,  but  serious,  are  now 
in  the  same  condition.  The  Currency  question  has  been  an 
incessant  source  of  disquiet,  and  it  is  now  many  years  since  the 
campaign  against  Trusts  began.  The  question  of  reducing  the 
surplus  national  revenue  puzzled  statesmen  and  the  people  at 
large  longer  than  a  similar  question  would  be  suffered  to  do  in 
Europe,  and  when  solved  in  1890  by  the  passage  of  the  Depend¬ 
ent  Pension  bill,  was  solved  to  the  public  injury  in  a  purely 


360 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


demagogic  or  electioneering  spirit.  I  doubt  whether  any  Eu¬ 
ropean  legislature  would  have  so  openly  declined  the  duty  of 
considering  the  interests  of  the  country,  and  abandoned  itself 
so  undisguisedly  to  the  pursuit  of  the  votes  of  a  particular  section 
of  the  population.  And  the  same  thing  holds,  mutatis  mutandis, 
of  State  governments.  In  them  also  there  is  no  set  of  persons 
whose  special  duty  it  is  to  find  remedies  for  admitted  evils. 
Th3  structure  of  the  government  provides  the  requisite  ma¬ 
chinery  neither  for  forming  nor  for  guiding  a  popular  opinion, 
disposed  of  itself  to  recognize  only  broad  and  patent  facts,  and 
to  be  swayed  only  by  such  obvious  reasons  as  it  needs  little 
reflection  to  follow.  Admirable  practical  acuteness,  admirable 
ingenuity  in  inventing  and  handling  machinery,  whether  of 
iron  and  wood  or  of  human  beings,  coexist,  in  the  United 
States,  with  an  aversion  to  the  investigation  of  general  princi¬ 
ples  as  well  as  to  trains  of  systematic  reasoning.1  The  liability 
to  be  caught  by  fallacies,  the  inability  to  recognize  facts  which 
are  not  seen  but  must  be  inf erenti  ally  found  to  exist,  the  in¬ 
capacity  to  imagine  a  future  which  must  result  from  the  un¬ 
checked  operation  of  present  forces,  these  are  indeed  the  de¬ 
fects  of  the  ordinary  citizen  in  all  countries,  and  if  they  are 
conspicuous  in  America,  it  is  only  because  the  ordinary  citizen, 
who  is  more  intelligent  there  than  elsewhere,  is  also  more 
potent. 

It  may  be  replied  to  these  observations,  which  are  a  criti¬ 
cism  as  well  upon  the  American  frame  of  government  as  upon 
public  opinion,  that  the  need  for  constructive  legislation  is 
small  in  America,  because  the  habit  of  the  country  is  to  leave 
things  to  themselves.  This  is  not  really  the  fact.  A  great 
State  has  always  problems  of  administration  to  deal  with ; 
these  problems  do  not  become  less  grave  as  time  runs  on,  and 
the  hand  of  government  has  for  years  past  been  more  and 
more  invoked  in  America  for  many  purposes  thought  to  be  of 
common  utility  with  which  legislation  did  not  formerly  inter¬ 
meddle. 

There  is  more  force  in  the  remark  that  we  must  remember 
how  much  is  gained  as  well  as  lost  by  the  slow  and  hesitating 


1  To  say  this  is  not  to  ignore  the  influence  exercised  on  the  national  mind 
by  the  “glittering  generalities”  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  nor  the 
theoretical  grounds  taken  up  for  and  against  State  Rights  and  Slavery,  and 
especially  the  highly  logical  scheme  excogitated  by  Calhoun. 


chap,  lxxxvi  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  FAILS 


361 


action  of  public  opinion  in  the  United  States.  So  tremen¬ 
dous  a  force  would  be  dangerous  if  it  moved  rashly.  Acting 
over  and  gathered  from  an  enormous  area,  in  which  there  exist 
many  local  differences,  it  needs  time,  often  a  long  time,  to  be¬ 
come  conscious  of  the  preponderance  of  one  set  of  tendencies 
over  another.  The  elements  both  of  local  difference  and  of 
class  difference  must  be  (so  to  speak)  well  shaken  up  together, 
and  each  part  brought  into  contact  with  the  rest,  before  the 
mixed  liquid  can  produce  a  precipitate  in  the  form  of  a  practi¬ 
cal  conclusion.  And  in  this  is  seen  the  difference  between  the 
excellence  as  a  governing  power  of  opinion  in  the  whole  Union, 
and  opinion  within  the  limits  of  a  particular  State.  The  sys¬ 
tems  of  constitutional  machinery  by  which  public  sentiment 
acts  are  similar  in  the  greater  and  in  the  smaller  area ;  the 
constitutional  maxims  practically  identical.  But  public  opin¬ 
ion,  which  moves  slowly,  and,  as  a  rule,  temperately,  in  the 
field  of  national  affairs,  is  sometimes  hasty  and  reckless  in 
State  affairs.  The  population  of  a  State  may  be  of  one  colour, 
as  that  of  the  North-western  States  is  preponderatingly  agri¬ 
cultural,  or  may  contain  few  persons  of  education  and  political 
knowledge,  or  may  fall  under  the  influence  of  a  demagogue  or  a 
clique,  or  may  be  possessed  by  some  local  passion.  Thus  its 
opinion  may  want  breadth,  sobriety,  wisdom,  and  the  result  be 
seen  in  imprudent  or  unjust  measures.  The  constitution  of 
California  of  1879,  the  legislation  of  Illinois,  Iowa,  and  Wis¬ 
consin,  which  beginning  with  the  Granger  movement  has  from 
time  to  time  annoyed  and  harassed  the  railroads  without 
establishing  a  useful  control  over  them,  the  tampering  with 
their  public  debts  by  several  States,  are  familiar  instances  of 
follies,  to  use  no  harder  name,  which  local  opinion  approved, 
but  which  would  have  been  impossible  in  the  Federal  govern¬ 
ment,  where  the  controlling  opinion  is  that  of  a  large  and  com¬ 
plex  nation,  and  where  the  very  deficiencies  of  one  section  or 
one  class  serve  to  correct  qualities  which  may  exist  in  excess  in 
some  other. 

The  sentiment  of  the  nation  at  large,  being  comparatively 
remote,  acts  but  slowly  in  restraining  the  vagaries  or  curing 
the  faults  of  one  particular  State.  The  dwellers  on  the  Pacific 
coast  have  cared  very  little  for  the  criticism  of  the  rest  of  the 
country  on  their  anti-Hindu  or  anti- Japanese  violence  ;  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  and  Virginia  disregarded  the  best  opinions  of  the  Union 


362 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


when  they  so  dealt  with  their  debts  as  to  affect  their  credit ; 
those  parts  of  the  South  in  which  homicide  goes  unpunished, 
except  by  the  relatives  of  the  slain,  are  unmoved  by  the  re¬ 
proaches  and  jests  of  the  more  peaceable  and  well-regulated 
States.  The  fact  shows  how  deep  the  division  of  the  country 
into  self-governing  commonwealths  goes,  making  men  feel  that 
they  have  a  right  to  do  what  they  will  with  their  own,  so  long 
as  the  power  remains  to  them,  whatever  may  be  the  purely 
moral  pressure  from  those  who,  though  they  can  advise,  have  no 
title  to  interfere.  And  it  shows  also,  in  the  teeth  of  the  old 
doctrine,  that  republicanism  was  fit  only  for  small  communities, 
that  evils  peculiar  to  a  particular  district,  which  might  be  ruin¬ 
ous  in  that  district  if  it  stood  alone,  become  less  dangerous  when 
it  forms  part  of  a  vast  country. 

We  may  go  on  to  ask  how  far  American  opinion  succeeds  in 
the  simpler  duty,  which  opinion  must  discharge  in  all  countries, 
of  supervising  the  conduct  of  business,  and  judging  the  current 
legislative  work  which  Congress  and  other  legislatures  turn  out. 

Here  again  the  question  turns  not  so  much  on  the  excellence 
of  public  opinion  as  on  the  adequacy  of  the  constitutional 
machinery  provided  for  its  action.  That  supervision  and  criti¬ 
cism  may  be  effective,  it  must  be  easy  to  fix  on  particular  per¬ 
sons  the  praise  for  work  well  done,  the  blame  for  work  neglected 
or  ill-performed.  Experience  shows  that  good  men  are  the  better 
for  a  sense  of  their  responsibility  and  ordinary  men  useless  with¬ 
out  it.  The  free  governments  of  Europe  and  the  British  colo¬ 
nies  have  gone  on  the  principle  of  concentrating  power  in  order 
to  be  able  to  fix  responsibility.  The  American  plan  of  dividing 
powers,  eminent  as  are  its  other  advantages,  makes  it  hard  to 
fix  responsibility.  The  executive  can  usually  allege  that  it  had 
not  received  from  the  legislature  the  authority  necessary  to 
enable  it  to  grapple  with  a  difficulty ;  while  in  the  legislature 
there  is  no  one  person  or  group  of  persons  on  whom  the  blame 
due  for  that  omission  or  refusal  can  be  laid.  Suppose  some 
gross  dereliction  of  duty  to  have  occurred.  The  people  are  in¬ 
dignant.  A  victim  is  wanted,  who,  for  the  sake  of  the  example  to 
others,  ought  to  be  found  and  punished,  either  by  law  or  by  gen¬ 
eral  censure.  But  perhaps  he  cannot  be  found,  because  out  of 
several  persons  or  bodies  who  have  been  concerned,  it  is  hard  to 
apportion  the  guilt  and  award  the  penalty.  Where  the  sin  lies 
at  the  door  of  Congress,  it  is  not  always  possible  to  arraign 


chap,  lxxxvi  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  FAILS 


363 


either  the  Speaker  or  the  dominant  majority,  or  any  particular 
party  leader.  Where  a  State  legislature  or  a  city  council  has 
misconducted  itself,  the  difficulty  is  still  greater,  because  party 
ties  are  less  strict  in  such  a  body,  proceedings  are  less  fully 
reported,  and  both  parties  are  apt  to  be  equally  implicated  in 
the  abuses  of  private  legislation.  Not  uncommonly  there  is 
presented  the  sight  of  an  exasperated  public  going  about  like  a 
roaring  lion,  seeking  whom  it  may  devour,  and  finding  no  one. 
The  results  in  State  affairs  would  be  much  worse  were  it  not  for 
the  existence  of  the  governor  with  his  function  of  vetoing  bills, 
because  in  many  cases,  knowing  that  he  can  be  made  answerable 
for  the  passage  of  a  bad  measure,  he  is  forced  up  to  the  level  of  a 
virtue  beyond  that  of  the  natural  man  in  politics.  This  tendency 
to  look  to  him  has  recently  tended  to  increase  his  power ;  and 
the  disposition  to  seek  a  remedy  for  municipal  misgovernment  in 
enlarging  the  functions  of  the  mayor  illustrates  the  same  principle. 

Although  the  failures  of  public  opinion  in  overseeing  the 
conduct  of  its  servants  are  primarily  due  to  the  want  of  appro¬ 
priate  machinery,  they  are  increased  by  its  characteristic  temper. 
Quick  and  strenuous  in  great  matters,  it  is  heedless  in  small 
matters,  over-kindly  and  indulgent  in  all  matters.  It  suffers 
weeds  to  go  on  growing  till  they  have  struck  deep  root.  It  has 
so  much  to  do  in  looking  after  both  Congress  and  its  State  legis¬ 
lature,  a  host  of  executive  officials,  and  perhaps  a  city  council 
also,  that  it  may  impartially  tolerate  the  misdoings  of  all  till 
some  important  issue  arises.  Even  when  jobs  are  exposed  by 
the  press,  each  particular  job  seems  below  the  attention  of  a 
busy  people  or  the  anger  of  a  good-natured  people,  till  the  sum 
total  of  jobbery  becomes  a  scandal.  To  catch  and  to  hold  the 
attention  of  the  people  is  the  chief  difficulty  as  well  as  the  first 
duty  of  an  American  reformer. 

The  long-suffering  tolerance  of  public  opinion  towards  incom¬ 
petence  and  misconduct  in  officials  and  public  men  generally, 
is  a  feature  which  has  struck  recent  European  observers.  It 
is  the  more  remarkable  because  nowhere  is  executive  ability 
more  valued  in  the  management  of  private  concerns,  in  which 
the  stress  of  competition  forces  every  manager  to  secure  at 
whatever  price  the  most  able  subordinates.  We  may  attribute 
it  partly  to  the  good  nature  of  the  people,  which  makes  them 
over-lenient  to  nearly  all  criminals,  partly  to  the  preoccupation 
with  their  private  affairs  of  the  most  energetic  and  useful  men, 


364 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


who  therefore  cannot  spare  time  to  unearth  abuses  and  get  rid 
of  offenders,  partly  to  an  indifference  induced  by  the  fatalistic 
sentiment  which  I  have  already  sought  to  describe.  This 
fatalism  acts  in  two  ways.  Being  optimistic,  it  disposes  each 
man  to  believe  that  things  will  come  out  right  whether  he  “takes 
hold”  himself  or  not,  and  that  it  is  therefore  no  great  matter 
whether  a  particular  Ring  or  Boss  is  suppressed.  And  in  making 
each  individual  man  feel  his  insignificance,  it  disposes  him  to 
leave  to  the  multitude  the  task  of  setting  right  what  is  every  one 
else’s  business  just  as  much  as  his  own.  An  American  does  not 
smart  under  the  same  sense  of  personal  wrong  from  the  mis¬ 
management  of  his  public  business,  from  the  exaction  of  high 
city  taxes  and  their  malversation,  as  an  Englishman  would  in 
the  like  case.  If  he  suffers,  he  consoles  himself  by  thinking  that 
he  suffers  with  others,  as  part  of  the  general  order  of  things, 
which  he  is  no  more  called  upon  to  correct  than  are  his  neighbours. 

It  may  be  charged  as  a  weak  point  in  the  rule  of  public  opinion, 
that  by  fostering  this  habit  it  has  chilled  activity  and  dulled 
the  sense  of  responsibility  among  the  leaders  in  political  life.  It 
has  made  them  less  eager  and  strenuous  in  striking  out  ideas  and 
plans  of  their  own,  less  bold  in  propounding  those  plans,  more  sen¬ 
sitive  to  the  reproach,  no  less  feared  in  America  than  in  England, 
of  being  a  crotchet-monger  or  a  doctrinaire.  That  new  or  un¬ 
popular  ideas  are  more  frequently  started  by  isolated  thinkers, 
economists,  social  reformers,  than  by  statesmen,  may  be  set 
down  to  the  fact  that  practical  statesmanship  indisposes  men  to 
theorizing.  But  in  America  the  practical  statesman  is  apt  to  be 
timid  in  advocacy  as  well  as  infertile  in  suggestion.  He  seems 
to  be  always  listening  for  the  popular  voice,  always  afraid  to 
commit  himself  to  a  view  which  may  turn  out  unpopular.  It  is 
a  fair  conjecture  that  this  may  be  due  to  his  being  by  his  pro¬ 
fession  a  far  more  habitual  worshipper  as  well  as  observer  of 
public  opinion,  than  will  be  the  case  with  men  who  are  by  pro¬ 
fession  thinkers  and  students,  men  who  are  less  purely  Americans 
of  to-day,  because  under  the  influence  of  the  literature  as  well  of 
past  times  as  of  contemporary  Europe.  Philosophy,  taking  the 
word  to  include  the  historical  study  of  the  forces  which  work 
upon  mankind  at  large,  is  needed  by  a  statesman  not  only  as  a 
consolation  for  the  disappointments  of  his  career,  but  as  a  cor¬ 
rective  to  the  superstitions  and  tremors  which  the  service  of  the 
multitude  implants. 


chap,  lxxxvi  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  FAILS 


365 


The  enormous  force  of  public  opinion  is  a  danger  to  the  people 
themselves,  as  well  as  to  their  leaders.  It  no  longer  makes  them 
tyrannical,  but  it  fills  them  with  an  undue  confidence  in  their 
wisdom,  their  virtue,  and  their  freedom.  It  may  be  thought  that 
a  nation  which  uses  freedom  well  can  hardly  have  too  much 
freedom ;  yet  even  such  a  nation  may  be  too  much  inclined  to 
think  freedom  an  absolute  and  all-sufficient  good,  to  seek  truth 
only  in  the  voice  of  the  majority,  to  mistake  prosperity  for 
greatness.  Such  a  nation,  seeing  nothing  but  its  own  triumphs, 
and  hearing  nothing  but  its  own  praises,  seems  to  need  a  succes¬ 
sion  of  men  like  the  prophets  of  Israel  to  rouse  the  people  out  of 
their  self-complacency,  to  refresh  their  moral  ideals,  to  remind 
them  that  the  life  is  more  than  meat,  and  the  body  more  than 
raiment,  and  that  to  whom  much  is  given  of  them  shall  much  also 
be  required.  If  America  has  no  prophets  of  this  order,  she  for¬ 
tunately  possesses  two  classes  of  men  who  maintain  a  wholesome 
irritation  such  as  that  which  Socrates  thought  it  his  function 
to  apply  to  the  Athenian  people.  These  are  the  instructed  critics 
who  exert  a  growing  influence  on  opinion  through  the  higher 
newspapers,  and  by  literature  generally,  and  the  philanthropic 
reformers  who  tell  more  directly  upon  the  multitude,  particu¬ 
larly  through  the  churches.  Both  classes  combined  may  not  as 
yet  be  doing  all  that  is  needed.  But  the  significant  point  is 
that  their  influence  represents  not  an  ebbing,  but  a  flowing  tide. 
If  the  evils  they  combat  exist  on  a  larger  scale  than  in  past  times, 
they,  too,  are  more  active  and  more  courageous  in  rousing  and 
reprehending  their  fellow-countrymen. 


CHAPTER  LXXXVII 


WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  SUCCEEDS 

In  the  examination  of  the  actualities  of  politics  as  well  as  of 
forms  of  government,  faults  are  more  readily  perceived  than 
merits.  Everybody  is  struck  by  the  mistakes  which  a  ruler 
makes,  or  by  evils  which  a  constitution  fails  to  avert,  while  less 
praise  than  is  due  may  be  bestowed  in  respect  of  the  temptations 
that  have  been  resisted,  or  the  prudence  with  which  the  framers 
of  the  government  have  avoided  defects  from  which  other  coun¬ 
tries  suffer.  Thus  the  general  prosperity  of  the  United  States 
and  the  success  of  their  people  in  all  kinds  of  private  enterprises, 
philanthropic  as  well  as  gainful,  throws  into  relief  the  blemishes 
of  their  government,  and  makes  it  the  more  necessary  to  point 
out  in  what  respects  the  power  of  public  opinion  overcomes  those 
blemishes,  and  maintains  a  high  level  of  good  feeling  and  well¬ 
being  in  the  nation. 

The  European  observer  of  the  working  of  American  institu¬ 
tions  is  apt  to  sum  up  his  conclusions  in  two  contrasts.  One  is 
between  the  excellence  of  the  Constitution  and  the  vices  of  the 
party  system  that  has  laid  hold  of  it,  discovered  its  weak  points, 
and  brought  in  a  swarm  of  evils.  The  Fathers,  he  says,  created 
the  Constitution  good,  but  their  successors  have  sought  out  many 
inventions.1  The  other  contrast  is  between  the  faults  of  the 
political  class  and  the  merits  of  the  people  at  large.  The  men 
who  work  the  Machine  are  often  selfish  and  unscrupulous.  The 
people,  for  whose  behoof  it  purports  to  be  worked,  and  who 
suffer  themselves  to  be  "run”  by  the  politicians,  are  honest, 
intelligent,  fair-minded.  No  such  contrast  exists  anywhere  else 
in  the  world.  Either  the  politicians  are  better  than  they  are  in 
America,  or  the  people  are  worse. 

The  causes  of  this  contrast,  which  to  many  observers  has 
seemed  the  capital  fact  of  American  politics,  have  been  already 

1  Though  some  at  least  of  the  faults  of  the  party  system  are  directly  due  to 
the  structure  of  the  Constitution. 


366 


chap,  lxxxvii  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  SUCCEEDS  367 


explained.  It  brings  out  the  truth,  on  which  too  much  stress 
cannot  be  laid,  that  the  strong  point  of  the  American  system, 
the  dominant  fact  of  the  situation,  is  the  healthiness  of  public 
opinion,  and  the  control  which  it  exerts.  As  Abraham  Lincoln 
said  in  his  famous  contest  with  Douglas,  “  With  public  sentiment 
on  its  side,  everything  succeeds ;  with  public  sentiment  against 
it,  nothing  succeeds.” 

The  conscience  and  common  sense  of  the  nation  as  a  whole 
keep  down  the  evils  which  have  crept  into  the  working  of  the 
Constitution,  and  may  in  time  extinguish  them.  Public  opinion 
is  a  sort  of  atmosphere,  fresh,  keen,  and  full  of  sunlight,  like  that 
of  the  American  cities,  and  this  sunlight  kills  many  of  those 
noxious  germs  which  are  hatched  where  politicians  congregate. 
That  which,  varying  a  once  famous  phrase,  we  may  call  the  genius 
of  universal  publicity,  has  some  disagreeable  results,  but  the 
wholesome  ones  are  greater  and  more  numerous.  Selfishness, 
injustice,  cruelty,  tricks,  and  jobs  of  all  sorts  shun  the  light ; 
to  expose  them  is  to  defeat  them.  No  serious  evils,  no  rankling 
sore  in  the  body  politic,  can  remain  long  concealed,  and  when 
disclosed,  it  is  half  destroyed.  So  long  as  the  opinion  of  a  nation 
is  sound,  the  main  lines  of  its  policy  cannot  go  far  wrong,  what¬ 
ever  waste  of  time  and  money  may  be  incurred  in  carrying  them 
out.  It  was  observed  in  the  last  chapter  that  opinion  is  too 
vague  and  indeterminate  a  thing  to  be  capable  of  considering  and 
selecting  the  best  means  for  the  end  on  which  it  has  determined. 
The  counterpart  of  that  remark  is  that  the  opinion  of  a  whole 
nation,  a  united  and  tolerably  homogeneous  nation,  is,  when  at 
last  it  does  express  itself,  the  most  competent  authority  to  de¬ 
termine  the  ends  of  national  policy.1  In  European  countries, 
legislatures  and  cabinets  sometimes  take  decisions  which  the 
nation,  which  had  scarcely  thought  of  the  matter  till  the  decision 
has  been  taken,  is  ultimately  found  to  disapprove.  In  America, 
men  feel  that  the  nation  is  the  only  power  entitled  to  say  what 
it  wants,  and  that,  till  it  has  manifested  its  wishes,  nothing  must 
be  done  to  commit  it.  It  may  sometimes  be  long  in  speaking, 


1  The  distinction  between  means  and  ends  is,  of  course,  one  which  it  is  hard 
to  draw  in  practice,  because  most  ends  are  means  to  some  larger  end  which 
embraces  them.  Still  if  we  understand  by  ends  the  main  and  leading  objects 
of  national  policy,  including  the  spirit  in  which  the  government  ought  to  be 
administered,  we  shall  find  that  these  are,  if  sometimes  slowly,  yet  more  clearly 
apprehended  in  America  than  in  Europe,  and  less  frequently  confounded  with 
subordinate  and  transitory  issues. 


368 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


but  when  it  speaks,  it  speaks  with  a  weight  which  the  wisest 
governing  class  cannot  claim. 

The  frame  of  the  American  government  has  assumed  and 
trusted  to  the  activity  of  public  opinion,  not  only  as  the  power 
which  must  correct  and  remove  the  difficulties  due  to  the  re¬ 
strictions  imposed  on  each  department,  and  to  possible  colli¬ 
sions  between  them,  but  as  the  influence  which  must  supply  the 
defects  incidental  to  a  system  which  works  entirely  by  the 
machinery  of  popular  elections.  Under  a  system  of  elections 
one  man’s  vote  is  as  good  as  another,  the  vicious  and  ignorant 
have  as  much  weight  as  the  wise  and  good.  A  system  of  elec¬ 
tions  might  be  imagined  which  would  provide  no  security  for 
due  deliberation  or  full  discussion,  a  system  which,  while  demo¬ 
cratic  in  name,  recognizing  no  privilege,  and  referring  every¬ 
thing  to  the  vote  of  the  majority,  would  in  practice  be  hasty, 
violent,  tyrannical.  It  is  with  such  a  possible  democracy  that 
one  has  to  contrast  the  rule  of  public  opinion  as  it  exists  in  the 
United  States.  Opinion  declares  itself  legally  through  elec¬ 
tions.  But  opinion  is  at  work  at  other  times  also,  and  has  other 
methods  of  declaring  itself.  It  secures  full  discussion  of  issues 
of  policy  and  of  the  characters  of  men.  It  suffers  nothing  to  be 
concealed.  It  listens  patiently  to  all  the  arguments  that  are 
addressed  to  it.  Eloquence,  education,  wisdom,  the  authority 
derived  from  experience  and  high  character,  tell  upon  it  in  the 
long  run,  and  have,  perhaps  not  always  their  due  influence,  but 
yet  a  great  and  growing  influence.  Thus  a  democracy  governing 
itself  through  a  constantly  active  public  opinion,  and  not  solely 
by  its  intermittent  mechanism  of  elections,  tends  to  become 
patient,  tolerant,  reasonable,  and  is  more  likely  to  be  unem¬ 
bittered  and  unvexed  by  class  divisions. 

It  is  the  existence  of  such  a  public  opinion  as  this,  the  practice 
of  freely  and  constantly  reading,  talking,  and  judging  of  public 
affairs  with  a  view  to  voting  thereon,  rather  than  the  mere 
possession  of  political  rights,  that  gives  to  popular  government 
that  educative  and  stimulative  power  which  is  so  frequently 
claimed  as  its  highest  merit.  Those  who,  in  the  last  generation, 
were  forced  to  argue  for  democratic  government  against  oli¬ 
garchies  or  despots,  were  perhaps  inclined,  if  not  to  exaggerate 
the  value  of  extended  suffrage  and  a  powerful  legislature,  at 
least  to  pass  too  lightly  over  the  concomitant  conditions  by  whose 
help  such  institutions  train  men  to  use  liberty  well.  History 


chap,  lxxxvii  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  SUCCEEDS  369 


does  not  support  the  doctrine  that  the  mere  enjoyment  of  power 
fits  large  masses  of  men,  any  more  than  individuals  or  classes, 
for  its  exercise.  Along  with  that  enjoyment  there  must  be  found 
some  one  or  more  of  various  auspicious  conditions,  such  as  a 
direct  and  fairly  equal  interest  in  the  common  welfare,  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  a  class  or  group  of  persons  respected  and  competent  to 
guide,  an  absence  of  religious  or  race  hatreds,  a  high  level  of 
education  or  at  least  of  intelligence,  old  habits  of  local  self- 
government,  the  practice  of  unlimited  free  discussion.  In  Amer¬ 
ica  it  is  not  simply  the  habit  of  voting,  but  the  briskness  and 
breeziness  of  the  whole  atmosphere  of  public  life,  and  the  process 
of  obtaining  information  and  discussing  it,  of  hearing  and  judg¬ 
ing  each  side,  that  form  the  citizen’s  intelligence.  True  it  is 
that  he  would  gain  less  from  this  process  if  it  did  not  lead  up  to 
the  exercise  of  voting  power  :  he  would  not  learn  so  much  on  the 
road  did  not  the  polling-booth  stand  at  the  end  of  it.  But  if 
it  were  his  lot,  as  it  is  that  of  the  masses  in  some  European 
countries,  to  exercise  his  right  of  suffrage  under  few  of  these 
favouring  conditions,  the  educational  value  of  the  vote  would 
become  comparatively  small.  It  is  the  habit  of  breathing  as  well 
as  helping  to  form  public  opinion  that  cultivates,  develops, 
trains  the  average  American.  It  gives  him  a  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  stronger,  because  more  constant,  than  exists  in 
those  free  countries  of  Europe  where  he  commits  his  power  to 
a  legislature.  Sensible  that  his  eye  ought  to  be  always  fixed 
on  the  conduct  of  affairs,  he  grows  accustomed  to  read  and 
judge,  not  indeed  profoundly,  sometimes  erroneously,  usually 
under  party  influences,  but  yet  with  a  feeling  that  the  judgment 
is  his  own.  He  has  a  sense  of  ownership  in  the  government, 
and  therewith  a  kind  of  independence  of  manner  as  well  as  of 
mind  very  different  from  the  demissness  of  the  humbler  classes 
of  the  Old  World.  And  the  consciousness  of  responsibility  which 
goes  alone  with  this  laudable  pride,  brings  forth  the  peaceable 
fruits  of  moderation.  As  the  Greeks  thought  that  the  old  fami¬ 
lies  ruled  their  households  more  gently  than  upstarts  did,  so 
citizens  who  have  been  born  to  power,  born  into  an  atmosphere 
of  legal  right  and  constitutional  authority,  are  sobered  by  their 
privileges.  Despite  their  natural  quickness  and  eagerness,  the 
native  Americans  are  politically  patient.  They  are  disposed  to 
try  soft  means  first,  to  expect  others  to  bow  to  that  force  of 
opinion  which  they  themselves  recognize.  Opposition  does  not 
2b 


370 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  I\ 


incense  them  ;  danger  does  not,  by  making  them  lose  their  heads, 
hurry  them  into  precipitate  courses.  In  no  country  does  a 
beaten  minority  take  a  defeat  so  well.  Admitting  that  the 
blood  of  the  race  counts  for  something  in  producing  that  peculiar 
coolness  and  self-control  in  the  midst  of  an  external  effervescence 
of  enthusiasm,  which  is  the  most  distinctive  feature  of  the 
American  masses,  the  habit  of  ruling  by  public  opinion  and  obey¬ 
ing  it  counts  for  even  more.  It  was  far  otherwise  in  the  South 
before  the  war,  but  the  South  was  not  a  democracy,  and  its 
public  opinion  was  that  of  a  passionate  class. 

The  best  evidence  for  this  view  is  to  be  found  in  the  educative 
influence  of  opinion  on  newcomers.  Any  one  can  see  how  severe 
a  strain  is  put  on  democratic  institutions  by  the  influx  every 
year  of  nearly  a  million  of  untrained  Europeans.  Being  in  most 
States  admitted  to  full  civic  rights  before  they  have  come  to 
shake  off  European  notions  and  habits,  these  strangers  enjoy 
political  power  before  they  either  share  or  are  amenable  to 
American  opinion.1  They  follow  blindly  leaders  of  their  own 
race,  are  not  moved  by  discussion,  exercise  no  judgment  of 
their  own.  This  lasts  for  some  years,  probably  for  the  rest 
of  life  with  those  who  are  middle-aged  when  they  arrive.  It 
lasts  also  with  those  who,  belonging  to  the  more  backward 
races,  remain  herded  together  in  large  masses,  and  makes 
them  a  dangerous  element  in  manufacturing  and  mining  dis¬ 
tricts.  But  the  younger  sort,  when,  if  they  be  foreigners,  they 
have  learnt  English,  and  when,  dispersed  among  Americans  so  as 
to  be  able  to  learn  from  them,  they  have  imbibed  the  sentiments 
and  ideas  of  the  country,  are  thenceforth  scarcely  to  be  distin¬ 
guished  from  the  native  population.  They  are  more  American 
than  the  Americans  in  their  desire  to  put  on  the  character  of 
their  new  country.  This  peculiar  gift  which  the  Republic  has 
shown,  of  quickly  dissolving  and  assimilating  the  foreign  bodies 
that  are  poured  into  her,  imparting  to  them  her  own  qualities 
of  orderliness,  good  sense,  and  a  willingness  to  bow  to  the  will 
of  the  majority,  is  mainly  due  to  the  all-pervading  force  of  opin¬ 
ion,  which  the  newcomer,  so  soon  as  he  has  formed  social  and 
business  relations  with  the  natives,  breathes  in  daily  till  it  in¬ 
sensibly  transmutes  him.  Their  faith,  and  a  sentiment  of  re¬ 
sentment  against  England,  long  kept  up  among  the  Irish  a  body 
of  separate  opinion,  which  for  a  time  resisted  the  solvent  power 

1  As  to  recent  immigrants,  see  further  in  Chapter  XCII. 


chap,  lxxxvii  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  SUCCEEDS  371 


of  its  American  environment.  But  the  public  schools  finished 
the  work  of  the  factory  and  the  newspapers.  The  Irish  immi¬ 
grant’s  son  is  now  an  American  citizen  for  all  purposes. 

It  is  chiefly  the  faith  in  publicity  that  gives  to  the  American 
public  their  peculiar  buoyancy,  and  what  one  may  call  their 
airy  hopefulness  in  discussing  even  the  weak  points  of  their 
system.  They  are  always  telling  you  that  they  have  no  skele¬ 
ton  closets,  nothing  to  keep  back.  They  know,  and  are  content 
that  all  the  world  should  know,  the  worst  as  well  as  the  best  of 
themselves.  They  have  a  boundless  faith  in  free  inquiry  and 
full  discussion.  They  admit  the  possibility  of  any  number  of 
temporary  errors  and  delusions.  But  to  suppose  that  a  vast 
nation  should,  after  hearing  everything,  canvassing  everything, 
and  trying  all  the  preliminary  experiments  it  has  a  mind  to, 
ultimately  go  wrong  by  mistaking  its  own  true  interests,  seems 
to  them  a  sort  of  blasphemy  against  the  human  intelligence  and 
its  Creator. 

They  claim  for  opinion  that  its  immense  power  enables  them 
to  get  on  with  but  little  government.  Some  evils  which  the  law 
and  its  officers  are  in  other  countries  required  to  deal  with  are 
here  averted  or  cured  by  the  mere  force  of  opinion,  which  shrivels 
them  up  when  its  rays  fall  on  them.  As  it  is  not  the  product  of 
any  one  class,  and  is  unwilling  to  recognize  classes  at  all,  for  it 
would  stand  self-condemned  as  un-American  if  it  did,  it  dis¬ 
courages  anything  in  the  nature  of  class  legislation.  Where  a 
particular  section  of  the  people,  such,  for  instance,  as  the  Western 
farmers  or  the  Eastern  operatives,  think  themselves  aggrieved, 
they  clamour  for  the  measures  thought  likely  to  help  them.  The 
farmers  legislated  against  the  railroads,  the  labour  party  asks 
an  eight-hour  law.  But  whereas  on  the  European  continent 
such  a  class  would  think  and  act  as  a  class,  hostile  to  other 
classes,  and  might  resolve  to  pursue  its  own  objects  at  whatever 
risk  to  the  nation,  in  America  national  opinion,  which  every  one 
recognizes  as  the  arbiter,  mitigates  these  feelings,  and  puts  the 
advocates  of  the  legislation  which  any  class  demands  upon  show¬ 
ing  that  their  schemes  are  compatible  with  the  paramount 
interest  of  the  whole  community.  To  say  that  there  is  no  legis¬ 
lation  in  America  which,  like  the  class  legislation  of  Europe, 
has  thrown  undue  burdens  on  the  poor,  while  jealously  guarding 
the  pleasures  and  pockets  of  the  rich,  is  to  say  little,  because 
where  the  poorer  citizens  have  long  been  a  numerical  majority, 


372 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


invested  with  political  power,  they  will  evidently  take  care  of 
themselves.  But  the  opposite  danger  might  have  been  feared, 
that  the  poor  would  have  turned  the  tables  on  the  rich,  thrown 
the  whole  burden  of  taxation  upon  them,  and  disregarded  in  the 
supposed  interest  of  the  masses  what  are  called  the  rights  of 
property.  Not  only  has  this  not  been  attempted  —  it  has  been 
scarcely  even  suggested  (except,  of  course,  by  professed  Collec¬ 
tivists  as  part  of  a  reconstruction  of  society),  and  it  excites  no 
serious  apprehension.  There  is  nothing  in  the  machinery  of 
government  that  could  do  more  than  delay  it  for  a  time,  did 
the  masses  desire  it.  What  prevents  it  is  the  honesty  and  com¬ 
mon  sense  of  the  citizens  generally,  who  are  convinced  that  the 
interests  of  all  classes  are  substantially  the  same,  and  that  jus¬ 
tice  is  the  highest  of  those  interests.  Equality,  open  competi¬ 
tion,  a  fair  field  to  everybody,  every  stimulus  to  industry,  and 
ever}^  security  for  its  fruits,  these  they  hold  to  be  the  self- 
evident  principles  of  national  prosperity. 

If  public  opinion  is  heedless  in  small  things,  it  usually  checks 
measures  which,  even  if  not  oppressive,  are  palpably  selfish  or 
unwise.  If  before  a  mischievous  bill  passes,  its  opponents  can 
get  the  attention  of  the  people  fixed  upon  it,  its  chances  are 
slight.  All  sorts  of  corrupt  or  pernicious  schemes  which  are 
hatched  at  Washington  or  in  the  State  legislatures  are  aban¬ 
doned  because  it  is  felt  that  the  people  will  not  stand  them, 
although  they  could  be  easily  pushed  through  those  not  too 
scrupulous  assemblies.  There  have  been  instances  of  proposals 
which  took  people  at  first  by  their  plausibility,  but  which  the 
criticism  of  opinion  riddled  with  its  unceasing  fire  till  at  last 
they  were  quietly  dropped.  It  was  in  this  way  that  President 
Grant’s  attempt  to  annex  San  Domingo  failed. .  He  had  made 
a  treaty  for  the  purpose,  which  fell  through  for  want  of  the 
requisite  two-thirds  majority  in  the  Senate,  but  he  persisted 
in  the  scheme  until  at  last  the  disapproval  of  the  general  public, 
which  had  grown  stronger  by  degrees  and  found  expression 
through  the  leading  newspapers,  warned  him  to  desist.  After 
the  war,  there  was  at  first  in  many  quarters  a  desire  to  punish 
the  Southern  leaders  for  what  they  had  made  the  North  suffer. 
But  by  degrees  the  feeling  died  away,  the  sober  sense  of  the  whole 
North  restraining  the  passions  of  those  who  had  counselled  ven¬ 
geance  ;  and,  as  every  one  knows,  there  was  never  a  civil  war  or 
rebellion,  whichever  one  is  to  call  it,  followed  by  so  few  severities. 


chap,  lxxxvii  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  SUCCEEDS  373 


Public  opinion  often  fails  to  secure  the  appointment  of  the 
best  men  to  places,  but  where  undivided  responsibility  can  be 
fixed  on  the  appointing  authority,  it  prevents,  as  those  who  are 
behind  the  scenes  know,  countless  bad  appointments  for  which 
politicians  intrigue.  Considering  the  power  of  party  managers 
over  the  Federal  executive,  and  the  low  sense  of  honour  and 
public  duty  as  regards  patronage  among  politicians,  the  leading 
posts  are  filled,  if  not  by  the  most  capable  men,  yet  seldom  by 
bad  ones.  The  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  for  instance,  are, 
and  have  always  been,  men  of  high  professional  standing  and 
stainless  character.  The  same  may  be,  though  less  generally, 
said  of  the  upper  Federal  officials  in  the  North  and  West.  That 
no  similar  praise  can  be  bestowed  on  the  exercise  of  Federal 
patronage  in  the  Southern  States  since  the  war,  is  an  illustration 
of  the  view  I  am  stating.  As  the  public  opinion  of  the  South 
(that  is  to  say,  of  the  whites  who  make  opinion  there)  was 
steadily  hostile  to  the  Republican  party,  which  commanded  the 
executive  during  the  twenty  years  from  1865  to  1885,  the  Re-, 
publican  party  managers  were  indifferent  to  it,  because  they  had 
nothing  to  gain  or  to  lose  from  it.  Hence  they  made  appoint¬ 
ments  without  regard  to  it.  Northern  opinion  knows  compara¬ 
tively  little  of  the  details  of  Southern  politics  and  the  character 
of  officials  who  act  there,  so  that  they  might  hope  to  escape  the 
censure  of  their  supporters  in  the  North.  Hence  they  jobbed 
their  patronage  in  the  South  with  unblushing  cynicism,  using 
Federal  posts  there  as  a  means  not  merely  of  rewarding  party 
services,  but  also  of  providing  local  white  leaders  and  organiz¬ 
ers  to  the  coloured  Southern  Republicans.  Their  different  be¬ 
haviour  there  and  in  the  North  therefore  showed  that  it  was 
not  public  virtue,  but  the  fear  of  public  opinion,  that  was 
making  their  Northern  appointments  on  the  whole  respectable, 
while  those  in  the  South  were  at  that  time  so  much  the  reverse. 
The  same  phenomenon  has  been  noticed  in  Great  Britain. 
Jobs  are  frequent  and  scandalous  in  the  inverse  ratio  to  the 
notice  they  are  likely  to  attract.1 

1  It  has  often  been  remarked  that  posts  of  the  same  class  are  more  jobbed 
by  the  British  executive  in  Scotland  than  in  England,  and  in  Ireland  than  in 
Scotland,  because  it  is  harder  to  rouse  Parliament,  which  in  Great  Britain 
discharges  much  of  the  function  which  public  opinion  discharges  in  America, 
to  any  interest  in  an  appointment  made  in  one  of  the  smaller  countries.  In 
Great  Britain  a  minister  making  a  bad  appointment  has  to  fear  a  hostile  motion 
(though  Parliament  is  over-lenient  to  jobs)  which  may  displace  him  ;  in  the 
United  States  a  President  is  under  no  such  apprehension.  It  is  only  to  opinion 
that  he  is  responsible. 


374 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


In  questions  of  foreign  policy,  opinion  is  a  valuable  reserve 
force.  When  demonstrations  are  made  by  party  leaders  in¬ 
tended  to  capture  the  vote  of  some  particular  section,  the  native 
Americans  only  smile.  But  they  watch  keenly  the  language 
held  and  the  acts  done  by  the  State  Department  (Foreign 
Office),  and,  while  determined  to  support  the  President  in  vindi¬ 
cating  the  rights  of  American  citizens,  would  be  found  ready 
to  check  any  demand  or  act  going  beyond  their  legal  rights 
which  could  tend  to  embroil  them  with  a  foreign  power.  There 
is  still  a  touch  of  spread-eagleism  and  an  occasional  want  of 
courtesy  and  taste  among  public  speakers  and  journalists  when 
they  refer  to  other  countries ;  and  there  is  a  determination  in 
all  classes  to  keep  European  interference  at  a  distance.  But 
among  the  ordinary  native  citizens  one  finds  (I  think)  less  ob¬ 
trusive  selfishness,  less  Chauvinism,  less  cynicism  in  declaring 
one’s  own  national  interests  to  be  paramount  to  those  of  other 
States,  than  in  any  of  the  great  States  of  Europe.  Justice  and 
equity  are  more  generally  recognized  as  binding  upon  nations 
no  less  than  on  individuals.  Whenever  humanity  comes  into 
question,  the  heart  of  the  people  is  sound.  The  treatment  of 
the  Indians  reflects  little  credit  on  the  Western  settlers  who  have 
come  in  contact  with  them,  and  almost  as  little  on  the  Federal 
government,  whose  efforts  to  protect  them  have  been  often  foiled 
by  the  faults  of  its  own  agents,  or  by  its  own  want  of  prompti¬ 
tude  and  foresight.  But  the  wish  of  the  people  at  large  has 
always  been  to  deal  generously  with  the  aborigines,  nor  have 
appeals  on  their  behalf,  such  as  those  so  persistently  and  elo¬ 
quently  made  by  the  late  Mrs.  Helen  Jackson,  ever  failed  to 
command  the  sympathy  and  assent  of  the  country. 

Throughout  these  chapters  I  have  been  speaking  chiefly  of 
the  Northern  States  and  chiefly  of  recent  years,  for  America  is  a 
country  which  changes  fast.  But  the  conduct  of  the  Southern 
people,  since  their  defeat  in  1865,  illustrates  the  tendency  of 
underlying  national  traits  to  reassert  themselves  when  disturb¬ 
ing  conditions  have  passed  away.  Before  the  war  the  public 
opinion  of  the  Slave  States,  and  especially  of  the  planting  States, 
was  practically  the  opinion  of  a  class,  —  the  small  and  com¬ 
paratively  rich  landowning  aristocracy.  The  struggle  for  the 
defence  of  their  institution  had  made  this  opinion  fierce  and 
intolerant.  To  a  hatred  of  the  Abolitionists,  whom  it  thought 
actuated  by  the  wish  to  rob  and  humiliate  the  South,  it  joined 


chap,  lxxxvii  WHEREIN  PUBLIC  OPINION  SUCCEEDS  375 


a  misplaced  contempt  for  what  it  deemed  the  money-grubbing 
and  peace-at-any-price  spirit  of  the  Northern  people  generally. 
So  long  as  the  subjugated  States  were  ruled  by  arms,  and  the 
former  “rebels”  excluded  by  disfranchisement  from  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  their  States,  this  bitterness  remained.  When  the 
restoration  of  self-government,  following  upon  the  liberation  of 
the  Confederate  prisoners  and  the  amnesty,  had  shown  the 
magnanimity  of  the  North,  its  clemency,  its  wish  to  forget  and 
forgive,  its  assumption  that  both  sides  would  shake  hands  and 
do  their  best  for  their  common  country,  the  hearts  of  the  South¬ 
ern  men  were  conquered.  Opinion  went  round.  Frankly, 
one  might  almost  say  cheerfully,  it  recognized  the  inevitable. 
It  stopped  those  outrages  on  the  negroes  which  the  law  had 
been  unable  to  repress.  It  began  to  regain  “touch”  of,  it  has 
now  almost  fused  itself  with,  the  opinion  of  the  North  and  West. 
No  one  Southern  leader  or  group  can  be  credited  with  this  :  it 
was  the  general  sentiment  of  the  people  that  brought  it  about. 
Still  less  do  the  Northern  politicians  deserve  the  praise  of  the 
peace-makers,  for  many  among  them  tried  for  political  purposes 
to  fan  or  to  rekindle  the  flame  of  suspicion  in  the  North.  It  was 
the  opinion  of  the  North  generally,  more  liberal  than  its  guides, 
which  dictated  not  merely  forgiveness,  but  the  restoration  of 
equal  civic  rights.  Nor  is  this  the  only  case  in  which  the  people 
have  proved  themselves  to  have  a  higher  and  a  truer  inspiration 
than  the  politicians. 

It  has  been  observed  that  the  all-subduing  power  of  the 
popular  voice  may  tell  against  the  appearance  of  great  states¬ 
men  by  dwarfing  aspiring  individualities,  by  teaching  men  to 
discover  and  obey  the  tendencies  of  their  age  rather  than  rise 
above  them  and  direct  them.  If  this  happens  in  America,  it  is 
not  because  the  American  people  fail  to  appreciate  and  follow 
and  exalt  such  eminent  men  as  fortune  bestows  upon  it.  It 
has  a  great  capacity  for  loyalty,  even  for  hero-worship.  “Our 
people,”  said  an  experienced  American  publicist  to  me,  “are  in 
reality  hungering  for  great  men,  and  the  warmth  with  which 
even  pinchbeck  geniuses,  men  who  have  anything  showy  or 
taking  about  them,  anything  that  is  deemed  to  betoken  a  strong 
individuality,  are  followed  and  glorified  in  spite  of  intellectual 
emptiness,  and  perhaps  even  moral  shortcomings,  is  the  best 
proof  of  the  fact.”  Henry  Clay  was  the  darling  of  his  party 
for  many  years,  as  Jefferson,  with  less  of  personal  fascina- 


376 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


PART  IV 


tion,  had  been  in  the  preceding  generation.  Daniel  Webster 
retained  the  devotion  of  New  England  long  after  it  had  be¬ 
come  clear  that  his  splendid  intellect  was  mated  to  a  far 
from  noble  character.  A  kind  of  dictatorship  was  yielded  to 
Abraham  Lincoln,  whose  memory  is  cherished  almost  like 
that  of  Washington  himself.  Whenever  a  man  appears  with 
something  taking  or  forcible  about  him,  he  becomes  the  object 
of  so  much  popular  interest  and  admiration  that  those  cooler 
heads  who  perceive  his  faults,  and  perhaps  dread  his  laxity  of 
principle,  reproach  the  proneness  of  their  less  discerning  country¬ 
men  to  make  an  idol  out  of  wood  or  clay.  The  career  of  Andrew 
Jackson  is  a  case  in  point,  though  it  may  be  hoped  that  the  intel¬ 
ligence  of  the  people  would  estimate  such  a  character  more 
truly  to-day  than  it  did  in  his  own  day.  I  doubt  if  there  be 
any  country  where  a  really  brilliant  man,  confident  in  his  own 
strength,  and  adding  the  charm  of  a  striking  personality  to  the 
gift  of  popular  eloquence, would  find  an  easier  path  to  fame  and 
power,  and  would  exert  more  influence  over  the  minds  and  emo¬ 
tions  of  the  multitude.  Such  a  man,  speaking  to  the  people 
with  the  independence  of  conscious  strength,  would  find  himself 
appreciated  and  respected. 

Controversy  is  still  bitter,  more  profuse  in  personal  imputa¬ 
tions  than  one  expects  to  find  it  where  there  are  no  grave  issues 
to  excuse  excitement.  But  in  this  respect  also  there  is  an  im¬ 
provement.  Partisans  are  reckless,  but  the  mass  of  the  people 
lends  itself  less  to  acrid  partisanship  than  it  did  in  the  time  of 
Jackson,  or  in  those  first  days  of  the  Republic  which  were  so 
long  looked  back  to  as  a  sort  of  heroic  age.  Public  opinion  grows 
more  temperate,  more  mellow,  and  assuredly  more  tolerant. 
Its  very  strength  disposes  it  to  bear  with  opposition  or  remon¬ 
strance.  It  respects  itself  too  much  to  wish  to  silence  any  voice. 


1 


PART  y 

ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 

[This  Part  contains  some  illustrations,  drawn  from  American  history, 
of  the  working  of  political  institutions  and  public  opinion,  together 
with  observations  on  several  political  questions  for  which  no  fit¬ 
ting  place  could  be  found  in  the  preceding  Parts.] 


CHAPTER  LXXXVXII 


THE  TAMMANY  RING  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 

Although  I  have  described  in  previous  chapters  the  causes 
which  have  induced  the  perversion  and  corruption  of  demo¬ 
cratic  government  in  great  American  cities,  it  seems  desirable 
to  illustrate  more  fully,  from  passages  in  the  history  of  two  such 
cities,  the  conditions  under  which  those  causes  work  and  the 
forms  which  that  perversion  takes.  The  phenomena  of  muni¬ 
cipal  democracy  in  the  United  States  are  the  most  remarkable 
and  least  laudable  which  the  modern  world  has  witnessed ; 
and  they  present  some  evils  which  no  political  philosopher, 
however  unfriendly  to  popular  government,  appears  to  have 
foreseen,  evils  which  have  scarcely  showed  themselves  in  the 
cities  of  Europe,  and  unlike  those  which  were  thought  charac¬ 
teristic  of  the  rule  of  the  masses  in  ancient  times.  I  take  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  as  examples  because  they  are  older  than 
Chicago,  Pittsburgh,  and  Sfc.  Louis,  larger  than  Boston  and 
Baltimore.  And  I  begin  with  New  York,  because  she  displayed 
on  the  grandest  scale  phenomena  common  to  American  cities, 
and  because  the  plunder  and  misgovernment  from  which  she 
has  suffered  have  become  specially  notorious  over  the  world. 

From  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  State  and  (some¬ 
what  later)  the  city  of  New  York  were,  more  perhaps  than  any 
other  State  or  city,  the  seat  of  intrigues  and  the  battle-ground  of 
factions.  Party  organizations  early  became  powerful  in  them, 
and  it  was  by  a  New  York  leader  —  Marcy,  the  friend  of  Presi¬ 
dent  Jackson  —  that  the  famous  doctrine  of  “the  Spoils  to  the 
Victors  ”  was  first  formulated  as  already  the  practice  of  New  York 
politicians.  These  factions  were  for  a  long  time  led,  and  these 
intrigues  worked,  by  men  belonging  to  the  upper  or  middle  class, 
to  whom  the  emoluments  of  office  were  desirable  but  not  essential. 
In  the  middle  of  the  century,  however,  there  came  a  change. 
The  old  native  population  of  the  city  was  more  and  more  swollen 
by  the  immigration  of  foreigners  :  first  of  the  Irish,  especially 

379 


380 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


from  1846  onwards  ;  then  also  of  the  Germans  from  1849  on¬ 
wards  ;  finally  of  Polish  and  Russian  Jews,  as  well  as  of  Italians 
and  of  Slavs  from  about  1883  onwards.  Already  in  1870  the 
foreign  population,  including  not  only  the  foreign  born  but  a  large 
part  of  their  children  who,  though  born  in  America,  were  still 
virtually  Europeans,  constituted  a  half  or  perhaps  even  a  majority 
of  the  inhabitants ;  and  the  proportion  of  foreigners  has  since 
then  grown  still  larger.1  These  newcomers  were  as  a  rule  poor 
and  ignorant.  They  knew  little  of  the  institutions  of  the  coun¬ 
try,  and  had  not  acquired  any  patriotic  interest  in  it.  But 
they  received  votes.  Their  numbers  soon  made  them  a  power 
in  city  and  State  politics,  and  all  the  more  so  because  they  were 
cohesive,  influenced  by  leaders  of  their  own  race,  and  not,  like 
the  native  voters,  either  disposed  to  exercise,  or  capable  of  exer¬ 
cising,  an  independent  judgment  upon  current  issues.  From 
among  them  there  soon  emerged  men  whose  want  of  book-learning 
was  overcome  by  their  natural  force  and  shrewdness,  and  who  be¬ 
came  apt  pupils  in  those  arts  of  party  management  which  the 
native  professional  politicians  had  already  brought  to  perfection. 

While  these  causes  were  transferring  power  to  the  rougher 
and  more  ignorant  element  in  the  population,  the  swift  devel¬ 
opments  of  trade  which  followed  the  making  of  the  Erie  Canal 
and  opening  up  of  railway  routes  to  the  West,  with  the  conse¬ 
quent  expansion  of  New  York  as  a  commercial  and  financial 
centre,  had  more  and  more  distracted  the  thoughts  of  the 
wealthier  people  from  local  politics,  which  required  more  time 
than  busy  men  could  give,  and  seemed  tame  compared  with 
that  struggle  over  slavery,  whereon,  from  1850  to  1865,  all 
patriotic  minds  were  bent.  The  leading  men,  who  fifty  years 
earlier  would  have  watched  municipal  affairs  and  perhaps 
borne  a  part  in  them,  were  now  so  much  occupied  with  their 
commercial  enterprises  or  their  legal  practice  as  to  neglect 
their  local  civic  duties,  and  saw  with  unconcern  the  chief  mu¬ 
nicipal  offices  appropriated  by  persons  belonging  to  the  lower 
strata  of  society. 

1  In  1870,  44  per  cent  of  the  population  of  New  York  were  of  foreign  birth  ; 
in  1880,  39  per  cent ;  in  1890,  4 2  per  cent  ;  in  1900,  37  per  cent.  The  per¬ 
centage  of  persons  who  were  practically  foreigners  was  and  is  of  course  much 
greater,  because  it  includes  many  of  the  sons  born  in  the  United  States  of  persons 
still  imperfectly  Americanized.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  recent  immigrants 
do  not  for  a  time  obtain  votes,  but  against  this  must  be  set  the  fact  that  the 
proportion  of  adults  is  much  larger  among  the  immigrants  than  in  the  whole 
population. 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


381 


Even  had  these  men  of  social  position  and  culture  desired  to 
retain  a  hold  in  city  politics,  the  task  would  not  have  been  easy, 
for  the  rapid  growth  of  New  York,  which  from  a  population  of 
108,000  in  1820  had  risen  to  209,000  in  1830,  to  813,000  in  1860, 
and  to  942,000  in  1870,  brought  in  swarms  of  strangers  who  knew 
nothing  of  the  old  residents,  and  it  was  only  by  laboriously 
organizing  these  newcomers  that  they  could  be  secured  as  ad¬ 
herents.  However  laborious  the  work  might  be,  it  was  sure  to 
be  done,  because  the  keenness  of  party  strife  made  every  vote 
precious.  But  it  was  work  not  attractive  to  men  of  education, 
nor  suited  to  them.  It  fell  naturally  to  those  who  themselves 
belonged  to  the  lower  strata,  and  it  became  the  source  of  the 
power  they  acquired. 

Among  the  political  organizations  of  New  York  the  oldest 
and  most  powerful  was  the  Tammany  Society.  It  is  as  old  as 
the  Federal  government,  having  been  established  under  the 
name  of  the  Columbian  Society  in  1789,  just  a  fortnight  after 
Washington’s  inauguration,  by  an  Irish  American  called  Wil¬ 
liam  Mooney,  and  its  purposes  were  at  first  social  and  charitable 
rather  than  political.  In  1805  it  entitled  itself  the  Tammany 
Society,  adopting,  as  is  said,  the  name  of  an  Indian  chief  called 
Tammanend  or  Tammany,  and  clothing  itself  with  a  sort  of 
mock  Indian  character.  There  were  thirteen  tribes, with  twelve 
“ sachems”  under  a  grand  sachem,  a  “ sagamore”  or  master  of 
ceremonies,  and  a  “wiskinski”  or  doorkeeper.  By  degrees,  and 
as  the  story  goes,  under  the  malignant  influence  of  Aaron  Burr, 
it  took  a  strongly  political  tinge  as  its  numbers  increased. 
Already  in  1812  it  was  a  force  in  the  city,  having  become  a  rally¬ 
ing  centre  for  what  was  then  called  the  Republican  and  after¬ 
wards  the  Democratic  party ;  but  the  element  of  moral  aspira¬ 
tion  does  not  seem  to  have  become  extinct,  for  in  1817  it  issued 
an  address  deploring  the  spread  of  the  foreign  game  of  billiards 
among  young  men  of  the  upper  classes.  At  one  time,  too,  it 
possessed  a  sort  of  natural  history  museum,  which  was  ultimately 
purchased  by  the  well-known  showman,  P.  T.  Barnum.  Till 
1822  it  had  been  governed  by  a  general  meeting  of  its  members, 
but  with  its  increased  size  there  came  a  representative  system ; 
and  though  the  Society  proper  continued  to  be  governed  and  its 
property  held  by  the  “sachems,”  the  control  of  the  political 
organization  became  vested  in  a  general  committee  consisting 
of  delegates  elected  at  primary  meetings  throughout  the  city, 


382 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


which  that  organization  was  now  beginning  to  overspread. 
This  committee,  originally  of  thirty-three  members,  numbered 
seventy-five  in  1836,  by  which  time  Tammany  Hall  had  won 
its  way  to  a  predominant  influence  on  city  politics.  Of  the  pres¬ 
ent  organization  I  shall  speak  later. 

The  first  sachems  had  been  men  of  some  social  standing, 
and  almost  entirely  native  Americans.  The  general  democ¬ 
ratization,  which  was  unfortunately  accompanied  by  a  vulgari¬ 
zation,  of  politics  that  marked  the  time  of  Andrew  Jackson, 
lowered  by  degrees  the  character  of  city  politicians,  turning 
them  into  mere  professionals  whose  object  was  lucre  rather  than 
distinction  or  even  power.  This  process  told  on  the  character 
of  Tammany,  making  it  more  and  more  a  machine  in  the  hands 
of  schemers,  and  thus  a  dangerous  force,  even  while  its  rank 
and  file  consisted  largely  of  persons  of  some  means,  who  were 
interested  as  direct  taxpayers  in  the  honest  administration  of 
municipal  affairs.  After  1850,  however,  the  influx  from  Europe 
transformed  its  membership  while  adding  it  its  strength.  The 
Irish  immigrants  were,  both  as  Roman  Catholics  and  in  respect 
of  such  political  sympathies  as  they  brought  with  them,  disposed 
to  enter  the  Democratic  party.  Tammany  laid  hold  of  them, 
enrolled  them  as  members  of  its  district  organizations,  and  re¬ 
warded  their  zeal  by  admitting  a  constantly  increasing  number 
to  posts  of  importance  as  district  leaders,  committeemen,  and 
holders  of  city  offices.  When  the  Germans  arrived,  similar 
efforts  were  made  to  capture  them,  though  with  a  less 
complete  success.  Thus  from  1850  onwards  Tammany  came 
more  and  more  to  lean  upon  and  find  its  chief  strength  in  the 
foreign  vote.  Of  the  foreigners  who  have  led  it,  most  have 
been  Irish.  Yet  it  would  be  wrong  to  represent  it,  as  some  of  its 
censors  have  done,  as  being  predominantly  Irish  in  its  composi¬ 
tion.  There  have  always  been  and  are  now  a  vast  number  of 
native  Americans  among  the  rank  and  file,  as  well  as  a  few 
conspicuous  among  its  chiefs.  It  contains  many  Germans, 
possibly  one-half  of  the  German  voters  who  can  be  reckoned  as 
belonging  to  any  party.  And  to-day  the  large  majority  of  the 
Russian  and  Polish  Jews  (very  numerous  in  some  parts  of  the 
city,  of  the  Czechs  and  other  Austro-Hungarian  Slavs,  and  pos¬ 
sibly  also  of  the  Italians,  obey  its  behests,  even  if  not  regularly 
enrolled  as  members.  For  the  majority  of  these  immigrants 
are  Democrats,  and  Tammany  has  been  and  is  the  standard 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


383 


bearer  of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  city.  It  has  had  rivals  and 
enemies  in  that  party.  Two  rival  Machines  (now  long  since 
extinct),  —  Mozart  Hall,  formerly  led  by  Mr.  Fernando  Wood, 
and  the  “County  Democracy,”  guided  for  some  years  by  the  late 
Mr.  Hubert  O.  Thompson,  —  at  different  times  confronted,  and 
sometimes  even  defeated  it;  while  at  other  times  “making  a 
deal”  with  it  for  a  share  in  municipal  spoils.  Once,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  it  incurred  the  wrath  of  the  best  Democrats  of  the 
city.  Still  it  has  on  the  whole  stood  for  and  been  at  most  times 
practically  identified  with  the  Democratic  party,  posing  on  the 
Fourth  of  July  as  the  traditional  representative  of  Jeffersonian 
principles  ;  and  it  has  in  that  capacity  grown  from  the  status  of  a 
mere  private  club  to  be  an  organization  commanding  a  number 
of  votes  which  used  to  be  sufficient  not  only  to  give  it  the 
mastery  of  the  city  but  even  to  turn  the  balance  in  the  great 
State  of  New  York,  and  thereby,  perhaps,  to  determine  the 
result  of  a  Presidential  election. 

I  must,  however,  return  to  those  early  days  when  Tammany 
was  young  and  comparatively  innocent,  days  when  the  Machine 
system  and  the  Spoils  system  were  still  but  half  developed,  and 
when  Chancellor  Kent  could  write  (in  1835),  that  “the  office  of 
assistant  alderman  could  be  pleasant  and  desirable  to  persons 
of  leisure,  of  intelligence,  and  of  disinterested  zeal  for  the  wise 
and  just  regulation  of  the  public  concerns  of  the  city  ”  !  In 
1834  the  mayoralty  was  placed  in  the  direct  gift  of  the  people. 
In  1842  all  restrictions  on  the  suffrage  in  the  city  were  removed, 
just  before  the  opening  of  an  era  when  they  would  have  been 
serviceable.  In  1846  the  new  constitution  of  the  State  trans¬ 
ferred  the  election  of  all  judges  to  the  people.  In  1857  the 
State  legislature,  which  had  during  the  preceding  twenty  years 
been  frequently  modifying  the  municipal  arrangements,  enacted 
a  new  charter  for  the  city.  The  practice  of  New  York  State 
had  been  to  pass  special  laws  regulating  the  frame  of  govern¬ 
ment  for  each  of  its  cities,  instead  of  having  one  uniform  system 
for  all  municipalities.  It  was  an  unfortunate  plan,  for  it  went 
far  to  deprive  New  York  of  self-government  by  putting  her  at 
the  mercy  of  the  legislature  at  Albany,  which,  already  corrupt, 
has  been  apt  to  be  still  further  corrupted  by  the  party  leaders 
of  the  city,  who  could  usually  obtain  from  it  such  statutes  as 
they  desired.  As  I  am  not  writing  a  municipal  history  of  New 
York,  but  merely  describing  the  action  in  that  history  of  a  par- 


384 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


ticular  party  club,  no  more  need  be  said  of  the  charter  and 
statutes  of  1857  than  that  they  greatly  limited  the  powers  of 
the  Common  Council.  The  chief  administrative  functions  were 
vested  in  the  mayor  and  the  heads  of  various  departments, 
while  the  power  of  raising  and  appropriating  revenues  was 
divided  between  a  body  called  the  Board  of  Supervisors  and 
the  legislature.  Of  the  heads  of  the  departments,  some  were 
directly  chosen  by  the  people,  others  appointed  by  the  mayor, 
who  himself  held  office  for  two  years.  To  secure  for  their  ad¬ 
herents  some  share  in  the  offices  of  a  city  with  a  large  Demo¬ 
cratic  majority,  the  legislature,  then  controlled  by  the  Repub¬ 
licans,  created  a  number  of  new  boards  for  city  administration, 
most  of  these  members  were  to  be  appointed  by  the  Governor 
of  the  State.  The  police  of  the  city  in  particular,  whose  con¬ 
dition  had  been  unsatisfactory,  were  now  placed  under  such  a 
board,  wholly  independent  of  the  municipal  authorities,  a  change 
which  excited  strong  local  opposition  and  led  to  a  sanguinary 
conflict  between  the  old  and  the  new  police. 

This  was  the  frame  of  municipal  government  when  the  hero 
who  was  to  make  Tammany  famous  appeared  upon  the  scene. 
The  time  was  ripe,  for  the  lowest  class  of  voters,  foreign  and 
native,  had  now  been  thoroughly  organized  and  knew  them¬ 
selves  able  to  control  the  city.  Their  power  had  been  shown 
in  the  success  of  a  demagogue,  the  first  of  the  city  demagogues, 
named  Fernando  Wood,  who  by  organizing  them  had  reached 
the  mayoral  chair  from  beginnings  so  small  that  he  was  currently 
reported  to  have  entered  New  York  as  the  leg  of  an  artificial 
elephant  in  a  travelling  show.  This  voting  mob  were  ready  to 
follow  Tammany  Hall.  It  had  become  the  Acropolis  of  the  city  ; 
and  he  who  could  capture  it  might  rule  as  tyrant.1 

William  Marcy  Tweed  was  born  in  New  York  in  1823,  of  a 
Scotch  father  and  an  American  mother.  His  earliest  occupation 
was  that  of  a  chair-maker  —  his  father’s  trade  ;  but  he  failed  in 
business,  and  first  became  conspicuous  by  his  energy  in  one  of 
the  volunteer  fire  companies  of  the  city,  whereof  he  was  pres¬ 
ently  chosen  foreman.  These  companies  had  a  good  deal  of  the 
club  element  in  them,  and  gave  their  members  many  opportu¬ 
nities  for  making  friends  and  becoming  known  in  the  district 

1  The  nature  and  modes  of  action  of  Rings  in  general  have  been  described 
in  Part  III.,  Chapters  LIX.-LXV.  See  also  as  to  city  government,  Chapters 
L.-LII.  in  Part  II. 


chap,  lxxxvih  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


385 


they  served.  Tweed  had  an  abounding  vitality,  free  and  easy 
manners,  plenty  of  humour,  though  of  a  coarse  kind,  and  a 
jovial,  swaggering  way  which  won  popularity  for  him  among 
the  lower  and  rougher  sort  of  people.  His  size  and  corpulency 
made  it  all  the  easier  for  him  to  support  the  part  of  the  genial 
good  fellow ;  and  it  must  be  said  to  his  credit,  that  though  he 
made  friends  lightly,  he  was  always  loyal  to  his  friends.  Neither 
shame  nor  scruples  restrained  his  audacity.  Forty  years 
earlier  these  qualities  would  no  more  have  fitted  him  to  be  a 
popular  leader  than  FalstafPs  qualities  would  have  fitted  him 
to  be  the  chancellor  of  King  Henry  the  Fifth  ;  and  had  any  one 
predicted  to  the  upper  classes  of  New  York  that  the  boisterous 
fireman  of  1845,  without  industry,  eloquence,  or  education, 
would  in  1870  be  ruler  of  the  greatest  city  in  the  western  world, 
they  would  have  laughed  him  to  scorn.  In  1850,  however, 
Tweed  was  elected  alderman,  and  soon  became  noted  in  the 
Common  Council,  a  body  already  so  corrupt  (though  the  tide 
of  immigration  had  only  just  begun  to  swell)  that  they  were 
commonly  described  as  the  Forty  Thieves.  He  came  out  of  it 
a  rich  man,  and  was  presently  sent  to  Washington  as  member 
for  a  district  of  the  city.  In  the  wider  arena  of  Congress,  how¬ 
ever,  he  cut  but  a  poor  figure.  He  seems  to  have  spoken  only 
once,  and  then  without  success.  In  1857  he  began  to  repair  his 
fortunes,  shattered  at  the  national  capital,  bj^  obtaining  the  post 
of  Public  School  Commissioner  in  New  York,  and  soon  after¬ 
wards  he  was  elected  to  the  Board  of  Supervisors,  of  which  he 
was  four  times  chosen  president.  There  his  opportunities  for 
j obbery  and  for  acquiring  influence  were  much  enlarged.  ‘ ‘  Here¬ 
tofore  his  influence  and  reputation  had  both  been  local,  and 
outside  of  his  district  he  had  hardly  been  known  at  all.  Now 
his  sphere  of  action  embraced  the  whole  city,  and  his  large 
figure  began  to  loom  up  in  portentous  magnitude  through  the 
foul  miasma  of  municipal  politics.”  1 

•Tweed  was  by  this  time  a  member  of  Tammany  Hall,  and 
in  1863  he  was  elected  permanent  Chairman  of  the  General 
Committee.  Not  long  after  he  and  his  friends  captured  the 
inner  stronghold  of  the  Tammany  Society,  a  more  exclusive 
and  hitherto  socially  higher  body ;  and  he  became  Grand 
Sachem,  with  full  command  both  of  the  Society,  with  its  prop- 

1  Mr.  C.  F.  Wingate  in  the  North  American  Review ,  No.  CCXLV.  (1874), 
p.  368. 


2c 


386 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


erty  and  traditional  influence,  and  of  the  political  organization. 
This  triumph  was  largely  due  to  the  efforts  of  another  politician, 
whose  fortunes  were  henceforward  to  be  closely  linked  with 
Tweed’s,  Mr.  Peter  B.  Sweeny,  a  lawyer  of  humble  origin 
but  with  some  cultivation  and  considerable  talents.  The  two 
men  were  singularly  unlike,  and  each  fitted  to  supply  the  other’s 
defects.  Sweeny  was  crafty  and  taciturn,  unsocial  in  nature 
and  saturnine  in  aspect,  with  nothing  to  attract  the  crowd,  but 
skilful  in  negotiation  and  sagacious  in  his  political  forecasts. 
He  was  little  seen,  preferring  to  hatch  his  schemes  in  seclusion  ; 
but  his  hand  was  soon  felt  in  the  arrangement  by  which  the  hos¬ 
tility  of  Mozart  Hall,  the  rival  Democratic  organization,  was  re¬ 
moved,  its  leader,  Fernando  Wood,  obtaining  a  seat  in  Congress, 
while  Tammany  was  thus  left  in  sole  sway  of  the  Democratic 
vote  of  the  city.  The  accession  of  Mozart  Hall  brought  in 
another  recruit  to  the  Tammany  group,  Mr.  A.  Oakey  Hall. 
This  person  was  American  by  origin,  better  born  and  educated 
than  his  two  associates.  He  was  a  lawyer  by  profession,  and  had 
occasionally  acted  as  a  lobbyist  at  Albany,  working  among  the 
Republican  members,  for  he  then  professed  Republican  principles, 
— as  Mr.  Sweeny  had  worked  occasionally  among  the  Democrats. 
He  had  neither  the  popular  arts,  such  as  they  were,  of  Tweed 
nor  the  stealthy  astuteness  of  Sweeny,  and  as  he  never  seemed 
to  take  himself  seriously,  he  was  not  taken  seriously  by  others. 
But  he  was  quick  and  adroit,  he  had  acquired  some  influence 
among  the  Mozart  Hall  faction  ;  and  his  position  as  member  of 
a  well-known  legal  firm  seemed  to  give  a  faint  tinge  of  respecta¬ 
bility  to  a  group  which  stood  sadly  in  need  of  that  quality.  He 
had  been  elected  District  Attorney  (public  prosecutor)  in  1862, 
by  a  combination  of  Mozart  Hall  with  the  Republicans  (having 
been  previously  Assistant  District  Attorney),  and  had  thus 
become  known  to  the  public.  A  fourth  member  was  presently 
added  in  the  person  of  Richard  B.  Connolly,  who  had  become 
influential  in  the  councils  of  Tammany.  This  man  had  been 
an  auctioneer,  and  had  by  degrees  risen  from  the  secretary¬ 
ship  of  a  ward  committee  to  be,  in  1851,  elected  County  Clerk 
(although  not  then  yet  naturalized  as  a  citizen),  and  in  1859 
State  Senator.  His  friends,  who  had  seen  reason  to  distrust 
his  exactness  as  a  counter  of  votes,  called  him  Slippery  Dick. 
His  smooth  manner  and  insinuating  ways  inspired  little  con¬ 
fidence,  nor  do  his  talents  seem  to  have  gone  beyond  a  con- 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


387 


siderable  skill  in  figures,  a  skill  which  he  was  soon  to  put  to 
startling  uses.  Another  man  of  importance,  who  was  drawn 
over  from  the  Mozart  Hall  faction,  was  Albert  Cardozo,  a 
Portuguese  Jew,  only  twenty-six  years  of  age,  but  with  legal 
talents  only  less  remarkable  than  the  flagrant  unscrupulousness 
with  which  he  prostituted  them  to  party  purposes.  He  was 
now,  through  Tammany  influence,  rewarded  for  his  adhesion  by 
being  elected  to  one  of  the  chief  j  udgeships  of  the  city  ;  and  two 
other  equally  dishonest  minions  of  the  Tweed  group  were  given 
him  as  colleagues  in  the  persons  of  George  Barnard  and  John 
H.  McCunn. 

In  1865  Tweed  and  the  other  Tammany  chiefs,  to  whom 
fortune  and  affinity  of  aims  had  linked  him,  carried  for  the 
mayoralty  one  of  their  number,  Mr.  John  T.  Ploffman,  a  man 
of  ability,  who  might  have  had  a  distinguished  career  had  he 
risen  under  better  auspices ;  and  at  the  election  of  1868  they 
made  a  desperate  effort  to  capture  both  the  State  and  the  city. 
Frauds  of  unprecedented  magnitude,  both  in  the  naturalizing 
of  foreigners  before  the  election  and  in  the  conduct  of  the 
election  itself,  were  perpetrated.  The  average  number  of  persons 
naturalized  by  the  city  courts  had  been,  from  1856  to  1867, 
9200.  In  1868  this  number  rose  to  41,000,  and  the  process 
was  conducted  with  unexampled  and  indecent  haste  by  two  of  the 
judges  whom  Tammany  had  just  placed  on  the  bench  to  execute 
its  behests.  False  registrations,  repeating  on  a  large  scale,  and 
fraudulent  manipulation  of  the  votes  given  rolled  up  for  Tam¬ 
many  a  majority  sufficient  to  secure  for  its  friend  Hoffman  the 
governorship  of  the  State.  The  votes  returned  as  cast  in  New 
York  City  were  eight  per  cent  in  excess  of  its  total  voting  popu¬ 
lation.  The  vacancy  caused  by  Hoffman’s  promotion  was 
filled  by  the  election  of  Mr.  Hall.  Thus  at  the  beginning  of 
1869  the  group  already  mentioned  found  itself  in  control  of  the 
chief  offices  of  the  city,  and  indeed  of  the  State  also.1  Hall  was 
mayor ;  Sweeny  was  city  chamberlain,  that  is  to  say,  treasurer 
of  the  city  and  county ;  Tweed  was  street  commissioner  and 
president  of  the  Board  of  Supervisors ;  Connolly,  comptroller, 
and  thus  in  charge  of  the  city  finances.  Meanwhile  their  nomi- 


1  “On  the  1st  of  January,  1869,”  said  Mr.  Tilden,  “when  Mr.  A.  Oakey  Hall 
became  mayor,  the  Ring  became  completely  organized  and  matured.”  Pam¬ 
phlet  entitled  The  New  York  City  Ring:  Its  Origin ,  Maturity,  and  Fall,  New 
York,  1873. 


388 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  Y 


nee,  Hoffman,  was  State  Governor,  able  to  veto  any  legislation 
they  disliked,  while  on  the  city  bench  they  had  three  apt  and 
supple  tools  in  Cardozo,  Barnard,  and  McCunn.  Other  less 
conspicuous  men  held  minor  offices,  or  were  leagued  with  them  in 
managing  Tammany  Hall,  and  through  it,  the  city.  But  the 
four  who  have  been  first  named  stood  out  as  the  four  ruling 
spirits  of  the  faction,  to  all  of  whom,  more  or  less,  though  not 
necessarily  in  equal  measure,  the  credit  or  discredit  for  its  acts 
attached  ;  and  it  was  to  them  primarily,  though  not  exclusively, 
that  the  name  of  the  Tammany  Ring  came  to  be  thenceforth 
applied.1 

Having  a  majority  in  the  State  legislature,  the  Ring  used  it 
to  procure  certain  changes  in  the  city  charter  which,  while  in 
some  respects  beneficial,  as  giving  the  city  more  control  over 
its  own  local  affairs,  also  subserved  the  purposes  of  its  actual 
rulers.  The  elective  Board  of  Supervisors  was  abolished,  and  its 
financial  functions  transferred  to  the  recorder  and  aldermen. 
The  executive  power  was  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the 
mayor,  who  also  obtained .  the  power  of  appointing  the  chief 
municipal  officers,  and  that  for  periods  varying  from  four 
to  eight  years.  He  exercised  this  power  (April,  1870)  by 
appointing  Tweed  Commissioner  of  Public  Works,  Sweeny 
Commissioner  of  Parks,  and  (in  pursuance  of  a  subsequent 
enactment)  Connolly  Comptroller.  In  a  new  board,  called  the 
Board  of  Apportionment,  and  composed  of  the  Mayor  (Hall), 
the  Comptroller  (Connolly),  the  Commissioner  of  Public  Works 
(Tweed),  and  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Parks  (Sweeny), 
nearly  all  authority  was  now  practically  vested,  for  they  could 
levy  taxes,  appoint  the  subordinate  officials,  lay  down  and  en¬ 
force  ordinances.2  Besides  his  power  of  appointing  heads  of 
departments,  the  mayor  had  the  right  to  call  for  reports  from 
them  in  whatever  form  he  pleased,  and  also  the  sole  right  of  im¬ 
peachment,  and  he  had  further,  in  conjunction  with  the  comp- 

1  Elaborate  and  unsparing  portraits  of  these  four  gentlemen  and  of  the 
three  Ring  judges,  as  well  as  of  some  minor  Ringsters,  may  be  found  in  Mr. 
Wingate’s  article  in  the  North  American  Review  for  October,  1874  (No.  CCXLV.). 
His  analysis  of  their  characters  and  conduct  seems  to  have  evoked  from  them 
no  contradictions,  and  certainly  gave  rise  to  no  legal  proceedings.  Reference 
may  also  be  made  for  the  history  of  the  Ring  generally  to  the  collected  speeches 
of  Mr.  Samuel  J.  Tilden  (see  especially  the  speech  of  Nov.  2nd,  1871,  in  Mr. 
Bigelow’s  edition),  and  to  those  of  Mr.  Henry  D.  Clinton  (published  as  a  pam¬ 
phlet  in  1872),  as  well  as  to  Mr.  Tilden’s  pamphlet  already  cited. 

2  North  American  Review  for  Jan.  1875  (Vol.  CCXLVI.,  pp.  172-175). 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


389 


troller,  to  allow  or  revise  the  estimate  the  board  was  annually  to 
submit,  and  to  fix  the  salary  of  the  civil  judges.  The  undis¬ 
guised  supremacy  which  this  new  arrangement,  amounting 
almost  to  dictatorship  (purchased,  as  was  believed,  by  gross 
bribery  conducted  by  Tweed  himself  in  the  State  legislature 
at  Albany),  conferred  upon  the  quatuorvirate  was  no  unmixed 
advantage,  for  it  concentrated  public  attention  on  them,  and 
in  promising  them  impunity  it  precipitated  their  fall. 

In  the  reign  of  the  Ring  there  is  little  to  record  beyond  the  use 
made  by  some  of  them  of  the  opportunities  for  plunder,  which 
this  control  of  the  municipal  funds  conferred.  Plunder  of  the 
city  treasury,  especially  in  the  form  of  jobbing  contracts,  was 
no  new  thing  in  New  York,  but  it  had  never  before  reached  such 
colossal  dimensions.  Two  or  three  illustrations  may  suffice. 

Large  schemes  of  street-opening  were  projected,  and  for  this 
purpose  it  became  necessary  to  take  and  pay  compensation  for 
private  property,  and  also,  under  the  State  laws,  to  assess  bet¬ 
terment  upon  owners  whose  property  was  to  be  benefited. 
Sweeny,  who  knew  something  of  the  fortunes  amassed  in  the 
rebuilding  of  Paris  under  the  prefecture  of  Baron  Haussmann, 
and  was  himself  an  admirer  (and,  as  was  said,  an  acquaint¬ 
ance)  of  Louis  Napoleon,  was  credited  with  knowing  how  to 
use  public  improvements  for  private  profit.  Under  the  auspices 
of  some  members  of  the  Ring,  Commissioners  for  the  carrying 
out  of  each  improvement  were  appointed  by  the  Ring  j  udges,  — 
in  the  famous  case  of  the  widening  of  Broadway  by  Cardozo  in 
a  perfectly  novel  manner.  Those  members  and  their  friends 
then  began  quietly  to  purchase  property  in  the  spots  which  were 
eventually  taken  by  the  Commissioners,  and  extravagant  com¬ 
pensation  was  thereupon  awarded  to  them,  while  other  owners, 
who  enjoyed  no  secre  means  of  predicting  the  action  of  the 
Commissioners,  received  for  similar  pieces  of  land  far  smaller 
sums,  the  burden  of  betterment  also  being  no  less  unequally 
distributed  as  between  the  ringsters  and  other  proprietors.  In 
this  way  great  sums  passed  from  the  city  to  those  whom  the 
Ring  favoured,  in  certain  cases  with  commissions  to  some  of  its 
members.1  Among  the  numerous  contracts  by  which  the  city 
treasury  was  depleted,  not  a  few  were  afterwards  discovered 
to  have  been  given  for  printing  to  three  companies  in  which 
Tweed  and  his  intimates  were  interested.  Nearly  $3,000,000 

1  Details  may  be  read  in  North  American  Review ,  Vol.  CCXLVI.,  pp.  131—135. 


390 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


were  paid  to  them  within  two  years  for  city  printing  and  sta¬ 
tionery.  Other  contracts  for  wood-paving  and  concrete  were 
hardly  less  scandalous. 

The  claims  outstanding  against  the  Board  of  Supervisors, 
previous  to  1870,  furnished  another  easy  and  copious  source  of 
revenue,  for  under  a  statute  which  the  Ring  had  procured 
these  claims,  largely  fraudulent  or  fictitious,  were  to  be  exam¬ 
ined  and  audited  by  an  ad  interim  Board  of  Audit  composed 
of  the  Mayor,  the  Comptroller,  and  Tweed.  The  board  dele¬ 
gated  the  duties  of  auditing  to  an  ex-bankrupt  creature  of 
Tweed’s  named  Watson,  who  had  been  appointed  city  auditor, 
and  who  went  to  work  with  such  despatch  that  in  three  and 
a  half  months  he  had  presented  warrants  for  claims  to  the 
amount  of  $6,312,000  to  the  members  of  the  ad  interim  board 
—  for  the  board  itself  seems  to  have  met  only  once  —  on  whose 
signature  these  bills  were  accordingly  paid  out  of  the  city  treas¬ 
ury.1  Subsequent  investigation  showed  that  from  65  to  85  per 
cent  of  the  bills  thus  passed  were  fictitious,  and  of  the  whole 
Tweed  appears  to  have  received  24  per  cent.  But  all  the 
other  financial  achievements  of  the  Ring  pale  their  ineffectual 
fires  beside  those  connected  with  the  erection  and  furnishing 
of  the  County  Court  House.  When  designed  in  1868  its  cost 
was  estimated  at  $250,000.  Before  the  end  of  1871  a  sum 
variously  estimated  at  from  $8,000,000  to  $13,000,000 
(£1,600,000  to  £2,600,000)  had  been  expended  upon  it,  and  it 
was  still  unfinished.  This  was  effected,  as  was  afterwards 
proved  in  judicial  proceedings,  by  the  simple  method  of  re¬ 
quiring  the  contractors,  many  of  whom  resisted  for  a  time, 
to  add  large  sums  to  their  bills,  sums  which  were  then  appro¬ 
priated  by  Tweed,  Connolly,  and  their  minions  or  accomplices.2 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  direct  or  more  effective.  The 
orders  were  given  by  Tweed,  the  difference  between  the  real 
and  the  nominal  charge  was  settled  by  the  contractor  with  him 
or  with  the  auditor,  and  the  bills,  passed  and  signed  by  the 
members  of  the  Board  of  Supervisors  or  Board  of  Apportion¬ 
ment  (as  the  case  might  be),  were  approved  by  the  auditor 
Watson  and  were  paid  out  of  the  city  funds  at  the  bank.  The 

1  North  American  Review,  July,  1875  (No.  CCXLVIII,  pp.  116-120). 

2  Among  the  items  in  the  bills  for  fitting  up  and  furnishing  the  Court  House 
(amounting  to  more  than  $6,000,000,  besides  more  than  $2,000,000  for  repairs), 
the  items  of  $404,347  for  safes,  and  $7500  for  thermometers  were  found  amus¬ 
ing  when  eventually  disclosed. 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


391 


proceeds  were  then  duly  divided,  his  real  charges,  or  perhaps 
a  little  more,  going  to  the  contractor,  and  the  rest  among 
the  Boss  and  his  friends. 

Under  such  a  system  there  was  nothing  surprising  in  the 
growth  of  the  city  debt.  Fresh  borrowing  powers  as  well  as 
taxing  powers  had  been  obtained  from  the  State  legislature, 
and  they  were  freely  used.  According  to  the  published  report 
of  the  committee  which  subsequently  investigated  the  city 
finances,  the  bonded  debt  of  the  city  rose  from  $36,293,000 
at  the  beginning  of  1869,  to  $97,287,000  in  September,  1871  ; 
that  is,  by  $61,000,000.  Adding  to  this  the  floating  debt 
incurred  during  the  same  two  years  and  eight  months,  viz. 
$20,000,000,  the  total  price  which  the  city  paid  for  the  privi¬ 
lege  of  being  ruled  by  Tammany  during  those  thirty-two 
months  reached  $81,000,000  (£16,200,000),  or  more  than 
twice  the  amount  of  the  debt  as  it  stood  in  1868.1  And  for 
all  this  there  was  hardly  anything  in  the  way  of  public  im¬ 
provements  to  show. 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  did  the  people  of  New  York,  and  in 
particular  the  taxpayers  at  whose  expense  these  antics  were 
proceeding,  think  of  their  rulers,  and  how  did  they  come  to 
acquiesce  in  such  a  government,  which,  not  content  with  plun¬ 
dering  them,  had  degraded  justice  itself  in  the  person  of  the 
Ring  judges,  and  placed  the  commerce  and  property  of  the 
city  at  the  mercy  of  unscrupulous  and  venal  partisans?  I 
was  in  New  York  in  the  summer  of  1870,  and  saw  the  Ring 
flourishing  like  a  green  bay-tree.  Though  the  frauds  just 
described  were  of  course  still  unknown,  nobody  had  a  word  of 
respect  for  its  members.  Tweed,  for  instance,  would  never 
have  been  invited  to  any  respectable  house.  I  was  taken  to 
look  at  Justices  Barnard  and  Cardozo  as  two  of  the  most  re¬ 
markable  sights  of  the  city ;  and  such  indeed  they  were.  I 
inquired  why  such  things  were  endured,  not  merely  patiently, 

1 1  take  these  figures  from  the  report  of  Mr.  Andrew  H.  Green  (then  comp¬ 
troller  of  the  city)  made  in  October,  1874.  Of  the  unliquidated  debt  claims, 
many  of  which  were  then  still  outstanding,  the  report  says:  “Only  a  small 
proportion  of  this  monstrous  legacy  of  corruption  and  misgovernment  was 
free  from  evidence  of  the  most  ingeniously  and  diabolically  contrived  frauds. 
For  three  years  the  million-headed  hydra  has  been  struggling  to  force  the 
doors  of  the  treasury.  It  has  bought,  bribed,  and  brought  to  its  aid  by  the 
offer  of  a  division  of  profits  in  case  of  success,  the  fraud,  the  craft,  and  the 
greed  of  the  most  unscrupulous  lawyers,  legislators,  and  plotters  in  the  com¬ 
munity.  It  has  tainted  the  press  and  dictated  political  nominations.”  (p.  7.) 


392 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


but  even  with  a  sort  of  amused  enjoyment,  as  though  the  citi¬ 
zens  were  proud  of  having  produced  a  new  phenomenon  the 
like  whereof  no  other  community  could  show.  It  was  explained 
to  me  that  these  things  had  not  come  suddenly,  but  as  the 
crown  of  a  process  of  degradation  prolonged  for  some  fifteen 
years  or  more  which  had  made  corruption  so  familiar  as  to  be 
no  longer  shocking.  The  respectable  leaders  of  the  Democratic 
party  had,  with  few  exceptions,  winked  at  the  misdeeds  of 
those  who  commanded  a  vote  which  they  needed  for  State 
and  national  purposes.  The  press  had  been  largely  muzzled 
by  lavish  payments  made  to  it  for  advertising,  and  a  good 
many  minor  journals  were  actually  subsidized  by  the  Ring. 
The  Bench,  though  only  partially  corrupt,  was  sufficiently  in 
league  with  the  Ring  for  the  sanction  which  the  law  required 
from  it  in  certain  cases  to  be  unavailable  as  a  safeguard.  As 
for  the  mass  of  citizens,  on  whose  votes  this  structure  of  in¬ 
iquity  had  been  reared,  nearly  half  of  them  were  practically 
strangers  to  America,  amenable  to  their  own  clubs  and  leaders, 
but  with  no  sense  of  civic  duty  to  their  new  country  nor  likely 
to  respond  to  any  appeals  from  its  statesmen.  Three-fourths 
or  more  of  them  paid  little  or  nothing  in  the  way  of  direct 
taxes  and  did  not  realize  that  the  increase  of  civil  burdens 
would  ultimately  fall  upon  them  as  well  as  upon  the  rich.  More¬ 
over,  the  Ring  had  cunningly  placed  on  the  pay-rolls  of  the 
city  a  large  number  of  persons  rendering  comparatively  little 
service,  who  had  become  a  body  of  janizaries,  bound  to  defend 
the  government  which  paid  them,  working  hard  for  it  at  elec¬ 
tions,  and  adding,  together  with  the  regular  employees,  no  con¬ 
temptible  quota  to  the  total  Tammany  vote.1  As  for  the  Boss, 
those  very  qualities  in  him  which  repelled  men  of  refinement 
made  him  popular  with  the  crowd. 

I  asked  what  under  such  circumstances  the  respectable  citi¬ 
zens  proposed  to  do.  My  friends  raised  their  eyebrows.  One, 
of  a  historical  turn,  referred  to  the  experience  of  Rome  in  the 
days  of  Clodius  and  Milo,  and  suggested  the  hiring  of  gladiators. 

“These  be  thy  gods,  O  Democracy:  these  are  the  fruits  of 
abstract  theory  in  politics.  It  was  for  this  then  that  the  yoke  of 

1  Mr.  Tilden  ( Origin  and  Fall  of  the  New  York  Ring)  observes  that  the  Ring 
had  at  its  disposal  “the  whole  local  government  machinery,  with  its  expendi¬ 
ture  and  patronage  and  its  employment  of  at  least  12,000  persons,  besides  its 
possession  of  the  police,  its  influence  on  the  judiciary,  its  control  of  the  inspec¬ 
tors  and  canvassers  of  the  elections.” 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


393 


George  the  Third  was  broken  and  America  hailed  as  the  day¬ 
spring  of  freedom  by  the  peoples  of  Europe  —  that  a  robber 
should  hold  the  keys  of  the  public  treasury,  and  a  ruffian  be  set 
to  pollute  the  seat  of  justice.”  So  might  the  shade  of  Alexander 
Hamilton  have  spoken,  if  permitted  to  revisit,  after  seventy 
years,  the  city  his  genius  had  adorned.  Yet  it  was  not  such 
a  democracy  as  Jefferson  had  sought  to  create  and  Hamilton 
to  check  that  had  delivered  over  to  Tweed  and  to  Barnard  the 
greatest  city  of  the  Western  World.  That  was  the  work  of 
corruptions  unknown  to  the  days  of  Jefferson  and  Hamilton, 
of  the  Spoils  system,  of  election  frauds,  of  the  gift  of  the  suf¬ 
frage  to  a  host  of  ignorant  strangers,  and  above  all  of  the  apathy 
of  those  wealthy  and  educated  classes,  without  whose  partici¬ 
pation  the  best-framed  government  must  speedily  degenerate. 

In  the  autumn  of  1870  the  Ring  seemed  securely  seated. 
Tweed,  the  master  spirit,  was  content  to  scoop  in  money,  and 
enjoy  the  licentious  luxury  which  it  procured  him ;  though 
some  declared  that  he  had  fixed  his  eyes  upon  the  American 
legation  in  London.  Sweeny  preferred  the  substance  to  the 
ostentation  of  power ;  and  Connolly’s  tastes  were  as  vulgar  as 
Tweed’s,  without  the  touch  of  open-handedness  which  seemed 
to  palliate  the  latter’s  greed.  Cardozo,  however,  had  his  ambi¬ 
tions,  and  hungered  for  a  place  on  the  Supreme  Federal  Bench  ; 
while  Hall,  to  whom  no  share  in  the  booty  was  ever  traced, 
and  who  may  not  have  received  any,  was  believed  to  desire  to 
succeed  Hoffman  as  Governor  of  the  State,  when  that  official 
should  be  raised  by  the  growing  influence  of  Tammany  to  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States.  No  wonder  the  Ring  was 
intoxicated  by  the  success  it  had  already  won.  It  had  achieved 
a  fresh  triumph  in  re-electing  Hall  as  Mayor  at  the  end  of 
1870 ;  and  New  York  seemed  to  lie  at  its  feet. 

Its  fall  came  suddenly  ;  and  the  occasion  sprang  from  a  petty 
personal  quarrel.  A  certain  O’Brien,  conspicuous  as  a  leader 
in  a  discontented  section  of  the  Democratic  party,  was  also 
personally  sore  because  he  had  received  an  office  below  his 
hopes,  and  cherished  resentment  against  Sweeny,  to  whom  he 
attributed  his  disappointment.  A  henchman  of  his  named 
Copeland,  employed  in  the  auditor’s  office,  happened  to  find 
there  some  accounts  headed  “ County  Liabilities”  which 
struck  him  as  suspicious.  He  copied  them,  and  showed  them 
to  O’Brien,  who  perceived  their  value,  and  made  him  copy 


394 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


more  of  them,  in  fact  a  large  part  of  the  fraudulent  accounts 
relating  to  the  furnishing  of  the  Court  House.  Threatening 
the  Ring,  with  the  publication  of  these  compromising  docu¬ 
ments,  O’Brien  tried  to  extort  payment  of  an  old  claim  he 
had  against  the  city;  but  after  some  haggling  the  negotia¬ 
tions  were  interrupted  by  the  accidental  death  of  Watson,  the 
Auditor.  Ultimately  O’Brien  carried  his  copies  to  the  New 
York  Times ,  a  paper  which  had  already  for  some  months  past 
been  attacking  Tammany  with  unwonted  boldness.  On  the 
8th  of  July,  1871,  it  exposed  the  operations  of  the  Ring;  and 
denounced  its  members,  in  large  capitals,  as  thieves  and  swind¬ 
lers,  defying  them  to  sue  it  for  libel.  Subsequent  issues  con¬ 
tained  extracts  from  the  accounts  copied  by  Copeland ;  and 
all  were  summed  up  in  a  supplement,  published  on  July  29th 
and  printed  in  German  as  well  as  English,  which  showed  that 
a  sum  of  nearly  $10,000,000  in  all  had  been  expended  upon 
the  Court  House,  whose  condition  everybody  could  see,  and 
for  armoury  repairs  and  furnishings.  Much  credit  is  due  to 
the  proprietor  of  the  Times ,  who  resisted  threats  and  bribes 
offered  him  on  behalf  of  the  Ring  to  desist  from  his  onslaught 
and  perhaps  even  more  to  the  then  editor,  the  late  Mr.  Louis 
J.  Jennings,  whose  conduct  of  the  campaign  was  full  of  fire 
and  courage.  The  better  classes  of  the  city  were  now  fully 
aroused,  for  the  denials  or  defences  of  the  mayor  and  Tweed 
found  little  credence.  On  September  4th  a  meeting  of  citi¬ 
zens  was  held,  and  a  committee  of  seventy  persons,  many 
of  them  eminent  by  ability,  experience,  or  position,  formed 
to  investigate  the  frauds  charged,  which  by  this  time  had 
drawn  the  eyes  of  the  whole  State  and  country.  It  is  need¬ 
less  to  recount  the  steps  by  which  Connolly,  the  person  most 
directly  implicated,  and  the  one  whom  his  colleagues  sought 
to  make  a  scapegoat  of,  was  forced  to  appoint  as  deputy  an 
active  and  upright  man  (Mr.  A.  H.  Green),  whose  posses¬ 
sion  and  examination  of  the  records  in  the  comptroller’s  office 
proved  invaluable.  The  leading  part  in  the  campaign  was 
played  by  Mr.  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  chairman  of  the  Democratic 
party  in  the  State,  afterwards  Governor  of  the  State,  and 
in  1876  candidate  for  the  Federal  Presidency  against  Mr. 
Hayes.  Feeling  acutely  the  disgrace  which  the  Ring  had 
brought  upon  the  Democratic  party,  he  was  resolved  by  pursuit 
and  exposure  to  rid  the  party  of  them  and  their  coterie  once  for 


chap,  lx xx viii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


395 


all ;  and  in  this  he  was  now  seconded  by  all  the  better  Demo¬ 
crats.  But  much  was  also  due  to  the  brilliant  cartoons  of 
Mr.  Thomas  Nast,  whose  rich  invention  and  striking  draw¬ 
ing  presented  the  four  leading  members  of  the  Ring  in  every 
attitude  and  with  every  circumstance  of  ignominy.1  The  elec¬ 
tion  for  State  offices  held  in  November  was  attended  by  unusual 
excitement.  The  remaining  members  of  the  Ring,  for  Connolly 
was  now  extinct  and  some  of  the  minor  figures  had  taken  to 
flight,  faced  it  boldly,  and  Tweed  in  particular,  cheered  by 
his  renomination  in  the  Democratic  State  Convention  held 
shortly  beforehand,  and  by  his  re-election  to  the  chairmanship 
of  the  General  Committee  of  Tammany,  now  neither  explained 
nor  denied  anything,  but  asked  defiantly  in  words  which  in 
New  York  have  passed  into  a  proverb,  “What  are  you  going 
to  do  about  it?”  His  reliance  on  his  own  district  of  the  city, 
and  on  the  Tammany  masses  as  a  whole,  was  justified,  for  he 
was  re-elected  to  the  State  Senate  and  the  organization  gave 
his  creatures  its  solid  support.  But  the  respectable  citizens, 
who  had  for  once  been  roused  from  their  lethargy,  and  who 
added  their  votes  to  those  of  the  better  sort  of  Democrats  and 
of  the  Republican  party,  overwhelmed  the  Machine,  notwith¬ 
standing  the  usual  election  frauds  undertaken  on  its  behalf. 
Few  of  the  Ring  candidates  survived,  and  the  Ring  itself  was 
irretrievably  ruined.  Public  confidence  returned,  and  the  price 
of  real  estate  advanced.  Sweeny  forthwith  announced  his  with¬ 
drawal  from  public  life,  and  retired  to  Canada.  The  wretched 
Connolly  was  indicted  and  found  so  few  friends  that  he  re¬ 
mained  in  jail  for  six  weeks  before  he  could  procure  bail.  Tweed, 
though  dispirited  by  the  murder  of  his  boon-companion,  the 
notorious  Fisk  (who  had  been  carrying  through  the  scandalous 
Erie  railroad  frauds  by  the  help  of  the  Ring  judges)  stood  his 
ground  with  characteristic  courage,  and  refused  to  resign  the 
office  to  which  the  mayor  had  appointed  him.  However,  in 
December  he  was  arrested,2  but  presently  released  on  insignifi¬ 
cant  bail  by  Judge  Barnard.  The  State  Assembly,  in  which 

1  Tweed  felt  the  sharpness  of  the  weapon.  He  said  once:  “I  don’t  care 
a  straw  for  your  newspaper  articles  :  my  constituents  don’t  know  how  to  read, 
but  they  can’t  help  seeing  them  damned  pictures”  ;  and  indeed  there  was 
always  a  crowd  round  the  windows  in  which  Harper's  Weekly  (then  admirably 
edited  by  the  late  Mr.  George  William  Curtis)  was  displayed. 

2  When  asked  on  being  committed  to  state  his  occupation  and  creed,  he 
answered  that  he  was  a  statesman,  and  of  no  religion. 


396 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  reformers  had  now  a  majority,  soon  afterwards  took  steps 
to  impeach  Barnard,  McCunn,  and  Cardozo.  Cardozo  resigned  ; 
the  other  two  were  convicted  and  removed  from  the  bench. 
The  endless  delays  and  minute  technicalities  of  the  courts  of 
New  York  protracted  Tweed’s  trial  till  January,  1873,  when, 
after  a  long  hearing,  the  jury  were  discharged  because  unable 
to  agree.  He  was  thereupon  rearrested,  and  upon  his  second 
trial  in  November,  when  special  efforts  had  been  made  to 
secure  a  trustworthy  jury,  was  found  guilty  and  sentenced 
to  twelve  years’  imprisonment.  After  a  while  the  Court  of 
Appeals  released  him,  holding  the  sentence  irregular,  because 
cumulative ;  he  was  then  rearrested  in  a  civil  suit  by  the  city, 
escaped,  was  caught  in  Spain,  identified  by  a  caricature,  and 
brought  back  to  prison,  where  he  died  in  1876.  Hall  was 
thrice  tried.  On  the  first  occasion  the  death  of  a  juryman 
interrupted  the  proceedings ;  on  the  second  the  jury  disagreed  ; 
on  the  third  he  obtained  a  favourable  verdict.  Connolly  fled 
the  country  and  died  in  exile.  None  of  the  group,  nor  of 
Tweed’s  other  satellites,  ever  again  held  office. 

This  was  the  end  of  the  Tweed  Ring.  But  it  was  not  the 
end  of  Tammany.  Abashed  for  the  moment,  and  stooping 
earthward  while  the  tempest  swept  by,  that  redoubtable  or¬ 
ganization  never  relaxed  its  grip  upon  the  New  York  masses. 
It  was  only  for  a  few  months  that  the  tempest  cleared  the 
air.  The  “good  citizens”  soon  forgot  their  sudden  zeal.  Neg¬ 
lecting  the  primaries,  where  indeed  they  might  have  failed 
to  effect  much,  they  allowed  nominations  to  fall  back  into  the 
hands  of  spoilsmen,  and  the  most  important  city  offices  to  be 
fought  for  by  factions  differing  only  in  their  names  and  party 
badges,  because  all  were  equally  bent  upon  selfish  gain.  Within 
five  years  from  the  overthrow  of  1871,  Tammany  was  again  in 
the  saddle,  and  the  city  government  practically  in  the  nomina¬ 
tion  of  Mr.  John  Kelly,  tempered  by  the  rival  influence  of  the 
ex-prize  fighter  Morrissey.  In  1876  a  vigorous  pen,  reviewing 
the  history  of  the  preceding  eight  years,  and  pointing  out  how 
soon  the  old  mischiefs  had  reappeared,  thus  described  the  posi¬ 
tion  :  — 


“A  few  very  unscrupulous  men,  realizing  thoroughly  the  changed  con¬ 
dition  of  affairs,  had  organized  the  proletariat  of  the  city  ;  and,  through 
the  form  of  suffrage,  had  taken  possession  of  its  government;  They  saw 
clearly  the  facts  of  the  case,  which  the  doctrinaires,  theorists,  anc1,  pa- 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


397 


triots  studiously  ignored  or  vehemently  denied.  They  knew  perfectly 
well  that  New  York  City  was  no  longer  a  country  town,  inhabited  by 
Americans  and  church-goers,  and  officered  by  deacons.  They  recog¬ 
nized  the  existence  of  a  very  large  class  which  had  nothing,  and  availed 
themselves  of  its  assistance  to  plunder  those  who  had  something.  The 
only  way  to  meet  them  effectually  and  prevent  a  recurrence  of  the 
experience  is  for  the  friends  of  good  government  equally  to  recognize 
facts  and  shape  their  course  accordingly.  The  question  then  is  a  prac¬ 
tical  one. 

“If  New  York,  or  any  other  great  city  in  America  which  finds  itself 
brought  face  to  face  with  this  issue,  were  an  independent  autonomy,  — 
like  Rome  or  many  of  the  free  cities  of  the  Middle  Ages,  —  the  question 
would  at  once  be  divested  of  all  that  which  in  America  makes  it  difficult 
of  solution.  Under  these  circumstances  the  evil  would  run  its  course, 
and  cure  itself  in  the  regular  and  natural  way.  New  York  would  have 
a  Csesar  within  six  months.  Whether  he  came  into  power  at  the  head 
of  the  proletariat  or  seized  the  government  as  the  conservator  of  property 
would  make  no  difference.  The  city  would  instinctively  find  rest  under 
a  strong  rule.  The  connection  which  exists,  and  necessarily  can  never 
be  severed,  between  the  modern  great  city  and  the  larger  State,  closes 
this  natural  avenue  of  escape.  New  York  City  is  tied  to  New  York 
State,  and  must  stumble  along  as  best  it  may  at  its  heels.  It  is  guaran¬ 
teed  a  government  republican  in  form,  and  consequently  a  radical 
remedy  for  the  evil  must  be  found  within  that  form,  or  it  cannot  be 
found  at  all,  and  the  evil  must  remain  uncured. 

“The  thing  sought  for  then  is  to  obtain  a  municipal  government,  re¬ 
publican  in  form,  in  which  property,  as  well  as  persons,  shall  be  secured 
in  its  rights,  at  the  cost  of  a  reasonable  degree  only  of  public  service  on 
the  part  of  the  individual  citizen.  The  facts  to  be  dealt  with  are  few 
and  patent.  On  the  one  side  a  miscellaneous  population,  made  up 
largely  of  foreigners,  and  containing  an  almost  preponderating  element 
of  vice,  ignorance,  and  poverty,  all  manipulated  by  a  set  of  unscrupulous 
professional  politicians  ;  on  the  other  a  business  community,  engrossed 
in  affairs,  amassing  wealth  rapidly,  and  caring  little  for  politics.  Be¬ 
tween  the  two  the  usual  civic  population,  good  and  bad,  intent  on 
pleasure,  art,  literature,  science,  and  all  the  myriad  other  pursuits  of 
metropolitan  life.  The  two  essential  points  are  the  magnitude  and  the 
diversified  pursuits  of  the  population,  and  its  division  into  those  who 
have  and  those  who  have  not. 

“Bearing  these  facts,  which  cannot  be  changed,  in  mind,  then  a  few 
cardinal  principles  on  which  any  successful  municipal  government,  re¬ 
publican  in  form,  must  rest,  may  safely  be  formulated.  In  the  first 
place,  the  executive  must  be  strong  and  responsible  ;  in  the  second  place, 
property  must  be  entitled  to  a  representation  as  well  as  persons  ;  in  the 
third  place,  the  judiciary  must  be  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  the 
political  arena.  In  other  words,  justice  must  be  made  as  much  as  pos¬ 
sible  to  descend  from  above.  Curiously  enough,  each  of  these  principles, 
instead  of  being  a  novelty,  is  but  a  recurrence  to  the  ancient  ways.”  1 

1  North  American  Review  for  October,  1876  (No.  CCLIII,  p.  421),  an  un¬ 
signed  article. 


398 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


These  counsels,  and  many  others  like  them,  were  not  taken 
to  heart.  Since  1871  the  frame  of  municipal  government  was 
frequently  tinkered  with.  A  comprehensive  scheme  of  reform, 
proposed  by  a  strong  commission  which  Governor  Tilden  ap¬ 
pointed  in  1876,  failed  to  be  carried  ;  and  though  great  progress 
has  been  made  in  the  way  of  better  ballot  and  election  laws 
and  some  progress  in  the  way  of  civil  service  reform,  the  Spoils 
system  still  throve,  repeaters  still  voted  in  large  numbers,  and 
election  returns  could  still  be  manipulated  by  those  who  control 
the  city  government.  There  have  been  some  excellent  mayors, 
such  as  Mr.  Hewitt,  for  the  catastrophe  of  1871  has  never  been 
forgotten  by  Tammany,  whose  chieftains  sometimes  find  it 
prudent  to  run  reputable  candidates.  No  more  Barnards  or 
Cardozos  .have  disgraced  the  bench,  for  the  Bar  Association  is 
vigorous  and  watchful ;  and  when  very  recently  a  judge  who 
had  been  too  subservient  to  a  suspected  State  Boss  was  nomi¬ 
nated  by  the  influence  of  that  gentleman  to  one  of  the  highest 
judicial  posts  in  the  State,  the  efforts  of  the  Association,  well 
supported  in  the  city,  procured  his  defeat  by  an  overwhelming 
majority. 

Nevertheless,  Tammany  has  held  its  ground  ;  and  the  august 
dynasty  of  bosses  goes  on.  When  Mr.  John  Kelly  died  some 
time  ago,  the  sceptre  passed  to  the  hands  of  the  not  less  capa¬ 
ble  and  resolute  Mr.  Richard  Croker,  once  the  keeper  of  a 
liquor  saloon,  and  for  some  short  time  the  holder  of  a  clerk¬ 
ship  under  Tweed  himself.1  Mr.  Croker,  like  Lorenzo  de’ 
Medici  in  Florence,  held  no  civic  office,  but,  as  Chairman  of 
the  Tammany  sub-committee  on  organization,  controlled  all 
city  officials,  while,  by  the  public  avowal  of  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Assembly,  during  the  session  of  1893,  “all  legislation 
( i.e .  in  the  State  legislature  at  Albany)  emanated  from  Tam¬ 
many  Hall,  and  was  dictated  by  that  great  statesman,  Richard 
Croker.”2  Ultimately  Mr.  Croker,  like  the  Emperors  Diocle¬ 
tian  and  Charles  V,  abdicated  the  crown.  He  has  retired  to 


1  Full  details  regarding  the  career  of  Mr.  Croker,  of  his  henchman,  Police 
Justice  Patrick  Divver,  and  of  other  Tammany  “braves”  of  that  day,  may  be 
found  in  an  article  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  February,  1894,  by  Mr.  H.  C. 
Merwin,  and  more  fully  in  the  “Annual  Records”  of  Assemblymen  and  Sen¬ 
ators  from  New  York  City,  published  by  the  City  Reform  Club. 

2  Mr.  D.  G.  Thompson,  Politics  in  a  Democracy,  p.  127,  an  odd  little  book 
’vhich  purports  to  defend  Tammany  by  showing  that  it  gives  the  New  York 
ma&ces  the  sort  of  government  they  desire  and  deserve. 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


399 


the  enjoyment  of  an  estate  and  a  racing  stud  in  Ireland,  and 
Mr.  Charles  F.  Murphy  reigns  in  his  stead. 

The  reader  will  expect  some  further  words  to  explain  how 
the  Tammany  of  to-day  is  organized,  by  what  means  it 
holds  its  power,  and  what  sort  of  government  it  gives  the 
city. 

Each  of  the  thirty-five  “assembly  districts”  in  the  boroughs 
of  Manhattan  and  Bronx  annually  elects  a  certain  number  of 
members,  varying  from  60  to  270,  to  sit  on  the  General  Com¬ 
mittee  of  Tammany  Hall,  which  has  long  claimed  to  be,  and  at 
present  is,  the  “regular”  Democratic  organization  of  the  city. 
The  Committee  is  thus  large,  numbering  several  thousand  per¬ 
sons,  and  on  it  there  also  sit  the  great  chiefs  who  are  above  tak¬ 
ing  district  work.  Each  district  has  also  a  “Leader”  who  is 
always  on  the  General  Committee ;  and  the  thirty-five  leaders 
form  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Hall,  which  has  also 
other  committees,  including  that  on  finance,  whereof  Mr. 
Croker  was  chairman.  Each  election  district  has,  moreover, 
a  District  Committee,  with  the  “leader”  (appointed  by  the 
Assembly  District  leader)  as  chairman  and  practically  as  direc¬ 
tor.  This  Committee  appoints  a  Captain  for  every  one  of  the 
voting  precincts  into  which  the  district  is  divided.  There 
are  about  1100  such  precincts,  and  these  1100  captains  are  held 
responsible  for  the  vote  cast  in  their  respective  precincts.  The 
captain  is  probably  a  liquor  seller,  and  as  such  has  opportunities 
of  getting  to  know  the  lower  class  of  voters.  He  has  often  some 
small  office,  and  usually  some  little  patronage,  as  well  as  some 
money,  to  bestow.  In  each  of  the  thirty  districts  there  is  a 
party  headquarters  for  the  Committee  and  the  local  party 
work,  and  usually  also  a  clubhouse,  where  party  loyalty  is 
cemented  over  cards  and  whiskey,  besides  a  certain  number  of 
local  “associations,”  called  after  prominent  local  politicians, 
who  are  expected  to  give  an  annual  picnic,  or  other  kind  of 
treat,  to  their  retainers.  A  good  deal  of  social  life,  including 
dances  and  summer  outings,  goes  on  in  connection  with  these 
clubs.1 

Such  an  organization  as  this,  with  its  tentacles  touching 
every  point  in  a  vast  and  amorphous  city,  is  evidently  a  most 
potent  force,  especially  as  this  force  is  concentrated  in  one 

1  Full  and  clear  descriptions  may  be  found  in  Mr.  H.  C.  Merwin’s  article 
already  cited,  and  in  Mr.  Thompson’s  book,  pp.  66  sqq. 


400 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


hand  —  that  of  the  Boss  of  the  Hall.  He  is  practically  auto¬ 
cratic  ;  and  under  him  these  thousands  of  officers,  controlling 
probably  nearly  200,000  votes,  move  with  the  precision  of  a 
machine.1  However,  it  has  been  not  only  in  this  mechanism, 
which  may  be  called  a  legitimate  method  of  reaching  the  voters, 
that  the  strength  of  Tammany  has  lain.  Its  control  of  the  city 
government  gave  it  endless  opportunities  of  helping  its  friends, 
of  worrying  its  opponents,  and  of  enslaving  the  liquor-dealers. 
Their  licenses  were  at  its  mercy,  for  the  police  could  proceed 
against  or  wink  at  breaches  of  the  law,  according  to  the  amount 
of  loyalty  the  saloon-keeper  shows  to  the  Hall.  From  the 
contributions  of  the  liquor  interest  a  considerable  revenue 
was  raised  ;  more  was  obtained  by  assessing  office-holders,  down 
to  the  very  small  ones ;  and,  perhaps,  most  of  all  by  blackmail¬ 
ing  wealthy  men  and  corporations,  who  found  that  the  city  au¬ 
thorities  have  so  many  opportunities  of  interfering  vexatiously 
with  their  business  that  they  preferred  to  buy  them  off  and  live 
in  peace.2  The  worst  form  of  this  extortion  was  the  actual 
complicity  with  criminals  which  consists  in  sharing  the  profits 
of  crime.  A  fruitful  source  of  revenue,  roughly  estimated  at 
$1,000,000  a  year  has  been  derived,  when  the  party  was  supreme 
at  Albany,  from  legislative  blackmailing  in  the  legislature,  or, 
rather,  from  undertaking  to  protect  the  great  corporations  from 
the  numerous  “strikers,”  who  threaten  them  there  with  bills. 
A  case  has  been  mentioned  in  which  as  much  as  $60,000  was  de¬ 
manded  from  a  great  company ;  and  the  president  of  another 
is  reported  to  have  said  (1893)  :  “Formerly  we  had  to  keep  a 
man  at  Albany  to  buy  off  the  ‘  strikers  ’  one  by  one.  This  year 
we  simply  paid  over  a  lump  sum  to  the  Ring,  and  they  looked 
after  our  interests.”  But  of  all  their  engines  of  power  none 
was  so  elastic  as  their  command  of  the  administration  of  criminal 
justice.  The  mayor  appointed  the  police  justices,  now  called 
city  magistrates,  usually  selecting  them  from  certain  Tammany 
workers,  sometimes  from  the  criminal  class,  not  often  from  the 
legal  profession.  These  justices  were  often  Tammany  leaders 

1  The  highest  total  vote  ever  cast  in  New  York  was  285,000  (in  1892).  In 
the  city  election  of  1890  Tammany  polled  116,000  votes;  out  of  216,000  cast 
in  1892  the  Tammany  candidate  for  mayor  had  173,000,  there  being,  however, 
no  other  Democratic  candidate. 

2  An  Investigating  Committee  of  the  New  York  State  Senate  cast  a  scorching 
light  on  this  so-called  “Police  Protective  Tariff,”  as  to  which  see  also  an  article 
in  the  Forum  for  August,  1894,  by  Mr.  J.  B.  Leavitt. 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


401 


in  their  respective  districts.1  Said  a  distinguished  publicist 
of  those  days  :  — 

“The  police  captain  of  the  precinct,  the  justice  of  the  police  court, 
and  the  district  leader  of  the  Tammany  organization  are  all  leagued 
together  to  keep  the  poor  in  subjection  and  prevent  the  rich  from  inter¬ 
fering.  Their  means  of  annoyance  for  a  poor  man  are  endless.  They 
can  arrest  him  on  small  pretences,  prevent  his  getting  employment  from 
the  city,  or  city  contractors,  pursue  him  for  allowing  his  goods  to  remain 
on  the  sidewalk,  and  for  not  cleaning  off  the  snow  promptly,  tax  him 
heavily,  or  let  him  go  free.  All  these  means  of  persecution  are  freely  re¬ 
sorted  to,  so  that  the  poor,  and  especially  the  foreign  poor,  are  really  as 
much  in  subjection  to  Tammany  as  the  Italians  to  the  Camorra.  The 
source  of  it  all  is  the  character  of  the  mayor.  He  appoints  the  police 
commissioners,  and  the  commissioners  appoint  the  captains,  and  he  ap¬ 
points  the  police  justices  also,  and  is  responsible  for  their  quality. 
When  the  act  under  which  the  present  justices  act  was  under  considera¬ 
tion  in  the  legislature,  the  proviso  that  all  appointees  should  be  lawyers 
of  a  certain  standing  at  the  bar  was  stricken  out,  so  that  the  mayor  has 
a  completely  free  hand  in  selection,  and  the  result  is  that  most  of  those 
appointed  recently  under  the  Tammany  regime  are  old  ‘toughs/  liquor- 
dealers,  gamblers,  or  simple  adventurers,  who  have  lived  from  the  age 
of  twenty  by  holding  small  offices,  such  as  doorkeepers  or  clerks  of  the 
minor  city  courts. 

“Now  there  is  in  the  moral  sphere  of  city  government  nothing  so 
important  as  what  I  may  call  the  administration  of  petty  justice,  that  is, 
justice  among  the  poor,  ignorant,  and  friendless,  the  class  who  cannot 
pay  lawyers  or  find  bail,  and  especially  that  very  large  class  in  the  cities 
on  our  eastern  coast,  of  poor  foreigners  who  know  nothing  of  our  laws 
and  constitutions,  and  to  whom  the  police  magistrate  or  the  police  cap¬ 
tain  represent  the  whole  government  of  the  country,  Federal,  State,  and 
municipal,  who  accept  without  a  murmur  any  sentence  which  may  be 
pronounced  on  them,  or  any  denial  of  justice  which  may  overtake  them. 
They  get  all  their  notions  of  the  national  morality,  and  really  their  ear¬ 
liest  political  training,  from  their  contact  with  these  officers  and  with  the 
district  “leader.”  Upon  their  experience  with  these  people  it  depends 
very  much  what  kind  of  citizens  they  will  become,  they  and  their  chil¬ 
dren  after  them.  Well,  one  of  the  very  first  lessons  they  learn  is  that 
they  can  have  no  standing  in  court  unless  they  are  members  of  the 
Tammany  Society,  or  as  simple  voters  they  have  a  ‘pull,’  that  is,  some 
sort  of  occult  influence  with  the  magistrate.  In  default  of  this  their 
complaints  are  dismissed,  and  they  are  found  guilty  and  sent  up  to  ‘the 
Island,’  or  held  in  bail  which  they  cannot  procure,  or  in  some  manner 
worsted.”  2 

With  such  sources  of  power  it  is  not  surprising  that  Tam¬ 
many  Hall  should  have  commanded  the  majority  of  the  lower 

1  Atlantic  Monthly ,  ut  supra. 

2  Mr.  E.  L.  Godkin  in  Annals  of  the  Amer.  Acad,  of  Polit.  Science  for  May, 
1894,  p.  17. 


402 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


and  the  foreign  masses  of  New  York,  though  it  has  never  been 
shown  to  hold  an  absolute  majority  of  all  the  voters  of  the  city. 
Its  local  strength  is  fairly  well  proportioned  to  the  character 
of  the  local  population ;  and  though  there  are  plenty  of  native 
Americans  among  the  rank  and  file  as  well  as  among  the  leaders, 
still  it  has  been  from  the  poorer  districts,  inhabited  by  Jews, 
Irish,  Germans,  Italians,  Bohemians,  that  its  heaviest  vote 
has  come.1  These  poor  people  do  not  support  it  because  it  is 
vicious.  They  like  it  and  think  it  a  good  thing ;  it  satisfies 
their  instincts  of  combination  and  good  fellowship ;  it  is  often 
all  the  government  they  know?  Mr.  Merwin  puts  the  attitude 
of  the  better  sort  of  Tammany  adherents,  and  particularly  of  the 
native  American,  when  he  writes,  — 

“The  Tammany  man  dislikes  and  despises  the  Anglomania  of  what 
is  called  ‘society’  in  New  York  ;  he  distrusts  the  people  who  compose 
‘society’  and  believes  them  at  heart  out  of  sympathy  with  American 
principles,  whereas  Tammany  in  his  view  is  a  concrete  protest  against 
monarchy  and  monarchical  arrangements  of  society.  He  considers  that 
Tammany  is,  on  the  whole,  a  good  body,  that  it  gives  New  York  a  good 
government,  that  it  stands  for  what  is  manly  and  patriotic.  It  troubles 
him  somewhat  that  a  few  of  the  leaders  are  said  to  be  acquiring  ill-gotten 
gains  ;  and  if  the  scandal  increases  he  will  overthrow  those  leaders  and 
appoint  others  in  their  stead.  Meanwhile  Tammany  is  his  party,  his 
church,  his  club,  his  totem.  To  be  loyal  to  something  is  almost  a  neces¬ 
sity  of  all  incorrupt  natures,  and  especially  of  the  Celtic  nature.  The 
Tammany  man  is  loyal  to  Tammany. 

“In  truth  there  is  very  little  in  New  York  to  suggest  any  higher  ideal. 
What  kind  of  a  spectacle  does  the  city  present  to  a  man  working  his  way 
up  from  poverty  to  wealth,  —  to  one,  for  instance,  who  began  as  a 
‘  tough,’  and  ends  as  a  capitalist  ?  The  upper  class  —  at  least  the  richer 
class,  the  class  chiefly  talked  about  in  the  papers  —  is,  with  exceptions, 
of  course,  given  over  to  material  luxury  and  to  ostentation.  It  is  with¬ 
out  high  aims,  without  sympathy,  without  civic  pride  or  feeling.  It 
has  not  even  the  personal  dignity  of  a  real  aristocracy.  Its  sense  of 
honour  is  very  crude.  And  as  this  class  is  devoted  to  the  selfish  spend¬ 
ing,  so  the  business  class  is  devoted  to  the  remorseless  getting,  of 
money.”  2 

To  this  description  of  the  attitude  of  the  Tammany  rank  and 
file  it  may  be  added  that,  as  few  of  them  pay  any  direct  taxes, 
they  have  no  sense  of  the  importance  of  economy  in  admin¬ 
istration.  True  it  is  that  they  ultimately  pay,  through  their 

1  An  instructive  examination  of  the  vote  by  districts  which  brings  this  result 
clearly  out  is  given  by  Mr.  Thompson,  pp.  79-91. 

2  Atlantic  Monthly,  ut  supra. 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


403 


rent  and  otherwise,  for  whatever  burdens  are  laid  on  the  city. 
But  they  do  not  perceive  this,  —  and  as  the  lawyers  say,  De 
non  apparentibus  et  non  existentibus  eadem  est  ratio.  The  gov¬ 
ernment  of  the  rich  by  the  manipulation  of  the  votes  of  the  poor 
is  a  new  phenomenon  in  the  world ;  and  where  the  rich  have 
little  contact  with  the  poor,  and  the  poor  little  respect  for 
the  rich,  happy  results  can  hardly  be  expected.  Apart  from 
the  abuse  of  the  minor  criminal  justice,  apart  from  the  black¬ 
mailing  of  innocent  men  as  well  as  of  offenders,  apart  from 
the  impunity  which  the  payment  of  blackmail  secures  to  some 
forms  of  vice,1  apart  from  such  lapses  from  virtue  as  that  of  the 
aldermen  who  sold  the  right  of  laying  a  railroad  in  Broadway, 

—  twenty-two  out  of  the  twenty-four  were  indicted  for  bribery, 

—  the  actual  administration  of  the  city  injured  and  offended 
the  ordinary  citizen  less  than  might  have  been  expected.  The 
police  force,  often  as  they  were  made  the  engine  of  extortion  or 
the  accomplice  in  vice,  are  an  efficient  force,  though  harsh  in 
their  methods,  and  they  keep  life  and  property  secure.2  The 
fire  department  is  well  managed  ;  the  water  supply  is  copious  ; 
the  public  schools  have  been  usually,  though  not  invariably, 
“kept  out  of  politics/’  If  the  government  has  been  wasteful  in 
details,  it  was  seldom  conspicuously  extravagant ;  and  the  rulers 
who  grew  rich  through  it  have  done  so  by  indirect  methods,  and 
not  out  of  the  city  treasury.  Scandals  like  those  of  Tweed’s 
time  have  not  recurred.  The  city  debt  was  reduced  between 
1876  and  1894  to  $104,000,000,  though  it  must  be  added  that 
the  swift  increase  of  the  wealth  of  the  city  enabled  a  rate  of 
taxation  moderate  for  the  United  States  ($1.85  to  $1.79  on  the 
valuation  of  property)  to  produce  an  immense  revenue.3  Con¬ 
sidering  what  by  origin,  by  training,  by  environment,  and  by 
tastes  and  habits,  are  the  persons  who  rule  the  city  through 

1  Great  credit  is  due  to  a  courageous  clergyman  who  at  some  personal  risk 
succeeded  in  exposing  this  system,  and  helped  thereby  to  obtain  the  appoint¬ 
ment  of  the  Investigating  Committee. 

2  The  Senate  Committee  elicited  the  fact  —  already  indeed  suspected  —  that 
an  applicant  for  employment  in  the  police  must  pay  for  appointment,  and 
an  officer  must  contribute  a  large  sum  either  to  the  Ring  or  to  the  Police  Com¬ 
missioners  for  promotion.  The  New  York  police  are  a  brave  and  active  force, 
but  long  custom  is  said  to  have  made  the  overlooking  breaches  of  the  law  for  a 
consideration  seem  to  them  a  venial  fault. 

3  “The  increase  in  the  assessed  valuation  of  property  (real  and  personal) 
in  New  York  City  is  annually  about  $70,000,000  ;  and  in  1893  reached  the  un¬ 
precedented  sum  of  $105,254,253.”  —  City  Government  in  the  U.S.,  by  Mr. 
Alfred  R.  Conkling,  New  York,  1894. 


404 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


Tammany  —  considering  the  criminal  element  among  them 
and  their  close  association  with  the  liquor  saloons,  it  may  excite 
surprise  that  the  government,  corrupt  as  it  has  been,  was  not 
also  more  wasteful.1 

Those  who  have  grasped  the  singular  condition  of  New  York 
and  its  population,  will  find  it  less  surprising  that  this  gov¬ 
ernment  should  have  proved  itself  so  hard  to  overthrow.  In 
1890  a  great  effort  to  overthrow  it  was  made.  A  section  of 
the  Democrats  leagued  itself  with  the  Republicans  to  bring 
out  what  was  understood  to  be  11  a  joint  ticket/’  while  the  Inde¬ 
pendent  Reformers  blessed  the  alliance,  and  endorsed  its  candi¬ 
dates.2  Success  had  been  hoped  for ;  but  Tammany  routed  its 
adversaries  by  23,000  votes.  It  turned  out  that  about  30,000 
Republicans  had  not  voted,  —  some  because  their  bosses,  secretly 
friendly  to  Tammany,  did  not  canvass  them,  some  because  they 
did  not  care  to  vote  for  anything  but  a  Republican  ticket, 
some  out  of  sheer  indifference  and  laziness.  This  proved  that 
strongly  entrenched  as  Tammany  is,  Tammany  could  be  over¬ 
thrown  if  the  “good  citizens”  were  to  combine  for  municipal  re¬ 
form,  setting  aside  for  local  purposes  those  distinctions  of  national 
party  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  city  issues.  The  rulers  of 
the  wigwam,  as  Tammany  is  affectionately  called,  do  not  care 
for  national  politics,  except  as  a  market  in  which  the  Tam¬ 
many  vote  may  be  sold.  That  the  good  citizens  of  New  York 
should  continue  to  rivet  on  their  necks  the  yoke  of  a  club  which 
is  almost  as  much  a  business  concern  as  one  of  their  own  dry- 
goods  stores,  by  dividing  forces  which,  if  united,  would  break 
the  tyranny  that  has  lasted  for  two  generations  —  this  indeed 
seems  strange,  yet  perhaps  no  stranger  than  other  instances  of 
the  power  of  habit,  of  laziness,  of  names  and  party  spirit.  In 
1894,  Tammany  was  defeated,  and  the  improved  government 
that  for  some  years  followed  made  the  “  better  element”  see 
more  clearly  what  they  might  gain  by  reform.  Victory  came  at 

1  “The  city  is  governed  to-day  by  three  or  four  men  of  foreign  birth  who 
are  very  illiterate,  are  sprung  from  the  dregs  of  the  foreign  population,  have 
never  pursued  any  regular  calling,  were  entirely  unknown  to  the  bulk  of  the 
residents  only  five  years  ago,  and  now  set  the  criticisms  of  the  intelligent  and 
educated  classes  at  defiance.”  —  Annals  of  the  Amer.  Acad.,  ut  supra. 

2  Being  in  New  York  during  the  election,  I  spent  some  hours  in  watching 
the  voting  in  the  densely  peopled  tenement-house  districts  and  thus  came  to 
realize  better  than  figures  can  convey  how  largely  New  York  is  a  European 
city,  but  a  European  city  of  no  particular  country,  with  elements  of  ignorance 
and  squalor  from  all  of  them. 


chap,  lxxxviii  TAMMANY  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY 


405 


last  in  1902,  by  which  time  Greater  New  York,  consisting  of  four 
boroughs  added  to  the  old  city,  had  come  into  being  under  the 
new  charter.  In  the  two  succeeding  elections  candidates  for  the 
mayoralty  supported  by  Tammany  were  successful ;  but  these 
elections  are  too  near  the  time  at  which  I  write  to  be  proper 
subjects  for  discussion  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  three 
Mayors  -between  1902  and  1910  gave  the  city  a  much  purer 
and  more  efficient  administration  than  it  had  enjoyed  before  ; 
and  although  there  are  departments  of  the  government,  such 
as  the  police  and  the  police  magistrates,  that  may  still  be  open 
to  grave  criticism,  the  sky  of  New  York  was  in  1910  brighter 
than  it  had  been  for  many  years,  bright  enough  to  encourage 
the  hope  that  the  clouds  which  remain  will  ultimately  pass  away. 


CHAPTER  LXXXIX 


THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 

Philadelphia,  though  it  has  not  maintained  that  primacy 
among  American  cities  which  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution 
was  secured  to  it  by  its  population  and  its  central  position,  is 
still  one  of  the  greatest  cities  in  America,  with  a  population  of 
more  than  a  million.1  Though  the  element  of  recent  immi¬ 
grants  is  much  smaller  than  in  New  York  or  Boston  or  Chicago 2 
the  old  Quaker  character  has  died  out,  or  remains  perceptible 
only  in  a  certain  air  of  staid  respectability  which  marks  the  city 
as  compared  with  the  luxury  of  New  York  and  the  tumultuous 
rush  of  Chicago.  It  has  of  late  years  been  strongly  Republi¬ 
can  in  its  politics,  partly  because  that  party  obtained  complete 
ascendency  during  the  war,  partly  because  Pennsylvania  is  a 
Protectionist  State,  owing  to  her  manufacturing  industries,  and 
Philadelphia,  as  the  stronghold  of  protection,  is  attached  to 
the  party  which  upholds  those  doctrines.  During  the  Civil 
War  the  best  citizens  were  busily  absorbed  in  its  great  issues, 
and  both  then  and  for  some  time  after  welcomed  all  the  help 
that  could  be  given  to  their  party  by  any  men  who  knew  how 
to  organize  the  voters  and  bring  them  up  to  the  polls ;  while 
at  the  same  time  their  keen  interest  in  national  questions  made 
them  inattentive  to  municipal  affairs.  Accordingly,  the  local 
control  and  management  of  the  party  fell  into  the  hands  of 
obscure  citizens,  men  who  had  their  own  ends  to  serve,  their 
own  fortunes  to  make,  but  who  were  valuable  to  the  party 
because  they  kept  it  in  power  through  their  assiduous  work 
among  a  lower  class  of  voters.  These  local  leaders  formed 
combinations  with  party  managers  in  the  State  legislature 
which  sits  at  Harrisburg,  the  capital  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
with  a  clique  managed  from  Washington  by  a  well-known  sen- 

1  In  1910  it  was  1,549,008. 

2  Only  fifteen  per  cent  of  the  people  of  Philadelphia  are  of  foreign  birth, 
whereas  in  Boston  the  percentage  is  thirty-five  and  in  Chicago  nearly  forty-two. 

406 


CHAP,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


407 


atorial  family,  which  for  a  long  time  controlled  the  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  vote  in  Republican  national  conventions  and  in  Congress. 
They  were  therefore  strongly  entrenched,  having  powerful 
allies,  both  in  State  politics  and  in  Federal  politics.  Since 
they  commanded  the  city  vote,  both  these  sets  of  politicians 
were  obliged  to  conciliate  them  ;  while  the  commercial  interests 
of  Philadelphia  in  the  maintenance  of  a  protective  tariff  have  for 
many  years  pressed  so  strongly  on  the  minds  of  her  merchants 
and  manufacturers  as  to  make  them  unwilling  to  weaken  the 
Republican  party  in  either  State  or  city  by  any  quarrel  with 
those  who  swayed  its  heavy  vote. 

The  obscure  citizens  of  whom  I  have  spoken  had  begun  by 
acquiring  influence  in  the  primaries,  and  then  laid  their  hands 
on  the  minor,  ultimately  also  on  the  more  important,  city  offices. 
They  sometimes  placed  men  of  good  social  standing  in  the  higher 
posts,  but  filled  the  inferior  ones,  which  were  very  numerous, 
with  their  own  creatures.  The  water  department,  the  highway 
department,  the  tax  department,  the  city  treasurer’s  department, 
the  county  commissioner’s  office,  fell  into  their  hands.  A  mayor 
appointed  by  them  filled  the  police  with  their  henchmen  till  it 
became  a  completely  partisan  force.  But  the  centre  of  their 
power  was  the  Gas  Trust,  administered  by  trustees,  one  of  whom, 
by  his  superior  activity  and  intelligence,  secured  the  command 
of  the  whole  party  machinery,  and  reached  the  high  position  of 
recognized  Boss  of  Philadelphia.  This  gentleman,  Mr.  James 
M ‘Manes,  having  gained  influence  among  the  humbler  voters, 
was  appointed  one  of  the  Gas  Trustees,  and  soon  managed  to 
bring  the  whole  of  that  department  under  his  control.  It 
employed  (I  was  told)  about  two  thousand  persons,  received 
large  sums,  and  gave  out  large  contracts.  Appointing  his  friends 
and  dependants  to  the  chief  places  under  the  Trust,  and  requiring 
them  to  fill  the  ranks  of  its  ordinary  workmen  with  persons  on 
whom  they  could  rely,  the  Boss  acquired  the  control  of  a  con¬ 
siderable  number  of  votes  and  of  a  large  annual  revenue.  He 
and  his  confederates  then  purchased  a  controlling  interest  in  the 
principal  horse-car  (street  tramway)  company  of  the  city, 
whereby  they  became  masters  of  a  large  number  of  additional 
voters.  All  these  voters  were  of  course  expected  to  act  as  “  work¬ 
ers,”  i.e.  they  occupied  themselves  with  the  party  organization 
of  the  city,  they  knew  the  meanest  streets  and  those  who  dwelt 
therein,  they  attended  and  swayed  the  primaries,  and  when  an 


408 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


election  came  round,  they  canvassed  and  brought  up  the  voters. 
Their  power,  therefore,  went  far  beyond  their  mere  voting 
strength,  for  a  hundred  energetic  “ workers7’  mean  at  least  a 
thousand  votes.  With  so  much  strength  behind  them,  the  Gas 
Ring,  and  Mr.  M ‘Manes  at  its  head,  became  not  merely  indis¬ 
pensable  to  the  Republican  party  in  the  city,  but  in  fact  its  chiefs, 
able  therefore  to  dispose  of  the  votes  of  all  those  who  were  em¬ 
ployed  permanently  or  temporarily  in  the  other  departments  of 
the  city  government  —  a  number  which  one  hears  estimated  as 
high  as  twenty  thousand.1  Nearly  all  the  municipal  offices  were 
held  by  their  nominees.  They  commanded  a  majority  in  the 
Select  council  and  Common  council.  They  managed  the  nomi¬ 
nation  of  members  of  the  State  legislature.  Even  the  Federal 
officials  in  the  custom-house  and  post-office  were  forced  into  a 
dependent  alliance  with  them,  because  their  support  was  so 
valuable  to  the  leaders  in  Federal  politics  that  it  had  to  be  pur¬ 
chased  by  giving  them  their  way  in  city  affairs.  There  was  no 
getting  at  the  Trust,  because  “its  meetings  were  held  in  secret, 
its  published  annual  report  to  the  city  councils  was  confused 
and  unintelligible,  and  (as  was  subsequently  proved)  actually 
falsified.  ”  2  Mr.  M ‘Manes  held  the  pay  rolls  under  lock  and 
key,  so  that  no  one  could  know  how  many  employees  there  were, 
and  it  was  open  to  him  to  increase  their  number  to  any  extent. 
The  city  councils  might  indeed  ask  for  information,  but  he  was 
careful  to  fill  the  city  councils  with  his  nominees,  and  to  keep 
them  in  good  humour  by  a  share  of  whatever  spoil  there  might  be, 
and  still  more  by  a  share  of  the  patronage. 

1  The  ballot  did  not  protect  these  voters.  Prior  to  the  introduction  of  the 
so-called  “Australian”  ballot  in  1891  it  was  generally  possible  for  the  presiding 
election  officer  to  know  how  each  man  voted. 

2  See  Report  of  the  Committee  of  One  Hundred,  published  November,  1884. 
A  leading  citizen  of  Philadelphia,  from  whom  I  have  sought  an  explanation  of 
the  way  in  which  the  Gas  Trust  had  managed  to  entrench  itself,  writes  me  as 
follows:  “When  in  1835  gas  was  first  introduced  in  Philadelphia,  it  was 
manufactured  by  a  private  company,  but  the  city  reserved  the  right  to  buy 
out  the  stockholders.  When  this  was  done,  in  1841,  with  the  object  of  keeping 
the  works  ‘out  of  politics,’  the  control  was  vested  in  a  board  of  twelve,  each 
serving  for  three  years.  These  were  constituted  trustees  of  the  loans  issued 
for  the  construction  and  enlargement  of  the  works.  Their  appointment  was 
lodged  in  the  hands  of  the  city  councils  ;  but  when,  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
the  councils  endeavoured  to  obtain  control  of  the  works,  the  courts  were  ap¬ 
pealed  to,  and  decided  that  the  board,  as  trustees  for  the  bondholders,  could 
not  be  interfered  with  until  the  last  of  the  bonds  issued  under  this  arrangement 
had  matured  and  had  been  paid  off.  Thirty-year  loans  under  these  conditions 
were  issued  until  1855,  so  that  it  was  not  until  1885  that  the  city  was  able  to 
break  within  the  charmed  circle  of  the  Trust.” 


CHAP,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


409 


That  so  vast  and  solid  an  edifice  of  power,  covering  the  whole 
of  a  great  city,  should  be  based  on  the  control  of  a  single  depart¬ 
ment  like  the  Gas  Trust  may  excite  surprise.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  when  a  number  of  small  factions  combine  to 
rule  a  party,  that  faction  which  is  a  little  larger,  or  better 
organized,  or  better  provided  with  funds,  than  the  others,  obtains 
the  first  place  among  them,  and  may  keep  it  so  long  as  it  gives 
to  the  rest  a  fair  share  of  the  booty,  and  directs  the  policy  of  the 
confederates  with  firmness  and  skill.  Personal  capacity,  cour¬ 
age,  resolution,  foresight,  the  judicious  preference  of  the  sub¬ 
stance  of  power  to  its  display,  are  qualities  whose  union  in  one 
brain  is  so  uncommon  in  any  group  of  men  that  their  possessor 
acquires  an  ascendency  which  lasts  until  he  provokes  a  revolt 
by  oppression,  or  is  seen  to  be  leading  his  party  astray.  And 
by  the  admission  even  of  his  enemies,  JYIr.  M ‘Manes  possessed 
these  qualities.  His  origin  was  humble,  his  education  scanty, 
but  he  atoned  for  these  deficiencies  by  tact  and  knowledge  of  the 
world,  with  a  quietly  decorous  demeanour  veiling  an  imperious 
will.  He  knew  how  to  rule  without  challenging  opposition  by 
the  obtrusion  of  his  own  personality,  nor'  does  he  seem  to  have 
used  his  power  to  plunder  the  city  for  his  own  behoof.  The  merit 
of  the  system  was  that  it  perpetuated  itself,  and  in  fact  grew 
stronger  the  longer  it  stood.  Whenever  an  election  was  in 
prospect  the  ward  primaries  of  the  Republican  party  were 
thronged  by  the  officers  and  workpeople  of  the  Gas  Trust  and 
other  city  departments,  who  secured  the  choice  of  such  delegates 
as  the  Ring  had  previously  selected  in  secret  conclave.  Some¬ 
times,  especially  in  the  wards  inhabited  by  the  better  sort  of 
citizens,  this  “ official  list”  of  delegates  was  resisted  by  inde¬ 
pendent  men  belonging  to  the  Republican  party ;  but  as  the 
chairman  was  always  in  the  interest  of  the  Ring,  he  rarely  failed 
so  to  jockey  these  Independents  that  even  if  they  happened  to 
have  the  majority  present,  they  could  not  carry  their  candidates. 
Of  course  it  seldom  happened  that  they  could  bring  a  majority 
with  them,  while  argument  would  have  been  wasted  on  the 
crowd  of  employees  and  their  friends  with  which  the  room  was 
filled,  and  who  were  bound,  some  by  the  tenure  of  their  office, 
others  by  the  hope  of  getting  office  or  work,  to  execute  the  behests 
of  their  political  masters.  The  delegates  chosen  were  usually 
office-holders,  with  a  sprinkling  of  public  works  contractors, 
liquor-dealers,  always  a  potent  factor  in  ward  politics,  and  office 


410 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  y 


expectants.  For  instance,  the  Convention  of  13th  January, 
1881,  for  nominating  a  candidate  for  mayor,  consisted  of  199 
delegates,  86  of  whom  were  connected  with  some  branch  of  the 
city  government,  9  were  members  of  the  city  councils,  5  were 
police  magistrates,  4  constables,  and  23  policemen,  while  of  the 
rest  some  were  employed  in  some  other  city  department,  and 
some  others  were  the  known  associates  and  dependants  of  the 
Ring.  These  delegates,  assembled  in  convention  of  the  party, 
duly  went  through  the  farce  of  selecting  and  voting  for  persons 
already  determined  on  by  the  Ring  as  candidates  for  the  chief 
offices.  The  persons  so  selected  thereby  became  the  authorized 
candidates  of  the  party,  for  whom  every  good  party  man  was 
expected  to  give  his  vote.  Disgusted  he  might  be  to  find  a  per¬ 
son  unknown,  or  known  only  for  evil,  perhaps  a  fraudulent  bank¬ 
rupt,  or  a  broken-down  bar  keeper,  proposed  for  his  acceptance. 
But  as  his  only  alternative  was  to  vote  for  the  Democratic 
nominee,  who  was  probably  no  better,  he  submitted,  and  thus 
the  party  was  forced  to  ratify  the  choice  of  the  Boss.  The  pos¬ 
session  of  the  great  city  offices  gave  the  members  of  the  Ring  the 
means  not  only  of  making  their  own  fortunes,  but  of  amassing  a 
large  reserve  fund  to  be  used  for  “  campaign  purposes. ”  Many 
of  these  offices  were  paid  by  fees  and  not  by  salary.  Five  officers 
were  at  one  time  in  the  receipt  of  an  aggregate  of  $223,000,  or 
an  average  of  $44,600  each.  One,  the  collector  of  delinquent 
taxes,  received  nearly  $200,000  a  year.  Many  others  had  the 
opportunity,  by  giving  out  contracts  for  public  works  on  which 
they  received  large  commissions,  of  enriching  themselves  almost 
without  limit,  because  there  was  practically  no  investigation  of 
their  accounts.1  The  individual  official  was  of  course  required 
to  contribute  to  the  secret  party  funds  in  proportion  to  his  in¬ 
come,  and  while  he  paid  in  thousands  of  dollars  from  his  vast 
private  gains,  assessments  were  levied  on  the  minor  employees 
down  to  the  very  policemen.  On  one  occasion  each  member  of 
the  police  force  was  required  to  pay  $25,  and  some  afterwards 
a  further  tax  of  $10,  for  party  purposes.  Any  one  who  refused, 
and  much  more,  of  course,  any  one  who  asserted  his  right  to 
vote  as  he  pleased,  was  promptly  dismissed.  The  fund  was 

1  In  the  suit  subsequently  instituted  against  the  gas  trustees,  it  was  shown 
that  in  six  years  the  trust  had  in  cash  losses,  illegal  transactions,  and  manu¬ 
facturing  losses  due  to  corrupt  management,  involved  the  city  in  an  expense 
of  three  and  a  half  millions  of  dollars.  These  were  the  figures  so  far  as  ascer¬ 
tained  in  November,  1884.  —  Report  of  the  Committee  of  One  Hundred ,  p.  ii. 


CHAP,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


411 


spent  in  what  is  called  “  fixing  things  up/’  in  canvassing,  in 
petty  bribery,  in  keeping  bar-rooms  open  and  supplying  drink 
to  the  workers  who  resort  thither,  and,  at  election  times,  in 
bringing  in  armies  of  professional  personators  and  repeaters 
from  Washington,  Baltimore,  and  other  neighbouring  cities,  to 
swell  the  vote  for  the  Ring  nominees.  These  men,  some  of  them, 
it  is  said,  criminals,  others  servants  in  the  government  depart¬ 
ments  in  the  national  capital,  could,  of  course,  have  effected  little 
if  the  election  officials  and  the  police  had  looked  sharply  after 
them.  But  those  who  presided  at  the  voting  places  were  mostly 
in  the  plot,  being  Ring  men  and  largely  city  employees,  while  the 
police  —  and  herein  not  less  than  in  their  voting  power  lies  the 
value  of  a  partisan  police  —  had  instructions  not  to  interfere 
with  the  strangers,  but  to  allow  them  to  vote  as  often  as  they 
pleased,  while  hustling  away  keen-eyed  opponents.1 

This  kind  of  electioneering  is  costly,  for  secrecy  must  be 
well  paid  for,  and  in  other  ways  also  the  Ring  was  obliged  to 
spend  heavily.  Regarding  each  municipal  department  chiefly 
as  a  means  of  accumulating  subservient  electors,  it  was  always 
tempted  to  “ create  new  voting-stock”  (to  use  the  technical 
expression),  i.e.  to  appoint  additional  employees.  This  meant 
additional  salaries,  so  the  taxpayers  had  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  the  sums  they  paid  went  to  rivet  on  their  necks 
the  yoke  of  the  bosses,  just  as  a  Greek  tyrant  exacted  from  the 
citizens  money  to  hire  the  mercenaries  who  garrisoned  the 
Acropolis.  And  there  was  of  course  a  vast  deal  of  peculation 
in  nearly  all  the  departments ;  because  clerks  who  had  it  in 
their  power  to  disclose  damaging  secrets  had  little  to  fear, 
either  from  a  superior  or  from  the  councilmen  who  had  procured 
their  appointment.  Thus  the  debt  of  the  city  swelled  rapidly. 
In  1860  it  stood  at  about  $20,000,000  (£4,000,000).  In  1881 
it  had  reached  $70,000,000  (£14,000,000).  Taxation  rose  in 
proportion,  till  in  1881  it  amounted  to  between  one-fourth  and 
one-third  of  the  net  income  from  the  property  on  which  it  was 
assessed,  although  that  property  was  rated  at  nearly  its  full 
value.2  Yet  withal,  the  city  was  badly  paved,  badly  cleansed, 

1  A  policeman  is  by  law  forbidden  to  approach  within  thirty  feet  of  the 
voter.  Who  was  to  see  that  the  law  was  observed  when  the  guardians  of  the 
law  broke  it :  according  to  the  proverb,  If  water  chokes,  what  is  one  to  drink 
next  ? 

2 1  take  these  facts  from  an  interesting  paper  on  the  Form  of  Municipal  Gov¬ 
ernment  for  Philadelphia,  by  Mr.  John  C.  Bullitt,  Philadelphia,  188‘J. 


412 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


badly  supplied  with  gas  (for  which  a  high  price  was  charged) 
and  with  water.1  That  such  a  burden  should  have  been  borne, 
with  so  little  to  show  for  it,  was  all  the  more  surprising,  because 
in  Philadelphia  there  was  at  that  time  a  larger  number  of  well- 
to-do  working-people,  owning  the  houses  they  live  in,  than  in 
any  other  city  of  the  Union.2  It  might  have  been  expected, 
therefore,  that  since  the  evils  of  heavy  rating  and  bad  adminis¬ 
tration  pressed  directly  on  an  unusually  large  number  of  electors, 
the  discontent  would  have  been  universal,  the  demand  for  re¬ 
form  overwhelming.3 

But  how  was  reform  to  be  effected  ?  Three  methods  presented 
themselves.  One  was  to  proceed  against  the  Gas  Trustees  and 
other  peculators  in  the  courts  of  the  State.  But  to  make  out  a 
case,  the  facts  must  first  be  ascertained,  the  accounts  examined. 
Now  the  city  departments  did  not  publish  all  their  accounts,  or 
published  them  in  a  misleading  and  incomplete  form.  The 
powers  which  should  have  scrutinized  them  and  compelled  a 
fuller  disclosure,  were  vested  in  the  councils  of  the  city,  acting 
by  their  standing  committees.  But  these  councils  were  mainly 
composed  of  members  or  nominees  of  the  Ring,  who  had  a  direct 
interest  in  suppressing  inquiry,  because  they  either  shared  the 
profits  of  dishonesty,  or  had  placed  their  own  relatives  and  friends 
in  municipal  employment  by  bargains  with  the  peculating  heads 
of  departments.  They  therefore  refused  to  move,  and  voted 
down  the  proposals  for  investigation  made  by  a  few  of  their 
more  public-spirited  colleagues.4 

Another  method  was  to  turn  out  the  corrupt  officials  at  the 


1  See  Chapter  LI.,  p.  606,  of  Vol.  I. 

2  There  were  in  Philadelphia  in  1886,  90,000  individual  owners  of  real  estate, 
constituting  more  than  a  majority  of  all  the  votes  ever  cast  in  an  election. 

3  During  a  considerable  part  of  the  time  the  enormous  annual  expenditure 
for  “city  improvements”  was  defrayed  out  of  fresh  loans,  so  the  citizens  did 
not  realize  the  burden  that  was  being  laid  on  them. 

4  A  friend  in  Philadelphia  writes  me:  “  It  might  be  thought  that  the  power 
of  election  vested  in  the  councils  would  enable  the  latter  to  control  the  trustees, 
but  when  ‘politics’  invaded  the  trust,  a  vicious  circle  speedily  established 
itself,  and  the  trust  controlled  the  councils.  Its  enormous  pay-roll  enabled  it 
to  employ  numerous  ‘workers’  in  each  of  the  600  or  700  election  divisions  of 
the  city,  and  aspirants  for  seats  in  the  councils  found  it  almost  impossible  to 
obtain  either  nomination  or  election  without  the  favour  of  the  trust.  Thus 
the  councils  became  filled  with  its  henchmen  or  ‘heelers,’  submissive  to  its 
bidding,  not  only  in  the  selection  of  trustees  to  fill  the  four  yearly  vacancies, 
but  in  every  detail  of  city  government  with  which  the  leaders  of  the  trust  de¬ 
sired  to  interfere.  It  is  easy  to  understand  the  enormous  possibilities  of  power 
created  by  such  a  position.” 


CHAP,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


413 


next  election.  The  American  system  of  short  terms  and  popular 
elections  was  originally  due  to  a  distrust  of  the  officials,  and 
expressly  designed  to  enable  the  people  to  recall  misused  powers. 
The  astuteness  of  professional  politicians  had,  however,  made  it 
unavailable.  Good  citizens  could  not  hope  to  carry  candidates 
of  their  own  against  the  tainted  nominees  of  the  Ring,  because 
the  latter  having  the  “ straight ”  or  “regular”  party  nominations 
would  command  the  vote  of  the  great  mass  of  ordinary  party 
men,  so  that  the  only  effect  of  voting  against  them  would  at  best 
be  to  let  in  the  candidates  of  the  opposite,  i.e.  the  Democratic, 
party.  Those  candidates  were  usually  no  better  than  the 
Republican  Ring  nominees,  so  where  was  the  gain  ?  And  the 
same  reason,  joined  to  party  hostility,  forbade  good  Republicans 
to  vote  for  Democratic  candidates.  The  Democrats,  to  be  sure, 
might  have  taken  advantage  of  Republican  discontent  by  nomi¬ 
nating  really  good  men,  who  would  in  that  case  have  been  carried 
by  the  addition  of  the  Republican  “bolting”  vote  to  the  regular 
Democratic  vote.  But  the  Democratic  wire-pullers,  being 
mostly  men  of  the  same  stamp  as  the  Gas  Ring,  did  not  seek  a 
temporary  gain  at  the  expense  of  a  permanent  disparagement  of 
their  own  class.  Political  principles  are  the  last  thing  which  the 
professional  city  politician  cares  for.  It  was  better  worth  the 
while  of  the  Democratic  chiefs  to  wait  for  their  turn,  and  in  the 
meantime  to  get  something  out  of  occasional  bargains  with  their 
(nominal)  Republican  opponents,  than  to  strengthen  the  cause 
of  good  government  at  the  expense  of  the  professional  class.1 

The  third  avenue  to  reform  lay  through  the  action  of  the 
State  legislature.  It  might  have  ordered  an  inquiry  into  the 
municipal  government  of  Philadelphia,  or  passed  a  statute  pro¬ 
viding  for  the  creation  of  a  better  system.  But  this  avenue 
was  closed  even  more  completely  than  the  other  two  by  the  con¬ 
trol  which  the  City  Ring  exercised  over  the  State  legislature. 
The  Pennsylvania  House  of  Representatives  was  notoriously  a 
tainted  body,  and  the  Senate  no  better,  or  perhaps  worse.  The 
Philadelphia  politicians,  partly  by  their  command  of  the  Phila¬ 
delphia  members,  partly  by  the  other  inducements  at  their 
command,  were  able  to  stop  all  proceedings  in  the  legislature  hos¬ 
tile  to  themselves,  and  did  in  fact,  as  will  appear  presently,  fre- 

1  It  was  generally  believed  in  February,  1881,  that  the  Democratic  bosses 
had  made  a  bargain  (for  valuable  consideration)  with  the  Gas  Ring  not  to 
nominate  Mr.  Hunter,  the  reformers’  candidate,  for  the  receivership  of  taxes. 


414 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


quently  balk  the  efforts  which  the  reformers  made  in  that  quarter. 
It  was  enough  for  their  purpose  to  command  one  House  ;  indeed 
it  was  practically  enough  to  command  the  committee  of  that  one 
House  to  which  a  measure  is  referred.  The  facilities  for  delay 
are  such  that  a  reforming  bill  can  be  stifled  without  the  need  of 
open  opposition. 

This  was  the  condition  of  the  Quaker  City  with  its  850,000 
people  ;  these  the  difficulties  reformers  had  to  encounter.  Let 
us  see  how  they  proceeded. 

In  1870,  a  bill  was  passed  by  the  State  legislature  at  Harris¬ 
burg,  at  the  instigation  of  the  City  Ring,  then  in  the  first  flush 
of  youthful  hope  and  energy,  creating  a  Public  Buildings  Com¬ 
mission  for  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  a  body  with  an  unlimited 
term  of  office,  with  power  to  enlarge  its  numbers,  and  fill  up 
vacancies  among  its  members,  to  tax  the  city  and  to  spend  the 
revenue  so  raised  on  buildings,  practically  without  restriction 
or  supervision.  When  this  Act,  which  had  been  passed  in  one 
day  through  both  Houses,  without  having  been  even  printed, 
came  to  the  knowledge  of  the  better  class  of  citizens,  alarm 
arose,  and  an  agitation  was  set  on  foot  for  its  abrogation.  A 
public  meeting  was  held  in  March,  1871,  a  committee  formed, 
with  instructions  to  proceed  to  Harrisburg,  and  have  the  Act 
repealed.  The  committee  went  to  Harrisburg  and  urged  mem¬ 
bers  of  both  Houses  to  support  a  repealing  bill  introduced  into 
the  State  Senate.  In  May  this  bill  passed  the  Senate,  in  which 
there  was  then  a  Democratic  majority,  five  Republican  members 
voting  for  it.  However,  a  committee  of  the  (Republican) 
House  of  Representatives  reported  against  the  repeal,  influenced 
by  interested  persons  from  Philadelphia,  and  (as  is  generally 
believed)  influenced  by  arguments  weightier  than  words ;  so 
the  Commission  was  maintained  in  force.  The  incident  had, 
however,  so  far  roused  a  few  of  the  better  class  of  Republicans, 
that  they  formed  a  Municipal  Reform  Association,  whose  career 
has  been  summarized  for  me  by  an  eminent  citizen  of  Phila¬ 
delphia,  in  the  words  which  follow  :  — 

‘  ‘  The  association  laboured  earnestly  to  check  the  tide  of  misgovern- 
ment.  Its  task  was  a  difficult  one,  for  the  passions  aroused  by  the 
war  were  still  vigorous,  the  reconstruction  in  progress  in  the  South  kept 
partisanship  at  a  white  heat,  and  fealty  to  party  obligations  was  re¬ 
garded  as  a  sacred  duty  by  nearly  all  classes.  Consequently  it  had  no 
newspaper  support  to  depend  upon,  and  as  a  rule  it  met  with  opposition 
from  the  leaders  of  both  political  organizations.  Moreover,  the  laws 


chap,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


415 


regulating  the  registry  of  voters  and  the  conduct  of  elections  had  been 
so  framed  as  to  render  fraud  easy  and  detection  difficult.  Undeterred 
by  these  obstacles,  the  Association  set  itself  vigorously  to  work  ;  it  held 
public  meetings,  it  issued  addresses  and  tracts,  it  placed  tickets  in  the 
field  consisting  of  the  better  candidates  of  either  party,  and  when  neither 
had  made  passable  nominations  for  an  office,  it  put  forward  those  of  its 
own.  It  continued  in  active  existence  for  three  or  four  years,  and  ac¬ 
complished  much  of  what  it  set  out  to  do.  Occasionally  it  succeeded  in 
defeating  specially  objectionable  candidates,  and  in  electing  better  men 
to  the  city  councils  ;  the  increase  in  the  public  debt  was  checked,  the 
credit  of  the  city  was  improved,  and  economy  began  to  be  practised 
in  some  of  the  departments  ;  salaries  were  substituted  for  fees  in  the 
public  offices  ;  the  election  laws  were  revised,  and  honest  elections  be¬ 
came  possible ;  prosecutions  were  instituted  against  offenders,  and 
enough  convictions  were  secured  to  serve  as  a  wholesome  warning. 
The  services  of  the  Association  were  especially  apparent  in  two  direc¬ 
tions.  It  contributed  largely  to  the  agitations  which  secured  the  call¬ 
ing  of  a  convention  in  1873  to  revise  the  State  constitution,  it  had  a 
salutary  influence  with  the  convention,  and  it  aided  in  obtaining  the 
ratification  of  the  new  constitution  by  the  people.  Still  more  important 
was  its  success  in  arousing  the  public  conscience,  and  in  training  a  class 
of  independent  voters,  who  gradually  learned  to  cast  their  ballots  with¬ 
out  regard  to  so-called  party  fealty.  It  thus  opened  the  way  for  all 
subsequent  reforms,  and  when  its  members,  wearied  with  its  thankless 
task,  one  by  one  withdrew,  and  the  Association  disbanded,  they  could 
feel  that  not  only  was  the  condition  of  the  city  materially  improved, 
but  that  their  successors  in  the  Sisyphean  labour  would  have  a  lighter 
burden  and  a  less  rugged  ascent  to  climb.  One  important  result  of  the 
attention  which  they  had  drawn  to  municipal  mismanagement  was  the 
passage  of  an  act  of  the  legislature,  under  which,  in  1877,  the  governor 
of  the  State  appointed  a  commission  of  eleven  persons  to  devise  a  plan 
for  the  government  of  cities.  This  commission  made  a  report  propos¬ 
ing  valuable  improvements,  and  submitted  it,  with  a  bill  embodying 
their  suggestions,  to  the  State  legislature  in  1878.  The  legislature,  how¬ 
ever,  at  the  bidding  of  the  Rings,  for  Pittsburg  and  other  cities  have 
their  Rings  as  well  as  Philadelphia,  smothered  the  bill,  and  all  efforts 
to  pass  it  failed  till  1885.” 

In  the  course  of  1880,  the  horizon  began  to  clear.1  Several 
honest  and  outspoken  men  who  had  found  their  way  into  the 
two  councils  of  the  city,  denounced  the  prevailing  corruption, 
and  by  demands  of  inquiry  began  to  rouse  the  citizens.  A 
correspondent  of  a  New  York  paper  obtained  facts  about  the 

1  In  the  narrative  which  follows  I  have  derived  much  assistance  from  a  little 
book  by  Mr.  George  Vickers,  entitled  The  Fall  of  Bossism  (Philadelphia,  1883), 
which,  with  some  oddities  of  style,  contains  many  instructive  details  of  the 
doings  of  the  Bosses  and  the  Reform  Campaign.  Some  information  as  to  Ring 
methods  in  Philadelphia  may  also  be  gathered  from  a  lively  satire  published 
anonymously,  entitled  Solid  for  Mulhooly  (New  York,  1881). 


416 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


management  of  the  Gas  Trust  which,  when  published,  told 
seriously  on  opinion.  At  the  November  election,  while  Phila¬ 
delphia  cast  a  heavy  vote  in  favour  of  General  Garfield  as  Re¬ 
publican  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  for  the  Republican 
nominees  for  the  offices  of  State  Auditor-General,  and  judge 
of  the  State  Supreme  Court,  she  returned  as  City  Controller 
a  young  Democrat,  who  having,  with  the  help  of  the  Municipal 
Reform  Association,  found  his  way  into  that  office  at  the  last 
preceding  election,  had  signalized  himself  by  uprightness  and 
independence.  The  Republican  bosses  did  their  utmost  against 
him,  but  the  vote  of  independents  among  the  Republicans, 
joined  to  that  of  the  Democratic  party  (whose  bosses,  although 
secretly  displeased  with  his  conduct,  did  not  openly  throw  him 
over),  carried  him  in.  Thirteen  days  afterwards,  under  the 
impulse  of  this  struggle,  an  energetic  citizen  convened  a  meeting 
of  leading  merchants  to  set  on  foot  a  movement  for  choosing 
good  men  at  the  elections  due  in  February,  1881.  This  meeting- 
created  a  committee  of  one  hundred  business  men,  including  a 
large  number  of  persons  bearing  the  oldest  and  most  respected 
names  in  Philadelphia.  All  were  Republicans,  and  at  first  they 
endeavoured  to  effect  their  purposes  by  means,  and  within  the 
limits,  of  the  Republican  party.  They  prepared  a  declaration 
of  principles,  containing  their  programme  of  municipal  reform, 
and  resolved  to  support  no  candidate  who  would  not  sign  it. 
Soon  the  time  came  for  making  nominations  for  the  three  offices 
to  be  filled  up,  viz.,  those  of  mayor,  receiver  of  taxes,  and  city 
solicitor.  For  mayor,  the  “  regular  ”  Republican  party,  con¬ 
trolled  by  Mr.  M ‘Manes,  nominated  Air.  Stokley,  who  was  then 
in  office,  a  man  against  whom  no  fraud  could  be  charged,  but 
whose  management  of  the  police  force  and  subservience  to  the 
Boss  had  made  him  suspected  by  earnest  reformers.  At  first, 
in  the  belief  that  he  was  prepared  to  subscribe  their  declaration, 
the  One  Hundred  gave  him  their  nomination  ;  but  when  it 
turned  out  that  he,  influenced  by  the  Ring,  refused  to  do  so, 
they  withdrew  their  “ indorsement,’ ’  and  perceived  that  the 
time  had  come  for  a  bolder  course.  Since  they  must  resist  the 
Ring  Republicans,  they  invited  the  co-operation  of  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  party  in  choosing  a  good  man.  The  novelty  of  the  cir¬ 
cumstances,  and  the  opportunity  of  doing  a  good  stroke  for  their 
party  and  their  city  at  once,  brought  to  the  front  the  best 
element  among  the  Democrats.  Overruling  their  bosses  by  a 


CHAP,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


417 


sudden  movement,  the  Democratic  convention  nominated  Mr. 
King  for  the  mayoralty,  a  bold  and  honest  man,  whom,  though  a 
Democrat,  the  committee  of  One  Hundred  promptly  accepted. 
For  the  not  less  important  office  of  receiver  of  taxes,  the  One 
Hundred  had  nominated  Mr.  Hunter,  a  Republican,  who  had 
approved  his  public  spirit  by  upright  service  in  the  common 
council.  The  Ring  Republicans  had  taken  for  their  candidate 
an  unknown  man,  supposed  to  be  a  creature  of  Mr.  M ‘Manes ; 
and  everything  now  turned  on  the  conduct  of  the  Democratic 
nominating  convention.  It  was  strongly  urged  by  the  feeling  of 
the  people  to  accept  Mr.  Hunter.  But  the  Democratic  bosses 
had  no  mind  to  help  a  reformer,  and  even  among  the  better 
men,  the  old  dislike  to  supporting  a  person  belonging  to  the 
opposite  party  was  strong.  A  passionate  struggle  in  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  convention,  round  whose  doors  a  vast  and  eager  .crowd 
had  gathered,  resulted  in  the  carrying  by  a  small  majority  of  a 
regular  party  candidate  named  M‘Grath  against  Mr.  Hunter. 
Thereupon  the  delegates  who  supported  Hunter  seceded,  and 
marched,  escorted  and  cheered  by  excited  crowds,  to  the  rooms 
of  the  One  Hundred,  where  they  organized  themselves  afresh 
as  an  Independent  convention,  and  nominated  Hunter.  Im¬ 
mense  enthusiasm  was  evoked  in  both  parties  by  this  novel 
and  unexpectedly  bold  action.  Independent  Democrats  organ¬ 
ized  clubs  and  committees  in  Hunter’s  cause,  and  the  move¬ 
ment  spread  so  fast  that  ten  days  before  the  election  M‘Grath 
retired,  leaving  the  regular  Democrats  free  to  cast  their  votes 
for  the  Republican  Hunter,  along  with  the  Democratic  King. 
Only  one  chance  was  now  left  to  the  Gas  Ring  —  the  lavish 
expenditure  of  money,  and  the  resort  to  election  frauds.  They 
assessed  the  police,  about  1300  in  number,  $20  a  head  to  replenish 
the  campaign  fund,  levying  assessments  on  the  other  city  depart¬ 
ments  also.  Preparations  for  repeating  and  ballot-box  stuffing 
were  made  as  in  former  days,  but  the  energy  of  the  One  Hundred, 
who,  while  they  issued  a  circular  to  clergymen  of  all  denomi¬ 
nations,  requesting  them  to  preach  sermons  on  the  duty 
of  electors,  issued  also  notices  threatening  prosecution  against 
any  one  guilty  of  an  election  fraud,  and  organized  a  large  force 
of  volunteer  citizens  to  look  after  the  police,  so  much  frightened 
the  Ringsters  and  their  dependents,  that  the  voting  was  con¬ 
ducted  with  fairness  and  purity.  The  excitement  on  the  polling 
day  was  unprecedented  in  municipal  politics,  and  the  success 
2  E 


418 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


of  the  reform  candidates  who  were  chosen,  King  by  a  majority 
of  six  thousand,  Hunter  by  twenty  thousand,  was  welcomed 
with  transports  of  joy.  Astrsea  had  returned  —  the  “City 
of  Independence”  was  again  a  city  of  freedom. 

The  committee  of  One  Hundred,  to  whose  efforts  the  victory 
was  mainly  due,  was  kept  on  foot  to  carry  on  and  perfect  the 
work  of  reform.  It  recommended  candidates  at  the  spring  and 
fall  elections  during  the  three  years  that  followed,  obtaining 
for  them  a  measure  of  success  encouraging,  no  doubt,  yet  less 
complete  than  had  been  expected.  It  retained  counsel  to  aid 
in  a  suit  instituted  against  the  Gas  Trustees,  which  resulted 
in  disclosing  scandalous  waste  and  fraud,  and  led  to  a  great 
improvement  in  the  management  of  that  department.  It  in¬ 
duced  the  State  legislature  to  reduce  the  salaries  of  a  number 
of  over-paid  officials,  and  to  place  on  a  permanent  basis  the 
salaries  of  judges  which  had  hitherto  been  voted  annually. 
The  Mayor,  whom  it  had  carried  in  1881,  stopped  the  assess¬ 
ment  of  the  police  for  “campaign  purposes,”  and  rigidly  restrained 
them  from  joining  in  the  nominating  conventions  or  inter¬ 
fering  with  voters  at  the  polls.  The  tax  office  was  reorganized 
by  the  new  Receiver,  and  the  income  which  its  employee  depleted 
turned  into  the  city  treasury.  The  system  of  banking  city 
moneys,  which  had  been  used  for  political  purposes,  was  reformed 
under  an  ordinance  of  the  city  councils,  secured  by  the  efforts 
of  the  committee.  The  lists  of  voters,  which  had  been  carelessly 
and  sometimes  corruptly  made  up,  were  set  to  rights,  and  capable 
men  appointed  assessors  instead  of  the  ward  politicians,  often 
illiterate,  to  whom  this  duty  had  been  previously  entrusted. 
An  inspector  of  highways  was  engaged  by  the  committee  to  report 
cases  in  which  contractors  were  failing  to  do  the  work  in  repair¬ 
ing  streets  and  drains  for  which  they  were  paid,  and  frauds  were 
unearthed  by  which  the  city  had  been  robbed  of  hundreds  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  dollars.  Gross  abuses  in  the  management  of  the  city 
almshouse  and  hospital  were  revealed  ;  a  new  administration  was 
installed,  which  in  its  first  year  saved  the  city  $80,000  ;  while  the 
conviction  and  imprisonment  of  the  chief  offenders  struck  whole¬ 
some  terror  into  evil-doers  in  other  departments.  Finally,  the 
committee  undertook  the  prosecution  of  a  large  number  of 
persons  accused  of  fraud,  repeating,  personation,  violence,  tam¬ 
pering  with  ballot-boxes  and  other  election  offences,  and  by  con¬ 
victing  some  and  driving  others  from  the  city,  so  much  reduced 


CHAP,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


419 


these  misdemeanours  that  in  the  end  of  1883  the  city  elections 
were  pronounced  to  show  a  clean  bill  of  health.1 

Work  so  various  and  so  difficult  cost  the  members  of  the 
committee  of  One  Hundred,  who  were  nearly  all  men  actively 
engaged  in  business,  and  had  passed  a  self-denying  ordinance 
binding  themselves  to  accept  no  personal  political  advantage, 
an  infinitude  of  time  and  trouble.  Accordingly,  when  they 
found  that  the  candidates,  whom  they  had  recommended  at 
the  election  of  February,  1884,  had  been  rejected  in  favour  of 
other  candidates,  who  made  similar  professions  of  reform,  but 
seemed  less  likely,  from  their  past  history,  to  fulfil  those  pro¬ 
fessions,  they  determined  to  wind  up  and  dissolve  the  commit¬ 
tee.  It  had  done  great  things,  and  its  failure  to  carry  its  can¬ 
didates  at  this  last  election  was  due  partly  to  the  intrusion 
into  municipal  politics  of  the  national  issue  of  the  protective 
tariff  (the  most  burning  of  all  questions  to  Philadelphians), 
partly  to  that  languor  which  creeps  over  voters  who  fancy  that 
by  doing  their  duty  strenuously  for  some  years  they  have  mor¬ 
tally  wounded  the  power  of  corruption  and  need  not  keep  up 
the  fight  till  it  is  stone  dead.  T 

The  situation  was  thus  shortly  afterwards  summed  up  by 
competent  writers  :  — 

“The  committee  of  One  Hundred  fought  the  Ring  at  every  point  and 
at  all  points  for  city  and  county  officers,  the  council,  and  the  legislature, 
the  plan  being  to  unite  for  the  nominations  of  the  two  great  parties  and 
endorse  one  or  the  other  of  the  candidates,  or  even  nominate  candidates 
of  their  own.  They  sent  tickets  to  every  citizen,  and  created  the  class 
of  ‘  vest-pocket  voters  ’ —  men  who  come  to  the  polls  with  their  tickets 
made  up,  to  the  confusion  of  ‘the  boys.’  They  changed  for  a  while  the 
complexion  of  councils,  elected  a  reform  mayor  and  receiver  of  taxes, 
caused  the  repeal  of  the  infamous  Delinquent  Tax  Collections  Bill,  and 
the  equally  notorious  and  obnoxious  Recorder’s  Bill,  and  generally  made 
a  more  decent  observance  of  the  law  necessary  throughout  the  city.  In 
its  nature,  however,  the  remedy  was  esoteric  and  revolutionary,  and 
therefore  necessarily  ephemeral.  It  could  not  retain  the  spoils  system 
and  thereby  attract  the  workers.  Its  candidates,  when  elected,  often 
betrayed  it  and  went  over  to  the  regulars,  who,  they  foresaw,  had  more 
staying  qualities.  Its  members  became  tired  of  the  thankless  task  of 
spending  time  and  money  in  what  must  be  a  continuous,  unending  battle. 
The  people  became  restive,  and  refused  their  support  to  what  jarred  on 

1  The  committee  observe  in  the  Report  that  the  party  organization  of  the 
city,  in  nearly  every  instance,  did  its  utmost  by  supplying  bail,  employing 
counsel,  and  rendering  other  assistance  to  protect  the  culprits,  who  were  regarded 
as  sufferers  for  the  sake  of  their  party. 


420 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


their  conservative  ideas,  and  what  they  were  pleased  to  call  the  dictation 
of  an  autocratic,  self-constituted  body.  The  cry  was  raised:  ‘Who 
made  thee  a  ruler  and  judge  over  us  ?  ’ 

“In  1883  the  committee’s  candidate  for  controller  was  defeated  in  a 
pitched  battle,  and  the  following  spring  the  reform  mayor  was  beaten 
by  over  7000  votes  by  the  most  advanced  type  of  a  machine  politician, 
who  has  since  been  impeached  by  his  own  party  in  Common  Council  for 
pecuniary  malfeasance.”  1 

Since  1884  there  have  been  many  changes  in  the  city  adminis¬ 
tration,  which  I  touch  on  but  briefly,  because  it  is  to  the  Gas  Ring 
episode  that  this  chapter  is  devoted.  A  bill  for  reforming  mu¬ 
nicipal  government  by  the  enactment  of  a  new  city  charter,  ap¬ 
proved  by  the  One  Hundred,  came  before  the  State  legislature  in 
1883.  It  was  there  smothered  by  the  professionals  at  the  in¬ 
stance  of  the  Gas  Ring.  When  it  reappeared  in  the  legislature 
of  1885  circumstances  were  more  favourable.  The  relations 
between  the  State  Boss  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  City  Ring 
headed  by  Boss  M‘  Manes  were  strained.  The  State  Boss 
seems,  while  wishing  to  cripple  the  City  Ring  by  cutting  off 
some  of  its  patronage,  to  have  thought  that  it  would  be  well  to 
conciliate  the  good  citizens  of  Philadelphia  by  giving  his  power¬ 
ful  support  to  a  reform  measure.  He  was  the  more  drawn  to 
this  course  because  the  Mayor  of  Philadelphia,  whose  appoint¬ 
ing  power  would  be  enlarged  by  the  bill,  was,  although  not  a 
“ high-class  politician/7  far  from  friendly  to  the  Gas  Trust. 
Long  discussions  of  the  bill  in  the  press  and  at  meetings  had  pro¬ 
duced  some  effect  even  on  the  State  legislature  at  Harrisburg ; 
nor  was  there  wanting  in  that  body  a  small  section  of  good 
members  willing  to  help  reform  forward.  Many  leaders  and 
most  newspapers  had  in  the  course  of  the  discussions  been  led 
to  commit  themselves  to  an  approval  of  the  bill,  while  not  expect¬ 
ing  it  to  pass.  Thus,  in  1885,  the  opposition  in  the  legislature 
ceased  to  be  open  and  direct,  and  came  to  turn  on  the  question 
when  the  bill,  if  passed,  should  take  effect.  Its  promoters 
prudently  agreed  to  let  its  operation  be  delayed  till  1887 ;  and 
having  thus  “squared”  some  of  their  opponents,  and  out¬ 
manoeuvred  others,  they  ran  it  through.  Public  opinion  and  a 
righteous  cause  counted  for  something  in  this  triumph,  but 

1  Mr.  E.  P.  Allinson  and  Mr.  B.  Penrose,  in  an  article  on  “City  Government 
in  Philadelphia.”  For  a  history  of  earlier  municipal  government  in  the  city, 
reference  may  be  made  to  the  treatise,  “Philadelphia,  1681-1887,”  of  the  same 
authors. 


CHAP,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


421 


even  public  opinion  and  righteousness  might  have  failed  but 
for  the  feud  between  Air.  APAIanes  and  the  State  Boss. 

The  new  city  charter  did  some  good.  By  bringing  gas  manage¬ 
ment  under  the  control  of  the  city  executive,  it  extinguished  the 
separate  Gas  Trust,  and  therewith  quenched  the  light  of  Air. 
AT  Afanes,  who  ceased  to  be  formidable  when  his  patronage  de¬ 
parted,  and  thereafter  became  “  a  back  number/7  free  to  devote 
his  interest  to  theological  questions,  for  he  was  a  champion  of 
orthodoxy  in  his  church.  Alunicipal  administration  gained  by 
the  concentration  of  power  and  responsibility  in  the  mayor  and 
the  executive  heads  of  departments  whom  he  appoints.  The 
Councils,  however,  remained  bad  bodies,  few  of  the  members 
respected,  many  of  them  corrupt.  They  continued  to  be  nomi¬ 
nated  by  a  clique  of  machine  politicians,  and  this  clique  they 
obeyed,  paying  some  regard  to  the  interests  of  their  respective 
wards,  but  none  to  those  of  the  city.  Reformers  thought  that 
to  give  them  a  salary  might  lessen  their  temptations,  since  it 
seemed  impossible  to  raise  their  tone.  In  the  stead  of  Air. 
APAIanes,  the  State  Boss  (a  man  even  less  trusted  by  the 
good  citizens)  reigned  for  a  time  through  his  lieutenants ;  and 
so  tight  was  his  grip  of  the  city,  that  when,  in  1890,  the  sus¬ 
picions  he  aroused  had  provoked  a  popular  uprising  which  over¬ 
threw  his  nominee  for  the  State  governorship,  turning  over  to 
the  other  party  some  thirty  thousand  votes,  he  was  still  able 
to  hold  Philadelphia  —  rich,  educated,  staid,  pious  Philadel¬ 
phia  —  by  a  large  majority.  Elections  continued  to  be  tainted 
with  fraud  and  bribery ;  the  politicians  still  refused  the  enact¬ 
ment  of  adequate  laws  for  a  secret  ballot  and  the  publication 
of  election  expenses.  A  menacing  power  was  wielded  by  the 
great  local  corporations,  including  the  railroad  and  street-car 
companies.  Whether  by  the  use  of  money,  or,  as  is  thought 
more  probable,  by  influencing  the  votes  of  their  employees, 
or  by  both  methods,  these  corporations  seemed  to  hold  the 
councils  in  the  hollow  of  their  hands.  One  of  them  secured 
from  the  city  legislature,  at  a  merely  nominal  figure,  a  public 
franchise,  which,  while  it  made  the  streets  more  dangerous, 
added  to  the  market  price  of  its  stock  about  $6,600,000.  And 
this  was  done  by  a  two-thirds  majority  over  the  veto  of  the  mayor, 
in  the  teeth  of  an  active  agitation  conducted  by  the  most  worthy 
citizens.  Against  scandals  like  this  the  best  city  charter  fur¬ 
nishes  little  protection.  They  can  be  cured  only  by  getting 


422 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


upright  Councils,  and  these  again  can  be  secured  only  by  having 
free  instead  of  cooked  nominations,  honest  elections,  and  a  far 
more  constantly  active  interest  in  the  welfare  of  city  than  the  mass 
of  the  voters  have  hitherto  evinced.  Philadelphia  is  not  the 
only  city  in  which  private  corporations  have  proved  more  than 
a  match  for  public  interests,  and  in  which  such  corporations  have 
netted  immense  profits,  that  ought  to  have  gone  to  reduce  the 
burdens  of  the  people.1 

Against  these  evils  strenuous  campaigns  have  been  from  time 
to  time  conducted  by  various  associations  of  “good  citizens/7 
some  permanent,  some  formed  for  a  special  occasion.  These 
associations,  of  which  it  is  enough  to  say  that  they  have 
been  worthy  successors  of  the  Committee  of  One  Hundred,  have 
included  nearly  all  those  in  whom  high  personal  character  is 
united  to  a  sense  of  public  duty.  But  their  members  have 
hitherto  formed  so  small  a  proportion  of  the  voters  that  it 
is  only  when  some  glaringly  bad  candidate  is  nominated  or 
outrageous  job  perpetrated  that  their  efforts  tell  in  an  election. 
In  1910  the  fight  was  still  going  on;  and  bad  as  things  then 
were,  hope  is  not  extinct  so  long  as  men  are  found  to  fight. 

The  history  of  all  these  efforts  and  of  the  failure  to  effect  any 
thorough  and  permanent  improvement  in  municipal  conditions 
in  this  great  city  would  stretch  to  a  volume,  were  it  given 
with  the  fulness  needed  to  explain  why  the  forces  that  make 
for  misgovernment  have  proved  so  exceptionally  strong.  The 
episode  I  have  selected  is  enough  for  the  present  purpose. 

The  European  reader  may  have  found  four  things  surprising 
in  the  foregoing  narrative  —  the  long-suffering  of  the  tax¬ 
payers  up  till  1881 ;  the  strength  of  party  loyalty,  even  in 
municipal  affairs  where  no  political  principle  is  involved ;  the 
extraordinary  efforts  required  to  induce  the  voters  to  protect 
their  pockets  by  turning  a  gang  of  plunderers  out  of  office ; 
and  the  tendency  of  the  old  evils  to  reappear  as  soon  as  the 
ardour  of  the  voters  cools.  He  will  be  all  the  more  surprised 
when  he  learns  that  most  of  the  corrupt  leaders  in  Philadelphia 
have  been  not  men  of  foreign  birth,  but  Americans  born  and  bred, 
and  that  in  none  of  the  larger  cities  was  the  percentage  of  recent 
immigrants  so  small.  The  general  causes  of  municipal  misgovern- 

1  It  was  stated  by  the  Municipal  League  that  the  city  had  in  recent  years  lost 
as  much  as  $50,000,000  by  improvident  grants  of  valuable  franchises  to  street 
railroad  companies. 


CHAP,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


423 


ment  have  been  already  set  forth,  but  it  may  be  well  to  repeat 
that  the  existence  of  universal  suffrage  in  a  gigantic  city  imposes 
a  vast  amount  of  work  on  those  who  would  win  an  election. 
Nothing  but  a  very  complete  and  very  active  ward  organization, 
an  organization  which  knows  every  house  in  every  street,  and 
drops  upon  the  new  voter  from  Europe  as  soon  as  residence  and 
the  oath  have  made  him  a  citizen,  can  grapple  with  the  work 
of  bringing  up  these  multitudes  to  the  poll.  It  was  their  com¬ 
mand  of  this  local  organization,  their  practice  in  working  it,  the 
fact  that  their  employees  were  a  trained  and  disciplined  body 
whose  chief  business  was  to  work  it  —  services  in  the  gas  or 
water  or  some  other  department  being  a  mere  excuse  for  paying 
the  “workers’7  a  salary  —  that  gave  the  Gas  Ring  and  its  astute 
head  their  hold  upon  the  voting  power  of  the  city,  which  all  the 
best  Republicans,  with  frequent  aid  from  the  Democrats,  found  it 
so  hard  to  shake.  It  was  the  cohesion  of  this  organization,  the 
indifference  of  the  bulk  of  its  members  to  issues  of  municipal 
policy  and  their  responsiveness  to  party  names  and  cries,  that 
enabled  the  henchmen  of  the  State  Boss  to  re-establish  a  selfish 
tyranny  and  with  impunity  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  the  city 
to  those  of  rich  and  vote-controlling  corporations. 

The  moral  of  the  whole  story  is,  however,  best  given  in  the 
words  of  four  eminent  Philadelphians.  I  multiply  testimonies 
because  Philadelphia  is  a  peculiarly  instructive  instance  of  the 
evils  which  everywhere  infect  municipal  government.  Her 
social  and  economic  conditions  are  far  more  favourable  than 
those  of  New  York  or  Chicago,  and  the  persistence  of  those 
evils  in  her  is,  therefore,  a  more  alarming  symptom  than  the 
grosser  scandals  which  have  disgraced  those  cities  with  their 
masses  of  recent  immigrants. 

Two  of  them  wrote  me  as  follows  in  1888.  One  said  :  — 

“Those  who  study  these  questions  most  critically  and  think  the  most 
carefully,  fear  more  for  the  Republic  from  the  indifference  of  the  better 
classes  than  the  ignorance  of  the  lower  classes.  We  hear  endless  talk 
about  the  power  of  the  Labour  vote,  the  Irish  vote,  the  German  vote, 
the  Granger  vote,  but  no  combination  at  the  ballot-box  to-day  is  as 
numerous  or  powerful  as  the  stay-at-home  vote.  The  sceptre  which  is 
stronger  to  command  than  any  other  is  passed  by  unnoticed,  not  because 
outworn  in  conflict,  but  because  rusted  and  wasted  in  neglect.  The 
primary,  the  caucus,  and  the  convention  are  the  real  rulers  of  America, 
and  the  hand  which  guides  these  is  the  master.  Here  again  the  stay-at- 
home  vote  is  still  more  responsible.  In  New  York  City  in  1885  there 
were  266,000  voters  ;  of  these  201,000  voted  at  the  regular  election,  and 


424 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


between  20,000  and  25,000  voted  at  the  primary.  This  proportion 
would  hold  good  the  country  over,  and  it  appears  that  one  out  of  every 
four  does  not  vote  at  all,  and  nine  out  of  every  ten  do  not  attend  the 
primaries.  It  can  therefore  easily  be  seen  that  it  is  very  easy  to  control 
the  primaries,  and,  granting  strong  party  fealty,  how  difficult  it  is  to 
run  an  independent  ticket  against  the  machine.” 

The  other,  Mr.  Henry  C.  Lea,  the  distinguished  historian, 
said :  — 


“Your  expression  of  surprise  at  the  mal-administration  of  Phila¬ 
delphia  is  thoroughly  justified.  In  existing  social  conditions  it  would  be 
difficult  to  conceive  of  a  large  community  of  which  it  would  appear  more 
safe  to  predicate  judicious  self-government  than  ours.  Nowhere  is 
there  to  be  found  a  more  general  diffusion  of  property  or  a  higher  aver¬ 
age  standard  of  comfort  and  intelligence  —  nowhere  so  large  a  propor¬ 
tion  of  landowners  bearing  the  burden  of  direct  taxation,  and  personally 
interested  in  the  wise  and  honest  expenditure  of  the  public  revenue. 
In  these  respects  it  is  almost  an  ideal  community  in  which  to  work  out 
practical  results  from  democratic  theories.  I  have  often  speculated  as 
to  the  causes  of  failure  without  satisfying  myself  with  any  solution.  It 
is  not  attributable  to  manhood  suffrage,  for  in  my  reform  labours  I  have 
found  that  the  most  dangerous  enemies  of  reform  have  not  been  the 
ignorant  and  poor,  but  men  of  wealth,  of  high  social  position  and  char¬ 
acter,  who  had  nothing  personally  to  gain  from  political  corruption,  but 
who  showed  themselves  as  unfitted  to  exercise  the  right  of  suffrage  as 
the  lowest  proletariat,  by  allowing  their  partisanship  to  enlist  them  in 
the  support  of  candidates  notoriously  bad  who  happened  by  control  of 
party  machinery  to  obtain  the  ‘regular’  nominations. 

“The  nearest  approach  which  I  can  make  to  an  explanation  is  that 
the  spirit  of  party  blinds  many,  while  still  more  are  governed  by  the 
mental  inertia  which  renders  independent  thought  the  most  laborious 
of  tasks,  and  the  selfish  indolence  which  shrinks  from  interrupting  the 
daily  routine  of  avocations.  In  a  constituency  so  enormous  the  most 
prolonged  and  strenuous  effort  is  required  to  oppose  the  ponderous  and 
complicated  machinery  of  party  organization,  which  is  always  in  the 
hands  of  professional  politicians  who  obtain  control  over  it  by  a  process 
of  natural  selection,  and  who  thus  are  perfectly  fitted  for  the  work.  Re¬ 
calcitrants  are  raw  militia  who  take  the  field  with  overwhelming  odds 
against  them,  both  in  numbers  and  discipline.  Even  though  they  may 
gain  an  occasional  victory,  their  enthusiasm  exhausts  itself  and  they 
return  to  more  congenial  labours,  while  the  ‘regular’  is  always  on  duty, 
and  knows,  with  Philip  II,  that  time  and  he  can  overcome  any  other 
two.” 

A  third  wrote  in  1893  :  — 

“The  great  majority  of  the  voters  take  no  interest  in  local  politics. 
They  refuse  to  attend  the  party  primaries,  and  can  rarely  be  induced  to 
do  more  than  spend  a  few  minutes  once  a  year  in  voting  at  city  elections. 
Many  refuse  to  vote  at  all,  or  yield  only  to  corrupt  inducements  or  to 


chap,  lxxxix  THE  PHILADELPHIA  GAS  RING 


425 


the  solicitations  of  interested  friends.  The  result  is  that  combinations 
of  unworthy  leaders  and  mercenary  henchmen  are  enabled  to  control 
the  nominating  conventions  of  both  parties  ;  and  when  election  day 
comes,  the  people  can  do  nothing  but  choose  between  two  tickets  dic¬ 
tated  by  equally  corrupt  men  and  nominated  by  similar  methods.  .  .  . 
I  do  not  therefore  look  for  progress  towards  an  honest  and  intelligent 
conduct  of  municipal  business  until  a  considerable  part  of  the  now  in¬ 
different  voters  can  be  roused  to  a  careful  consideration  of  the  subject, 
and  convinced  of  the  importance  of  organizing  for  the  nomination  of 
better  candidates,  and  for  the  exclusion  of  national  issues  and  national 
parties  from  municipal  contests.” 

A  fourth,  writing  in  1894,  observed  : — 

“The  most  characteristic  feature  of  the  situation  is  the  supremacy  of 
the  Republican  party,  which  has  an  immense  majority  in  the  city. 
Politically,  therefore,  the  controlling  party  managers  and  the  class  from 
which  reform  leaders  might  be  expected  to  come  are  in  accord  (manu¬ 
facturing  interests  being  the  most  important)  ;  and  the  advantages  to 
be  derived  by  persons  in  business  in  a  large  way  from  standing  well  with 
the  managers  of  the  dominant  party  are  sufficiently  great  to  check  in  no 
small  degree  individual  inclination  to  strive  for  better  conditions.  As 
elsewhere  in  America,  it  is  not  the  natural  leaders  in  the  community, 
the  men  who  have  succeeded  in  business  or  in  the  professions,  who  are 
party  leaders,  but  men  who  are  of  no  importance  in  any  other  connec¬ 
tion.  This  fastens  upon  us  an  impersonal  rule,  those  who  exercise  it 
not  being  influenced  by  public  opinion,  which  would  certainly  act  as  a 
restraint  upon  men  of  standing.  .  .  .  The  councils  are  dominated  by 
the  party  managers  who  nominated  them,  and  corporations  who  pay 
wages,  in  one  way  or  another,  to  a  considerable  portion  of  the  members. 
The  city  charter  of  1885  is  a  good  one,  and  we  should  look  not  so  much 
for  more  legislation  as  for  some  means  of  stimulating  the  people  to  take 
a  common-sense  view  of  municipal  government  and  realize  their  respon¬ 
sibility  for  it.” 

When  these  comments  were  written  Philadelphia  was  erecting 
a  magnificent  city  hall,  the  loftiest  building  of  its  kind  in  the 
United  States,  with  a  tower,  510  feet  in  height,  which  far  over¬ 
tops  Cologne  Cathedral  and  the  Pyramid  of  Cheops  and  St. 
Peter’s  at  Rome.  The  thoughts  of  the  traveller  who  is  taken 
to  admire  it  naturally  turn  to  what  goes  on  beneath  its  ample 
roof,  and  he  asks  whether  the  day  will  arrive  when  Philadelphian 
voters  will  take  to  heart  the  painful  lessons  of  the  past,  and  when 
the  officials  who  reign  in  this  municipal  palace  will  become  worthy 
of  so  superb  a  dwelling  and  of  the  city  where  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  and  the  Federal  Constitution  first  saw  the  light. 
His  Philadelphian  friends  reply  that  such  a  day  will  doubtless 
arrive.  But  they  admit  that  it  seems  still  distant. 


CHAPTER  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 
I.  The  Character  of  California 

What  America  is  to  Europe,  what  Western  America  is  to 
Eastern,  that  California  is  to  the  other  Western  States.  The 
characteristics  of  a  new  and  quickly  developed  colonial  civiliza¬ 
tion  are  all  strongly  marked.  It  is  thoroughly  American,  but 
most  so  in  those  points  wherein  the  Old  World  differs  from  the 
New.  Large  fortunes  are  swiftly  made  and  not  less  swiftly 
spent.  Changes  of  public  sentiment  are  sudden  and  violent. 
The  most  active  minds  are  too  much  absorbed  in  great  business 
enterprises  to  attend  to  politics  ;  the  inferior  men  are  frequently 
reckless  and  irresponsible  ;  the  masses  are  impatient,  accustomed 
to  blame  everything  and  everybody  but  themselves  for  the  slow 
approach  of  the  millennium,  ready  to  try  instant,  even  if  peril¬ 
ous,  remedies  for  a  present  evil. 

These  features  belong  more  or  less  to  all  the  newer  and 
cruder  commonwealths.  Several  others  are  peculiar  to  Cali¬ 
fornia  —  a  State  on  which  I  dwell  the  more  willingly  because  it 
is  in  many  respects  the  most  striking  in  the  whole  Union,  and 
has  more  than  any  other  the  character  of  a  great  country,  capa¬ 
ble  of  standing  alone  in  the  world.  It  has  a  superb  climate, 
noble  scenery,  immense  wealth  in  its  fertile  soil  as  well  as  in  its 
minerals  and  forests.  Nature  is  nowhere  more  imposing  nor 
her  beauties  more  varied. 

It  grew  up,  after  the  cession  by  Mexico  and  the  discovery  of 
gold,  like  a  gourd  in  the  night.  A  great  population  had  gathered 
before  there  was  any  regular  government  to  keep  it  in  order, 
much  less  any  education  or  social  culture  to  refine  it.  The 
wildness  of  that  time  passed  into  the  soul  of  the  people,  and 
has  left  them  more  tolerant  of  violent  deeds,  more  prone  to 
interferences  with,  or  supersessions  of,  regular  law,  than  are  the 
people  of  most  parts  of  the  Union. 

426 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


427 


The  chief  occupation  of  the  first  generation  of  Californians 
was  mining,  an  industry  which  is  like  gambling  in  its  influence 
on  the  character,  with  its  sudden  alternations  of  wealth  and 
poverty,  its  long  hours  of  painful  toil  relieved  by  bouts  of 
drinking  and  merriment,  its  life  in  a  crowd  of  men  who  have 
come  together  from  the  four  winds  of  heaven,  and  will  scatter 
again  as  soon  as  some  are  enriched  and  others  ruined,  or  the 
gold  in  the  gulch  is  exhausted.  Moreover,  mining  in  this  region 
means  gambling,  not  only  in  camps  among  the  miners,  but 
among  townsfolk  in  the  shares  of  the  mining  companies.  Cali¬ 
fornians  of  all  classes  have  formed  the  habit  of  buying  and 
selling  in  the  mining  exchanges,  with  effects  on  the  popular 
temper  both  in  business  and  in  politics  which  every  one  can 
understand.  Speculation  becomes  a  passion,  patient  industry  is 
distasteful ;  there  is  bred  a  recklessness  and  turbulence  in  the 
inner  life  of  the  man  which  does  not  fail  to  express  itself  in  acts. 

When  California  was  ceded  to  the  United  States,  land  specu¬ 
lators  bought  up  large  tracts  under  Spanish  titles,  and  others, 
foreseeing  the  coming  prosperity,  subsequently  acquired  great 
domains  by  purchase,  either  from  the  railways  which  had 
received  land  grants,  or  directly  from  the  government.  Some 
of  these  speculators,  by  holding  their  lands  for  a  rise,  made  it 
difficult  for  immigrants  to  acquire  small  freeholds,  and  in  some 
cases  checked  the  growth  of  farms.  Others  let  their  land  on 
short  leases  to  farmers,  who  thus  came  into  a  comparatively 
precarious  and  often  necessitous  condition  ;  others  established 
enormous  farms,  in  which  the  soil  is  cultivated  by  hired  labourers, 
many  of  whom  are  discharged  after  the  harvest  —  a  phenomenon 
rare  in  the  United  States,  which  is  elsewhere  a  country  of  mod¬ 
erately  sized  farms,  owned  by  persons  who  do  most  of  their 
labour  by  their  own  and  their  children’s  hands.  Thus  the  land 
system  of  California  presents  features  both  peculiar  and  danger¬ 
ous,  a  contrast  between  great  properties,  often  appearing  to 
conflict  with  the  general  weal,  and  the  sometimes  hard  pressed 
small  farmer,  together  with  a  mass  of  unsettled  labour,  thrown 
without  work  into  the  towns  at  certain  times  of  the  year.1 

Everywhere  in  the  West  the  power  of  the  railways  has  excited 
the  jealousy  of  the  people.  In  California,  however,  it  has  roused 
most  hostility,  because  no  State  has  been  so  much  at  the  mercy 
of  one  powerful  corporation.  The  Central  Pacific  Railway, 

1  “Latifundia  perdunt  Calif  orniam,”  some  one  said  to  me  in  San  Francisco. 


428 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


whose  main  line  extends  from  San  Francisco  to  Ogden  in  Utah, 
where  it  meets  the  Union  Pacific  and  touches  the  Denver  and 
Rio  Grande  system,  had  been  up  till  1877,  when  my  narrative 
begins,  the  only  route  to  the  Mississippi  valley  and  Atlantic,1 
and  therefore  possessed  immense  influence  over  the  trade  of  the 
whole  State.  It  was  controlled  by  a  small  knot  of  men  who  had 
risen  from  insignificance  to  affluence,  held  nearly  all  the  other 
railway  lines  in  California,  employed  an  enormous  number  of  clerks 
and  workmen,  and  made  the  weight  of  their  hand  felt  wherever 
their  interest  was  involved.  Alike  as  capitalists,  as  potentates, 
and  as  men  whose  rise  to  gigantic  wealth  seemed  due  as  much  to 
the  growth  of  the  State  as  to  their  own  abilities,  and  therefore 
to  come  under  the  principle  which  is  called  in  England  that  of  the 
“unearned  increment/’  they  excited  irritation  among  the  farm¬ 
ing  and  trading  class,  as  well  as  among  the  labourers.  As  great 
fortunes  have  in  America  been  usually  won  by  unusual  gifts, 
any  envy  they  can  excite  is  tempered  by  admiration  for  the 
ability  shown  in  acquiring  them.  The  common  people  felt 
a  kind  of  pride  in  the  late  Mr.  A.  T.  Stewart,  and  perhaps  even 
in  that  flagrant  “monopolist,”  Mr.  Jay  Gould.  But  while 
these  particular  railway  magnates  were  men  of  talent,  there 
were  also  in  California  millionaires  who  had  grown  rich  merely 
by  lucky  speculation.  They  displayed  their  wealth  with  a  vulgar 
and  unbecoming  ostentation.  They  did  not,  as  rich  men  nearly 
always  do  in  the  Atlantic  States,  bestow  a  large  part  of  it  on 
useful  public  objects.  There  was  therefore  nothing  to  break 
the  wave  of  suspicious  dislike. 

Most  of  the  Western  States  have  been  peopled  by  a  steady 
influx  of  settlers  from  two  or  three  older  States.  Minnesota, 
for  instance,  and  Iowa  have  grown  by  the  overflow  of  Illinois 
and  Ohio,  as  well  as  by  immigration  direct  from  Europe.  But 
California  was  filled  by  a  sudden  rush  of  adventurers  from  all 
parts  of  the  world.  They  arrived  mostly  via  Panama,  for  there 
was  no  transcontinental  railway  till  1869,  and  a  great  many 
came  from  the  Southern  States.  This  mixed  multitude,  bring¬ 
ing  with  it  a  variety  of  manners,  customs,  and  ideas,  formed  a 
society  more  mobile  and  unstable,  less  governed  by  fixed  beliefs 
and  principles,  than  one  finds  in  such  North-western  commu- 

1  There  are  now  four  other  transcontinental  trunk  lines,  but  two  of  them 
lie  far  to  the  north,  and  another  belongs  to  the  same  group  of  men  who  have 
controlled  the  Central  Pacific. 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


429 


nities  as  I  have  just  mentioned.  Living  far  away  from  the 
steadying  influences  of  the  Eastern  States,  the  Californians 
have  developed,  and  are  proud  of  having  done  so,  a  sort  of 
Pacific  type,  which,  though  differing  but  slightly  from  the  usual 
Western  type,  has  less  of  the  English  element  than  one  discovers 
in  the  American  who  lives  on  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  Add  to  this  that  California  is  the  last  place  to  the 
west  before  you  come  to  Japan.  That  scum  which  the  west¬ 
ward  moving  wave  of  emigration  carries  on  its  crest  is  here 
stopped,  because  it  can  go  no  farther.  It  accumulates  in  San 
Francisco,  and  forms  a  dangerous  constituent  in  the  population 
of  that  great  and  growing  city  —  a  population  perhaps  more 
mixed  than  one  finds  anywhere  else  in  America,  for  Frenchmen, 
Italians,  Portuguese,  Greeks,  and  the  children  of  Australian  con¬ 
victs  abound  there,  side  by  side  with  negroes,  Germans,  and  Irish. 
Of  the  Chinese  one  need  not  speak  ;  for,  though  they  numbered 
in  1880  some  twelve  thousand,  have  a  large  quarter  to  themselves, 
and  have  given  rise  to  the  dominant  question  in  Pacific  coast 
politics,  they  do  not  themselves  join  in  any  political  movement, 
but  mingle  as  little  with  the  whites  as  oil  with  water. 

California,  more  than  any  other  part  of  the  Union,  is  a  country 
by  itself,  and  San  Francisco  a  capital.  Cut  off  from  the  more 
populous  parts  of  the  Mississippi  valley  by  an  almost  continuous 
desert  of  twelve  hundred  miles,  across  which  the  two  daily  trains 
moved  like  ships  across  the  ocean,  separated  from  Oregon  on  the 
north  by  a  wilderness  of  sparsely  settled  mountain  and  forest, 
it  grew  up  in  its  own  way  and  acquired  a  sort  of  consciousness 
of  separate  existence.  San  Francisco  dwarfed  the  other  cities, 
for  in  those  days  Los  Angeles  had  not  risen  to  importance, 
and  was  a  commercial  and  intellectual  centre  and  source  of  in¬ 
fluence  for  the  surrounding  regions,  more  powerful  over  them  than 
is  any  Eastern  city  over  its  neighbourhood.  It  was  a  New  York 
which  has  got  no  New  England  on  one  side  of  it,  and  no  shrewd 
and  orderly  rural  population  on  the  other,  to  keep  it  in  order. 
Hence  both  State  and  city  were,  and  in  a  sense  are  still,  less 
steadied  by  national  opinion  than  any  other  State  or  city  within 
the  wide  compass  of  the  Union. 

These  facts  in  Californian  history  must  be  borne  in  mind  in 
order  to  understand  the  events  I  am  about  to  sketch.1  They 


1  The  narrative  which  follows  does  not  profess  to  be  complete,  for  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  procuring  adequate  data  was  very  great.  When  I  visited  San  Fran- 


430 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


show  how  suited  is  her  soil  to  revolutionary  movements.  They 
suggest  that  movements  natural  here  are  less  likely  to  arise  in 
other  parts  of  the  Union. 

II.  JThe  Sand  Lot  Party 

In  1877  California  was  suffering  from  “hard  times.”  The 
severe  commercial  depression  which  began  in  the  Eastern 
States  in  1873,  and  touched  the  lowest  point  about  1876,  had 
reached  the  Pacific  coast,  and  was  aggravated  there  by  a  heavy 
fall  in  mining  stocks.  The  great  Bonanza  finds  some  years 
before  had  ushered  in  a  period  of  wild  speculation.  Everybody 
gambled  in  stocks,  from  railroad  kings  down  to  maidservants. 
Stocks  had  now  fallen,  and  everybody  was  hard  hit.  The 
railroad  kings  could  stand  their  losses,  but  the  clerks  and  shop 
assistants  and  workmen  suffered,  for  their  savings  were  gone 
and  many  were  left  heavily  in  debt,  with  their  houses  mort¬ 
gaged  and  no  hope  of  redemption.  Trade  was  bad,  work  was 
scarce,  and  for  what  there  was  of  it  the  Chinese,  willing  to  take 
only  half  the  ordinary  wages,  competed  with  the  white  labourer. 
The  mob  of  San  Francisco,  swelled  by  disappointed  miners  from 
the  camps  and  labourers  out  of  work,  men  lured  from  distant 
homes  by  the  hope  of  wealth  and  ease  in  the  land  of  gold,  saw 
itself  on  the  verge  of  starvation  while  the  splendid  mansions 
of  speculators,  who  fifteen  years  before  had  kept  little  shops, 
rose  along  the  heights  of  the  city,  and  the  newspapers  reported 
their  luxurious  banquets.  In  the  country  the  farmers  were 
scarcely  less  discontented.  They,  too,  had  “gone  into  stocks,” 
their  farms  were  mortgaged,  and  many  of  them  were  bankrupt. 
They  complained  that  the  railroads  crushed  them  by  heavy 
rates,  and  asked  why  they,  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  country, 
should  toil  without  profit,  while  local  millionaires  and  wealthy 
Eastern  bondholders  drew  large  incomes  from  the  traffic  which 

cisco  in  1881,  and  again  in  1883,  people  were  unwilling  to  talk  about  the  Kearney 
agitation,  feeling,  it  seemed  to  me,  rather  ashamed  of  it,  and  annoyed  that  so 
much  should  have  been  made  of  it  (more,  they  declared,  than  it  deserved)  in 
the  Eastern  States.  When  I  asked  how  I  could  learn  the  facts  in  detail,  they 
answered,  “Only  by  reading  through  the  files  of  the  newspapers  for  the  years 
1877-80  inclusive.”  Some  added,  that  there  were  so  many  lies  in  the  news¬ 
papers  that  I  would  not  have  got  at  the  facts  even  then.  Failing  this  method, 
I  was  obliged  to  rely  on  what  I  could  pick  up  in  conversation.  I  have,  however, 
derived  some  assistance  from  a  brilliant  article  by  Mr.  Henry  George,  who  was 
then  a  resident  of  San  Francisco,  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  for  August, 
1880. 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


431 


the  plough  of  the  agriculturist  and  the  pickaxe  of  the  miner  had 
created. 

Both  in  the  country  and  in  the  city  there  was  disgust  with 
politics  and  the  politicians.  The  legislature  was  composed  al¬ 
most  wholly  either  of  office-seekers  from  the  city  or  of  petty 
country  lawyers,  needy  and  narrow-minded  men.  Those  who 
had  virtue  enough  not  to  be  “got  at”  by  the  great  corporations, 
had  not  intelligence  enough  to  know  how  to  resist  their  devices. 
It  was  a  common  saying  in  the  State  that  each  successive  leg¬ 
islature  was  worse  than  its  predecessor.  The  meeting  of  the 
representatives  of  the  people  was  seen  with  anxiety,  their  de¬ 
parture  with  relief.  Some  opprobrious  epithet  was  bestowed 
upon  each.  One  was,  “the  legislature  of  a  thousand  drinks”; 
another,  “the  legislature  of  a  thousand  steals.”  County  govern¬ 
ment  was  little  better  ;  city  government  was  even  worse.  The 
judges  were  not  corrupt,  but  most  of  them,  as  was  natural, 
considering  the  scanty  salaries  assigned  to  them,  were  inferior 
men,  not  fit  to  cope  with  the  counsel  who  practised  before  them. 
Partly  owing  to  the  weakness  of  juries,  partly  to  the  intricacies 
of  the  law  and  the  defects  of  the  recently  adopted  code,  criminal 
justice  was  halting  and  uncertain,  and  malefactors  often  went 
unpunished.  It  became  a  proverb  that  you  might  safely  commit 
a  murder  if  you  took  the  advice  of  the  best  lawyers. 

Neither  Democrats  nor  Republicans  had  done,  or  seemed 
likely  to  do,  anything  to  remove  these  evils  or  to  improve  the 
lot  of  the  people.  They  were  only  seeking  (so  men  thought) 
places  or  the  chance  of  jobs  for  themselves,  and  could  always 
be  bought  by  a  powerful  corporation.  Working  men  must 
help  themselves ;  there  must  be  new  methods  and  a  new  de¬ 
parture.  Everything,  in  short,  was  ripe  for  a  demagogue. 
Fate  was  kind  to  the  Californians  in  sending  them  a  dema¬ 
gogue  of  a  common  tj^pe,  noisy  and  confident,  but  with  neither 
political  foresight  nor  constructive  talent. 

Late  in  1877  a  meeting  was  called  in  San  Francisco  to  ex¬ 
press  sympathy  with  the  men  on  strike  at  Pittsburg  in  Penn¬ 
sylvania.  Their  riotous  violence,  which  had  alarmed  the 
respectable  classes  all  over  America,  had  gratified  the  discon¬ 
tented  railroad  operatives  of  California,  then  meditating  a 
strike  of  their  own  against  a  threatened  reduction  of  wages. 
Some  strong  language  used  at  this  meeting,  and  exaggerated 
by  the  newspapers,  frightened  the  business  men  into  forming 


432 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


a  sort  of  committee  of  public  safety,  with  the  president  of  the 
famous  Vigilance  Committee  of  1856,  a  resolute  and  capable 
man,  at  its  head.  Persons  enrolled  by  it  paraded  the  streets 
with  sticks  for  some  days  to  prevent  any  attack  on  the  Chinese, 
but  it  was  soon  perceived  that  there  was  no  real  danger,  and 
the  chief  result  of  the  incident  was  further  irritation  of  the 
poorer  classes,  who  perceived  that  the  rich  were  afraid  of  them, 
and  therefore  disposed  to  deal  harshly  with  them.  Shortly 
after  came  an  election  of  municipal  officers  and  members  of  the 
State  legislature.  The  contest,  as  is  the  custom  in  America, 
brought  into  life  a  number  of  clubs  and  other  organizations,  pur¬ 
porting  to  represent  various  parties  or  sections  of  a  party, 
among  others  a  body  calling  itself  the  “  Workingmen’s  Trade 
and  Labour  Union/’  the  secretary  of  which  was  a  certain  Mr. 
Denis  Kearney.1  When  the  election  was  over,  Kearney  declared 
that  he  would  keep  his  union  going,  and  form  a  working  man’s 
party.  He  was  Irish  by  birth,  and  though  in  business  as  a 
drayman,  had  some  experience  as  a  sailor,  and  held  a  master’s 
certificate.  He  had  borne  a  good  character  for  industry  and 
steadiness  till  some  friend  “put  him  into  stocks,”  and  the  loss  of 
what  he  hoped  to  gain  is  said  to  have  first  turned  him  to  agita¬ 
tion.  He  had  gained  some  faculty  in  speaking  by  practice  at  a 
Sunday  debating  club  called  the  Lyceum  of  Self  Culture.  A 
self-cultivating  lyceum  sounds  as  harmless  as  a  Social  Science 
congress,  but  there  are  times  when  even  mutual  improvement 
societies  may  be  dangerous.  Kearney’s  tongue,  loud  and  vio¬ 
lent,  soon  gathered  an  audience.  On  the  west  side  of  San  Fran¬ 
cisco,  as  you  cross  the  peninsula  from  the  harbour  towards  the 
ocean,  there  was  then  a  large  open  space,  laid  out  for  building, 
but  not  yet  built  on,  covered  with  sand,  and  hence  called  the 
Sand  Lot.  Here  the  mob  had  been  wont  to  gather  for  meetings  ; 
here  Kearney  formed  his  party.  At  first  he  had  mostly  vaga¬ 
bonds  to  listen,  but  one  of  the  two  great  newspapers  took  him 
up.  These  two,  the  Chronicle  and  the  Morning  Call,  were  in 
keen  rivalry,  and  the  former,  seeing  in  this  new  movement 
a  chance  of  going  ahead,  filling  its  columns  with  sensational 
matter,  and  increasing  its  sale  among  working  men,  went  in 
hot  and  strong  for  the  Sand  Lot  party.  One  of  its  reporters 
has  been  credited  with  dressing  up  Kearney’s  speeches  into 
something  approaching  literary  form,  for  the  orator  was  an 

1  See  note  in  the  Appendix  at  the  end  of  this  volume. 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


433 


imperfectly  educated  man,  with  ideas  chiefly  gathered  from  the 
daily  press.  The  advertisement  which  the  Chronicle  gave  him 
by  its  reports  and  articles,  and  which  he  repaid  by  advising 
working  men  to  take  it,  soon  made  him  a  personage ;  and  his 
position  was  finally  assured  by  his  being,  along  with  several 
other  speakers,  arrested  and  prosecuted  on  a  charge  of  riot, 
in  respect  of  inflammatory  speeches  delivered  at  a  meeting  on 
the  top  of  Nob  Hill,  one  of  the  steep  heights  which  make  San 
Francisco  the  most  picturesque  of  American  cities.  The  prose¬ 
cution  failed,  and  Kearney  was  a  popular  hero.  Clerks  and 
the  better  class  of  citizens  now  began  to  attend  his  meetings, 
though  many  went  from  mere  curiosity,  as  they  would  have 
gone  to  a  circus  :  the  Vf.  P.  C.  (Workingman’s  Party  of  Cali¬ 
fornia)  was  organized  as  a  regular  party,  embracing  the  whole 
State  of  California,  with  Kearney  for  its  president.  The  gather¬ 
ing  on  the  Sand  Lot  to  which  all  those  ‘ eager  for  new  things,” 
as  the  discontented  class  were  of  old  time  called,  flocked  every 
Sunday  afternoon  to  cheer  denunciations  of  corporations  and 
monopolists,  and  to  “ resolute”  against  the  rich  generally, 
became  a  centre  of  San  Francisco  politics,  and  through  the 
reports  of  some  newspapers  and  the  attacks  of  others,  roused 
the  people  of  the  entire  State.  The  Morning  Call  had  now 
followed  the  lead  of  the  Chronicle,  trying  to  outbid  it  for  the 
support  of  the  working  men.  There  was  nothing  positive, 
nothing  constructive  or  practical,  either  in  these  tirades  or  in 
the  programme  of  the  party,  but  an  open-air  crowd  is  not 
critical,  and  gives  the  loudest  cheers  to  the  strongest  lan¬ 
guage.  Kearney  was  not  without  shrewdness  and  address  : 
he  knew  how  to  push  himself  to  the  front,  and  retain  the  repu¬ 
tation  of  rugged  honesty  :  he  always  dressed  as  a  workman 
and  ran  for  no  office,  and  while  denouncing  politicians  as  thieves 
and  capitalists  as  blood-suckers,  while  threatening  fire  and 
the  halter  if  the  demands  of  the  people  were  not  granted, 
he  tried  to  avoid  direct  breaches  of  the  law.  On  one  occasion 
he  held  a  gathering  beside  the  mansions  of  the  Central  Pacific 
magnates  on  Nob  Hill,  pointed  to  them  and  to  the  bonfire  which 
marked  the  place  of  meeting,  and  while  telling  the  people  that 
these  men  deserved  to  have  their  houses  burned,  abstained  from 
suggesting  that  the  torch  should  be  applied  then  and  there. 
Another  time  he  bade  the  people  wait  a  little  till  his  party  had 
carried  their  candidate  for  the  governorship  of  the  State  :  “  Then 


434 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


we  shall  have  the  control  of  the  militia  and  the  armouries ; 
then  we  can  go  down  to  the  Pacific  Mail  Company’s  dock  and 
turn  back  the  steamers  that  come  in  bringing  the  Chinese.”  1 
Immense  enthusiasm  was  evoked  by  these  harangues.  He  was 
crowned  with  flowers  ;  he  was,  when  released  from  prison  on  one 
occasion,  drawn  in  triumph  by  his  followers  in  his  own  dray ; 
newspaper  reporters  thronged  around  to  interview  him  ;  promi¬ 
nent  politicians  came  to  seek  favours  from  him  on  the  sly. 
Discontent  among  the  working  class  was  the  chief  cause  that 
made  the  new  party  grow,  for  grow  it  did  :  and  though  San 
Francisco  was  the  centre  of  its  strength,  it  had  clubs  in  Sacra¬ 
mento  and  the  other  cities,  all  led  by  the  San  Francisco  convention 
which  Kearney  swayed.  But  there  were  further  causes  not  to 
be  passed  over.  One  was  the  distrust  of  the  officials  of  the 
State  and  the  city.  The  municipal  government  of  San  Francisco 
was  far  from  pure.  The  officials  enriched  themselves,  while  the 
paving,  the  draining,  the  lighting  were  scandalously  neglected ; 
corruption  and  political  jobbery  had  found  their  way  even  into 
school  management,  and  liquor  was  sold  everywhere,  the  publi¬ 
cans  being  leagued  with  the  heads  of  the  police  to  prevent  the 
enforcement  of  the  laws.  Another  was  the  support  given  to 
their  countrymen  by  the  Irish,  here  a  discontented  and  turbulent 
part  of  the  population,  by  the  lower  class  of  German  immigrants, 
and  by  the  longshore  men,  also  an  important  element  in  this 
great  port,  and  a  dangerous  element  (as  long  ago  in  Athens) 
wherever  one  finds  them.  The  activity  of  the  Chronicle  counted 
for  much,  for  it  was  ably  written,  went  everywhere,  and  con¬ 
tinued  to  give  a  point  and  force  to  Kearney’s  harangues,  which 
made  them  not  less  effective  in  print  than  even  his  voice  had 
made  them  to  the  listening  crowds.  Some  think  that  the 
monied  classes  at  this  juncture  ought  to  have  bought  up  the 
Chronicle  (supposing  they  could  have  done  so  secretly),  and 
its  then  editor  and  proprietor  has  been  much  maligned  if  he 
would  have  refused  to  be  bought  up.2  The  newspapers  certainly 

1  In  an  earlier  agitation  this  company’s  yard  was  attacked,  but  the  only 
person  killed  was  a  lad  (one  of  the  special  constables  defending  it)  whose  gun 
burst. 

2  This  editor  became  subsequently  famous  over  America  by  his  “difficulties” 
with  a  leading  Baptist  minister  of  San  Francisco.  He  had  shot  this  minister 
in  the  street  from  behind  the  blind  of  a  carriage,  and  thereby  made  him  so 
popular  that  the  W.  P.  C.  carried  him  for  their  candidate  for  the  mayoralty. 
The  blood  feud,  however,  was  not  settled  by  this  unintended  service,  for  the 
clergyman’s  son  went  soon  after  to  the  Chronicle  office  and  slew  the  editor. 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


435 


played  a  great  part  in  the  movement ;  they  turned  the  working 
man’s  party  into  a  force  by  representing  it  to  have  already  become 
one.  Most  important  of  all,  however,  was  the  popular  hatred 
of  the  Chinese.  This  was  so  strong  in  California  that  any  party 
which  could  become  its  exponent  rode  on  the  crest  of  the  wave. 
The  old  parties,  though  both  denouncing  Chinese  immigration 
in  every  convention  they  held,  and  professing  to  legislate  against 
it,  had  failed  to  check  it  by  State  laws,  and  had  not  yet  obtained 
Federal  laws  prohibiting  it.  They  had  therefore  lost  the  con¬ 
fidence  of  the  masses  on  this  point,  while  the  Sand  Lot  party, 
whose  leaders  had  got  into  trouble  for  the  ferocity  of  their 
attacks  on  the  Chinese,  gained  that  confidence,  and  became 
the  “  anti-Mongolian ”  party  par  excellence.  Like  Cato  with 
his  Delenda  est  Carthago ,  Kearney  ended  every  speech  with 
the  words,  “And  whatever  happens,  the  Chinese  must  go.” 

Meanwhile,  where  were  the  old  parties,  and  what  was  their 
attitude  to  this  new  one  ?  It  is  so  hard  in  America  to  establish 
a  new  movement  outside  the  regular  party  lines,  that  when  such 
a  movement  is  found  powerful,  we  may  expect  to  find  that  there 
exist  special  causes  weakening  these  lines.  Such  forces  existed 
in  California.  She  lies  so  far  from  the  Atlantic  and  Mississippi 
States,  and  has  been  so  much  occupied  with  her  own  concerns  — 
even  the  War  of  Secession  did  not  interest  her  as  it  did  the 
country  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  —  that  the  two  great 
national  parties  have  had  a  comparatively  weak  hold  on  the 
people.  The  Chinese  question  and  the  railroad  question  dwarfed 
the  regular  party  issues.  Neither  party  had  shown  itself  able 
to  deal  with  the  former  —  both  parties  were  suspected  of  having 
been  tampered  with  on  the  latter.  Both  had  incurred  the  dis¬ 
credit  which  follows  every  party  in  hard  times,  when  the  public 
are  poor,  and  see  that  their  taxes  have  been  ill-spent.  The  Sand 
Lot  party  drew  its  support  chiefly  from  the  Democrats, who  here, 
as  in  the  East,  have  the  larger  share  of  the  rabble  :  hence  its 
rise  was  not  unwelcome  to  the  Republicans,  because  it  promised 
to  divide  and  weaken  their  old  opponents  ;  while  the  Democrats, 
hoping  ultimately  to  capture  it,  gave  a  feeble  resistance.  Thus 
it  grew  the  faster,  and  soon  began  to  run  a  ticket  of  its  own  at 
city  and  State  elections.  It  carried  most  of  the  city  offices,  and 

The  young  man  was  tried,  and,  of  course,  acquitted.  He  had  only  done  what 
the  customary  law  of  primitive  peoples  requires.  It  survives  in  Albania  and 
is  scarcely  extinct  in  Corsica. 


436 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


when  the  question  was  submitted  to  the  people  whether  a  new 
Constitution  should  be  framed  for  California,  it  threw  its  vote 
in  favour  of  having  one,  and  prevailed. 

“The  hoodlums ”x  and  other  ragamuffins  who  had  formed 
the  audience  at  the  first  Sand  Lot  meetings  could  not  have 
effected  this.  But  the  W.  P.  C.  now  got  a  heavy  vote  in  San 
Francisco  from  the  better  sort  of  working  men,  clerks,  and 
small  shopkeepers.  In  the  rural  districts  they  had  still  more 
powerful  allies.  The  so-called  Granger  movement  had  spread 
from  the  upper  Mississippi  States  into  California,  and  enlisted 
the  farmers  in  a  campaign  against  the  railroads  and  other 
“monopolists”  and  corporations.  To  compel  a  reduction  of 
charges  for  goods  and  passengers,  to  prevent  the  railroad  from 
combining  with  the  Panama  Steamship  Company,  to  reduce 
public  expenditure,  to  shift  more  taxation  on  to  the  shoulders 
of  the  rich,  and  generally  to  “cinch”  capital  —  these  were  the 
aims  of  the  Granger  party ;  nor  will  any  one  who  knows  Cali¬ 
fornia  think  them  wholly  unreasonable.  The  only  way  to 
effect  them  was  by  a  new  Constitution,  not  only  because  some 
could  not  have  been  attained  under  the  then  existing  Consti¬ 
tution  (passed  in  1849  and  amended  in  several  points  subse¬ 
quently),  but  also  because  the  people  have  more  direct  control 
over  legislation  through  a  convention  making  a  Constitution 
than  they  have  over  the  action  of  a  legislature.  The  delegates 
to  a  convention  go  straight  from  the  election  to  their  work, 
have  not  time  to  forget,  or  to  devise  means  of  evading,  their 
pledges,  are  less  liable  to  be  “got  at”  by  capitalists.  They 
constitute  only  one  house,  whereas  the  legislature  has  two. 
There  is  no  governor  to  stand  in  the  way  with  his  veto.  The 
rarity  and  importance  of  the  occasion  fixes  public  attention. 
Thus  a  new  Constitution  became  the  object  of  the  popular  cry, 
and  a  heavy  vote  in  favour  of  having  it  was  cast  by  the  country 
farmers  as  well  as  by  decent  working  people  in  the  towns  just 
because  it  promised  a  new  departure  and  seemed  to  get  behind 
the  old  parties.  As  often  happens,  the  “good  citizens,”  who 
ought  to  have  seen  the  danger  of  framing  a  new  Constitution 
at  a  time  of  such  excitement,  were  apathetic  and  unorganized. 

Next  came,  in  the  summer  of  1878,  the  choice  of  delegates 
to  the  convention  which  was  to  frame  the  new  Constitution. 

1  The  term  “hoodlums”  denotes  those  who  are  called  in  Australia  “larri¬ 
kins,”  and  in  Liverpool  “corner-boys,”  loafing  youths  of  mischievous  proclivities. 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


437 


The  Workingman’s  Party  carried  many  seats  in  the  conven¬ 
tion,  but  its  nominees  were  mostly  ignorant  men,  without 
experience  or  constructive  ideas.1  Among  the  lawyers,  who 
secured  a  large  representation,  there  were  some  closely  bound 
by  business  ties  to  the  great  corporations  and  therefore  dis¬ 
posed  to  protect  the  interests  of  these  corporations,  as  well  as 
those  of  the  legal  profession.  In  justice  to  many  of  them  it 
must  be  added  that  their  respect  for  the  principles  of  the  com¬ 
mon  law  and  for  sound  constitutional  doctrine  made  them  do 
their  best  to  restrain  the  wild  folly  of  their  colleagues.  How¬ 
ever,  the  working  men’s  delegates,  together  with  the  more 
numerous  and  less  corruptible  delegates  of  the  farmers,  got 
their  way  in  many  things  and  produced  the  surprising  instru¬ 
ment  by  which  California  was  thereafter  governed. 

III.  The  New  Constitution 

An  able  Californian  writer  gives  the  following  account  of  the 
Constitution  of  1879  :  — 

“The  new  Constitution  adopted  in  May,  1857,  made  radical  changes 
in  almost  every  department  of  the  Government.  It  completely  changed 
the  judicial  system,  and  thereby  rendered  necessary  an  alteration  of  al¬ 
most  all  the  laws  relating  to  civil  and  criminal  procedure.  It  revolu¬ 
tionized  the  working,  and  to  a  great  extent  the  scope  of  the  legislative 
department,  lopping  off  special  and  local  legislation,  and  obliging  the 
objects  heretofore  obtained  by  such  legislation  to  be  covered  by  general 
law.  As  a  part  of  this  revolution,  it  required  a  new  plan  of  county, 
township,  and  city  organization,  with  the  idea  partly  of  forcing  the 
same  general  laws  upon  all  local  governments,  and  partly  of  investing 
such  local  governments  with  power  to  legislate  for  themselves.  But 
the  main  underlying  spirit  of  the  new  instrument  was  an  attack  upon 
capital  under  the  specious  name  of  opposition  to  monopolies.  To  use 
an  expressive  Californian  phrase,  capital,  and  especially  accumulated 
capital,  wherever  it  was  found,  was  to  be  ‘cinched.’  2  With  this  object 
in  view,  cheap  labour  was  to  be  driven  out  of  the  country,  and  corpora¬ 
tions  so  restricted  and  hampered  in  their  operations  as  to  be  unable  to 
make  large  profits.  The  cry  was  that  there  were  unjust  discriminations 

1  Anecdotes  were  still  current  three  years  afterwards  of  the  ignorance  of 
some  of  the  delegates.  When  the  clause  prohibiting  any  “law  impairing  the 
obligation  of  contracts”  (taken  from  the  Federal  Constitution)  was  under 
discussion,  a  San  Francisco  delegate  objected  to  it.  An  eminent  lawyer,  leader 
of  the  Californian  bar,  who  recognized  in  the  objector  a  little  upholsterer  who 
used  to  do  jobs  about  his  house,  asked  why.  The  upholsterer  replied,  that 
he  disapproved  altogether  of  contracts,  because  he  thought  work  should  be 
done  by  hiring  workmen  for  the  day. 

2  “Cinching”  is  drawing  tight  the  girths  of  a  horse. 


438 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


on  the  part  of  the  railroads,  and  extortionate  rates  on  the  part  of  water 
and  gas  companies  ;  that  vicious  practices  were  indulged  in  by  mining 
corporations  ;  that  fair  day’s  wages  for  fair  day’s  labour  could  not  be 
obtained  ;  that  rich  men  rolled  in  luxury,  and  that  poor  men  were 
cramped  with  want.  It  may  be  admitted  that  there  were  some  grounds 
for  these  complaints.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  capital  was  any 
more  tyrannical  or  corporations  more  unconscionable  than  by  their 
very  nature  they  are  compelled  to  be.”  1 

Some  of  the  above  points,  and  particularly  the  changes  in 
local  government  and  in  the  judicial  system,  lie  rather  outside 
the  scope  of  the  present  narrative,  and  I  therefore  confine  my¬ 
self  to  inquiring  how  far  the  objects  aimed  at  by  the  Sand  Lot 
party  were  attained  through  the  Constitution  whose  enactment 
it  had  secured.  They  and  the  Grangers,  or  farmers’  party, 
which  made  common  cause  with  them,  sought  to  deal  with  four 
questions  in  which  lay  the  grievances  chiefly  complained  of  by 
discontented  Californians. 

These  were  — 

The  general  corruption  of  politicians,  and  bad  conduct  of 
State,  county,  and  city  government. 

Taxation,  alleged  to  press  too  heavily  on  the  poorer  classes. 

The  tyranny  of  corporations,  especially  railroads. 

The  Chinese. 

Let  us  see  what  remedies  the  Constitution  applied  to  each  of 
these.  The  cry  of  the  Sand  Lot  party  had  been  :  “None  but 
honest  men  for  the  offices.”  To  find  the  honest  men,  and, 
having  found  them,  to  put  them  in  offices  and  keep  them  there, 
is  the  great  problem  of  American  politics.  The  contributions 
made  to  its  solution  by  the  Convention  of  1879  were  neither 
novel  nor  promising.  Its  main  results  may  be  summed  up 
under  the  four  heads  above-mentioned.2 

1.  It  restricts  and  limits  in  every  possible  way  the  powers 

of  the  State  legislature,  leaving  it  little  authority  ex¬ 
cept  to  carry  out  by  statutes  the  provisions  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution.  It  makes  “lobbying,”  i.e.  the  attempt  to 
corrupt  a  legislator,  and  the  corrupt  action  of  a  legis¬ 
lator,  felony. 

2.  It  forbids  the  State  legislature  or  local  authorities  to 

incur  debts  beyond  a  certain  limit,  taxes  uncultivated 

1  Mr.  Theodore  H.  Hittell  in  the  Berkeley  Quarterly  for  July,  1880. 

2  As  to  the  nature  of  State  constitutions  in  general,  and  the  restrictions  they 
now  impose  on  legislatures,  see  Chapters  XXXVII  sqq.  in  Vol.  I. 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


439 


land  equally  with  cultivated,  makes  sums  due  on 
mortgage  taxable  in  the  district  where  the  mortgaged 
property  lies,  authorizes  an  income  tax,  and  directs  a 
highly  inquisitorial  scrutiny  of  everybody’s  property 
for  the  purposes  of  taxation. 

3.  It  forbids  the  “watering  of  stock,”  declares  that  the 

State  has  power  to  prevent  corporations  from  conduct¬ 
ing  their  business  so  as  to  “infringe  the  general  well¬ 
being  of  the  State”;  directs  the  charges  of  telegraph 
and  gas  companies,  and  of  water-supplying  bodies,  to 
be  regulated  and  limited  by  law ;  institutes  a  railroad 
commission  with  power  to  fix  the  transportation  rates 
on  all  railroads  and  examine  the  books  and  accounts 
of  all  transportation  companies. 

4.  It  forbids  all  corporations  to  employ  any  Chinese,  debars 

them  from  the  suffrage  (thereby  attempting  to  trans¬ 
gress  the  fifteenth  amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitu¬ 
tion),  forbids  their  employment  on  any  public  works, 
annuls  all  contracts  for  “coolie  labour,”  directs  the 
legislature  to  provide  for  the  punishment  of  any  com¬ 
pany  which  shall  import  Chinese,  to  impose  conditions 
on  the  residence  of  Chinese,  and  to  cause  their  re¬ 
moval  if  they  fail  to  observe  these  conditions. 

It  also  declares  that  eight  hours  shall  constitute  a  legal  day’s 
work  on  all  public  works. 

When  the  Constitution  came  to  be  submitted  to  the  vote  of 
the  people,  in  May,  1879,  it  was  vehemently  opposed  by  the 
monied  men,  who  of  course  influence,  in  respect  of  their  wealth, 
a  far  larger  number  of  votes  than  they  themselves  cast.  Several 
of  the  conservative  delegates  had,  I  was  told,  abstained  from 
putting  forth  their  full  efforts  to  have  the  worst  proposals 
rejected  by  the  convention  in  the  belief  that  when  the  people 
came  to  consider  them,  they  would  ensure  the  rejection  of  the 
whole  instrument.  Some  of  its  provisions  were  alleged  to  be 
opposed  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  therefore 
null.  Others  were  denounced  as  ruinous  to  commerce  and 
industry,  calculated  to  drive  capital  out  of  the  country.  The 
struggle  was  severe,  but  the  Granger  party  commanded  so  many 
rural  votes,  and  the  Sand  Lot  party  so  many  in  San  Francisco 
(whose  population  was  then  nearly  a  third  of  that  of  the  en- 


440 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


tire  State),  that  the  Constitution  was  carried,  though  by  a 
small  majority,  only  11,000,  out  of  a  total  of  145,000  citizens 
voting.  Of  course  it  had  to  be  enacted  as  a  whole,  amendment 
being  impossible  where  a  vote  of  the  people  is  taken. 

The  next  thing  was  to  choose  a  legislature  to  carry  out  the 
Constitution.  Had  the  same  influences  prevailed  in  this  election 
as  prevailed  in  that  of  the  Constitutional  Convention,  the  results 
might  have  been  serious.  But,  fortunately,  there  was  a  slight 
reaction,  now  that  the  first  and  main  step  seemed  to  have  been 
taken.  The  Republicans,  Democrats,  and  Sand  Lot  party  all 
ran  “tickets,”  and  owing  to  this  division  of  the  working  men’s 
and  the  Granger  vote  between  Kearneyite  candidates  and  the 
Democrats,  the  Republicans  secured  a  majority,  though  a  small 
one.  Now  the  Republicans  are  in  California,  as  they  would 
themselves  say,  the  moderate  and  conservative  party,  or  as  their 
opponents  said,  the  party  of  the  rich  and  the  monopolists. 
Their  predominance  made  the  legislature  of  1880  a  body  more 
cautious  than  might  have  been  expected.  Professing  hearty 
loyalty  to  the  new  Constitution,  the  majority  showed  this 
loyalty  by  keeping  well  within  the  letter  of  that  instrument, 
while  the  working  men  and  farmer  members  were  disposed  to 
follow  out  by  bold  legislation  what  they  called  its  spirit.  Thus 
the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  the  Constitution  changed  places. 
Those  who  had  opposed  it  in  the  Convention  posed  as  its  ad¬ 
mirers  and  defenders ;  while  those  who  had  clamoured  for  and 
carried  it  now  began  to  wish  that  they  had  made  its  directions 
more  imperative.  The  influence  and  the  money  of  the  railroad 
and  the  other  great  corporations  were  of  course  brought  into 
play,  despite  the  terrors  of  a  prosecution  for  felony,  and  became 
an  additional  “conservative  force”  of  great  moment. 

Thus  a  series  of  statutes  was  passed  which  gave  effect  to  the 
provisions  of  the  Constitution  in  a  form  perhaps  as  little  harm¬ 
ful  as  could  be  contrived,  and  certainly  less  harmful  than  had 
been  feared  when  the  Constitution  was  put  to  the  vote.  Many 
bad  bills,  particularly  those  aimed  at  the  Chinese,  were  de¬ 
feated,  and  one  may  say  generally  that  the  expectations  of  the 
Sand  Lot  men  were  grievously  disappointed. 

While  all  this  was  passing,  Kearney  had  more  and  more 
declined  in  fame  and  power.  He  did  not  sit  either  in  the  Con¬ 
stitutional  Convention  or  in  the  legislature  of  1880.  The  mob 
had  tired  of  his  harangues,  especially  as  little  seemed  to  come 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


441 


of  them,  and  as  the  candidates  of  the  W.  P.  C.  had  behaved 
no  better  in  office  than  those  of  the  old  parties.  He  had  quar¬ 
relled  with  the  Chronicle.  He  was,  moreover,  unfitted  by 
knowledge  or  training  to  argue  the  legal,  economical,  and 
political  questions  involved  in  the  new  Constitution,  so  that  the 
prominence  of  these  questions  threw  him  into  the  background. 
An  anti-Chinese  agitation,  in  which  the  unemployed  marched 
about  San  Francisco,  calling  on  employers  to  discharge  all 
Chinese  workmen,  caused  some  alarm  in  the  winter  of  1879-80, 
but  Kearney  was  absent  at  the  time,  and  when  he  returned 
his  party  was  wavering.  Even  his  prosecution  and  imprison¬ 
ment  on  a  rather  trivial  charge  gave  only  a  brief  revival  to 
his  popularity.  The  W.  P.  C.  was  defeated  in  a  city  election 
in  March,  1880,  by  a  combination  of  the  better  class  of  Demo¬ 
crats  with  the  Republicans,  and  soon  after  expired. 

When  I  was  in  San  Francisco  in  the  fall  of  1881,  people 
talked  of  Kearney  as  a  spent  rocket.  Some  did  not  know 
whether  he  was  in  the  city.  Others  said  that  the  capitalists  had 
rendered  him  harmless  by  the  gift  of  a  new  dray  and  team. 
Not  long  afterwards  he  went  East,  and  mounted  the  stump  on 
behalf  of  the  Labour  party  in  New  York.  He  proved,  how¬ 
ever,  scarcely  equal  to  his  fame,  for  mob  oratory  is  a  flower 
which  does  not  always  bear  transplantation.  Since  1880  he 
has  from  time  to  time  taken  some  part,  but  never  a  conspicu¬ 
ous  part,  in  Californian  politics,  and  was,  indeed,  in  1883,  no 
longer  deemed  a  force  to  be  regarded.  And  now,  as  the  Icelandic 
sagas  say,  he  is  out  of  the  story. 

After  the  session  of  1880,  Californian  politics  resumed  their 
old  features.  Election  frauds  were  said  to  have  become  less 
frequent  since  glass  ballot  boxes  were  adopted,  whereby  the 
practice  of  stuffing  a  box  with  papers  before  the  voters  ar¬ 
rive  in  the  morning  has  been  checked.  But  the  game  between 
the  two  old  parties  went  on  as  before.  What  remained  of  the 
Sand  Lot  group  was  reabsorbed  into  the  Democratic  party,  out 
of  which  it  had  mainly  come,  and  to  which  it  had  strong  affini¬ 
ties.  The  city  government  of  San  Francisco  continued  to  be 
much  what  it  was  before  the  agitation,  —  a  few  years  later,  under 
Boss  Buckley,  it  was  even  worse,  —  nor  did  the  legislature  be¬ 
come  any  purer  or  wiser.  When  the  railroad  commission  had  to 
be  elected,  the  railroad  magnates  managed  so  to  influence  the 
election,  although  it  was  made  directly  by  the  people,  that  two 


442 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


of  the  three  commissioners  chosen  were,  or  soon  afterwards 
came,  under  their  influence,  while  the  third  was  a  mere  de- 
claimer.  None  of  them  possessed  the  practical  knowledge  of 
railway  business  needed  to  enable  them  to  deal,  in  the  manner 
contemplated  by  the  Constitution,  with  the  oppressions  alleged 
to  be  practised  by  the  railroads ;  and  the  complaints  of  those 
oppressions  seemed  in  1883  to  be  as  common  as  formerly.  I 
enquired  in  that  year  why  the  railroad  magnates  had  not  been 
content  to  rely  on  certain  provisions  of  the  Federal  Constitu¬ 
tion  against  the  control  sought  to  be  exerted  over  their  under¬ 
taking.  The  answer  was  that  they  had  considered  this  course, 
but  had  concluded  that  it  was  cheaper  to  capture  a  majority 
of  the  Commission.  The  passing  of  the  Inter-State  Commerce 
Act  by  Congress  was  expected  to  bring  about  a  change  in  the 
situation,  but  that  act  disappointed  its  promoters ;  and  the 
tyranny  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad  (as  it  is  now  called, 
though  it  controls  the  Central  Pacific  line  also)  remained  severe. 
In  July  1894,  when  the  dispute  between  the  Pullman  Com¬ 
pany  and  their  employees  in  Illinois  gave  rise  to  a  railway  strike 
over  large  parts  of  the  West,  the  mobs  which  attacked  the 
depots  and  wrecked  the  trains  in  California  seem  to  have 
been  regarded  by  the  mass  of  the  people  with  a  sympathy 
which  can  be  attributed  to  nothing  but  the  general  hostility 
felt  to  the  railroad  company  which  had  so  long  lain  like  an 
incubus  on  the  State. 

Some  of  the  legislation  framed  under  the  Constitution  of  1879 
was  soon  pronounced  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  in¬ 
valid,  as  opposed  to  that  instrument  itself  or  to  the  Federal 
Constitution.  So  far  as  the  condition  of  the  people  at  large  was 
affected,  it  is  not  so  much  to  the  Constitution  as  to  the  general 
advance  in  prosperity  that  they  owe  what  they  have  gained. 
However,  the  restrictions  imposed  on  the  legislature  (as  regards 
special  legislation)  and  on  local  authorities  (as  regards  bor¬ 
rowing  and  the  undertaking  of  costly  public  works)  have  proved 
beneficial.  Congress  passed  statutes  stopping  Chinese  immi¬ 
gration,  and  the  subsequent  influx  of  Japanese  labourers  was 
reduced  in  1908  to  small  dimensions.  The  net  result  of  the 
whole  agitation  was  to  give  the  monied  classes  in  California 
a  fright ;  to  win  for  the  State  a  bad  name  throughout  America, 
and,  by  checking  for  a  time  the  influx  of  capital,  to  retard  her 
growth  just  when  prosperity  was  reviving  over  the  rest  of  the 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


443 


country ;  to  worry,  without  seriously  crippling,  the  great  cor¬ 
porations,  and  to  leave  the  working  classes  and  farmers  where 
they  were.  No  great  harm  was  done,  and  the  Constitution, 
pruned  and  trimmed  by  the  courts,  and  frequently  amended, 
usually  in  a  1  radical  ’  sense,  ultimately  came  to  work  tolerably. 
Since  those  days,  other  States  have  enacted  Constitutions  no 
less  rash  and  no  less  drastic  in  some  of  their  provisions. 

IV.  Observations  on  the  Movement 

I  would  leave  the  reader  to  draw  a  moral  for  himself,  were 
he  not  likely  to  err,  as  I  did  myself,  till  corrected  by  my  Cali¬ 
fornian  friends,  by  thinking  the  whole  movement  more  serious 
than  it  really  was. 

It  rose  with  surprising  ease  and  swiftness.  The  conditions 
were  no  doubt  exceptionally  favourable.  No  other  population  in 
America  furnished  so  good  a  field  for  demagogy.  But  the  dema¬ 
gogue  himself  was  not  formidable.  He  did  not  make  the  move¬ 
ment,  but  merely  rode  for  a  moment  on  the  crest  of  the  wave. 
Europeans  may  say  that  a  stronger  man,  a  man  with  knowl¬ 
edge,  education,  and  a  fierce  tenacity  of  fibre,  might  have 
built  up  a  more  permanent  power,  and  used  it  with  more  de¬ 
structive  effect.  But  Californians  say  that  a  strong  man 
would  not  have  been  suffered  to  do  what  Kearney  did  with 
impunity.  Kearney  throve  —  so  they  allege  —  because  the 
solid  classes  despised  him,  and  felt  that  the  best  thing  was  to 
let  him  talk  himself  out  and  reveal  his  own  hollowness. 

The  movement  fell  as  quickly  as  it  rose.  This  was  partly 
due,  as  has  just  been  said,  to  the  incompetence  of  the  leader, 
who  had  really  nothing  to  propose  and  did  not  know  how  to 
use  the  force  that  seemed  to  have  come  to  his  hands.  Some¬ 
thing,  however,  must  be  set  down  to  the  credit  of  the  American 
party  system.  The  existing  parties  are  so  strong,  and  are 
spread  over  so  wfide  an  area,  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  create 
a  new  party.  Resting  on  a  complex  local  organization,  and 
supported  by  the  central  organization  for  the  purposes  of  Fed¬ 
eral  politics,  they  can  survive  a  temporary  eclipse  in  a  particu¬ 
lar  State,  while  a  new  party  cannot  count  itself  permanent 
till  it  has  established  some  such  organization,  central  as  vrell 
as  local.  This  may  operate  badly  in  keeping  old  parties  alive, 
when  they  deserve  to  die.  But  it  operates  well  in  checking 


444 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  growth  or  abridging  the  life  of  mischievous  local  factions. 
That  fund  of  good  sense,  moreover,  which  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  nearly  every  native  American  mind,  soon  produces  a  reaction 
against  extreme  measures.  When  the  native  voters,  especially 
those  who  owned  even  a  little  property,  had  relieved  their 
minds  by  voting  for  the  new  Constitution,  they  felt  they  had 
gone  far  enough  in  the  direction  of  change,  and  at  the  election 
of  a  legislature  voted  for  moderate  men.  Support  from  this 
class  having  been  withdrawn,  the  Sand  Lot  rabble  ceased  to  be 
dangerous ;  and  although  threats  of  violence  were  abundant, 
and  sometimes  bloodthirsty,  there  was  little  sedition  or  disorder. 

Every  stump  orator  in  the  West  says  a  great  deal  more  than 
he  means,  and  is  promptly  discounted  by  his  hearers.  The 
populace  of  San  Francisco  has  now  and  again  menaced  the 
Chinese  quarter  and  the  docks  of  the  Pacific  Mail  Steamship 
Company,  which  brought  the  Chinese  over,  till  Congress 
checked  them.  Once  the  Chinese  armed  in  defence  of  China¬ 
town,  and  twice  during  these  agitations  a  committee  of  public 
safety  was  formed  to  protect  the  banks  and  keep  order  in  the 
streets.  But  many  people  doubt  whether  order  was  really  en¬ 
dangered.  The  few  attacks  made  on  Chinese  stores  were  done 
by  small  bands  of  hoodlums,  who  disappeared  at  the  sight  of 
the  police.  The  police  and  militia  seem  to  have  behaved  well 
all  through.  Moreover,  any  serious  riot  would  in  San  Fran¬ 
cisco  be  quelled  speedily  and  severely  by  the  respectable  classes, 
who  would  supersede  the  municipal  authority  if  it  seemed  to  fear, 
or  to  be  secretly  leagued  with,  the  authors  of  sedition.  Even 
the  meetings  of  the  various  political  parties  were  scarcely 
ever  disturbed  or  “bull-dozed”  by  their  opponents.  When  the 
Kearneyites  once  or  twice  molested  Democratic  meetings,  they 
were  so  promptly  repelled  that  they  desisted  for  the  future. 

There  was  very  little  of  conscious  or  constructive  commu¬ 
nism  or  socialism  in  the  movement.  Kearney  told  the  working 
men  that  the  rich  had  thriven  at  their  expense,  and  talked  of 
hanging  thieves  in  office,  and  burning  the  houses  of  capitalists. 
But  neither  he  nor  any  other  demagogue  assailed  the  institution 
of  property.  The  farmers,  whose  vote  carried  the  new  Consti¬ 
tution,  owned  their  farms,  and  would  have  recoiled  from  sugges¬ 
tions  of  agrarian  socialism.  And  in  fact  the  new  Constitution, 
although  it  contains  provisions  hostile  to  capital,  “is  anything 
but  agrarian  or  communistic,  for  it  entrenches  vested  rights, 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


445 


especially  in  land,  more  thoroughly  than  before.  ...  It  is 
anything  but  a  working  man’s  Constitution ;  it  levies  a  poll 
tax  without  exemption ;  disfranchises  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  floating  labour  vote ;  prevents  the  opening  of  public 
works  in  emergencies,  and  in  various  ways  which  working  men, 
even  in  their  present  stage  of  enlightenment,  may  easily  see, 
sacrifices  the  interests  of  the  labouring  classes,  as  well  as  the 
capitalists,  to  what  the  landowners  regard  as  their  interests.”  1 
A  solitary  Parisian  communist  who  was  elected  to  the  convention 
“  exercised  no  influence,  and  was  expelled  from  the  party  for 
refusing  to  support  the  new  Constitution.”  There  were  some 
rich  men,  and  lawyers  connected  with  the  great  corporations, 
among  the  candidates  and  supporters  of  the  Sand  Lot  party. 
Others  of  the  same  class  who  tried  secretly  to  use  it  had  probably 
their  selfish  ends  to  serve,  but  would  have  been  less  willing  to 
increase  its  strength  had  they  regarded  it  as  an  attack  on  property 
in  general.  The  fact  is  that  theoretical  communism  has  no  hold 
upon  native  Americans,  while  its  practical  application  does  not 
commend  itself  to  farmers  who  own  their  land  and  workmen  who 
own  their  houses.  The  belief  which  prevailed  in  the  Eastern 
States  that  the  movement  had  a  communistic  character  was 
therefore  a  mistaken  one. 

More  mischief  would  have  been  done  but  for  the  existence 
of  the  Federal  Constitution.  It  imposed  a  certain  check  on 
the  Convention,  who  felt  the  absurdity  of  trying  to  legislate 
right  in  the  teeth  of  an  overruling  instrument.  It  has  been  the 
means  of  upsetting  some  of  the  clauses  of  the  Constitution  of  1879, 
and  some  of  the  statutes  passed  by  the  legislature  under  them, 
and  has  discouraged  attempts  to  pass  others. 

On  the  whole,  not  much  evil  was  wrought,  at  least  not  much 
compared  with  what  was  feared  in  the  State  itself,  and  believed 
in  the  East  to  have  resulted.  The  better  sort  of  Californians 
two  years  after  were  no  longer  alarmed,  but  seemed  half  ashamed 
and  half  amused  when  they  recollected  the  scenes  I  have  de¬ 
scribed.  They  felt  somewhat  as  a  man  feels  when  he  awakes 
unrefreshed  after  a  night  of  bad  dreams.  He  fears  at  first 
that  his  parched  tongue  and  throbbing  head  may  mean  that  he 
has  caught  a  fever.  But  when  he  has  breakfasted  and  is  again 
immersed  in  work,  these  sensations  and  apprehensions  disappear 
together.  After  all,  said  the  lawyers  and  bankers  of  San  Fran- 

1  Mr.  H.  George,  in  Popular  Science  Monthly  for  August,  1880. 


446 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


cisco,  we  are  going  on  as  before,  property  will  take  care  of  itself 
in  this  country,  things  are  not  really  worse  so  far  as  our  business 
is  concerned. 

Neither  are  things  better.  It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  a 
shock,  however  short,  must  make  a  difference  to  a  community, 
and  affect  its  future  fortunes.  If  this  shock  has  so  affected 
California,  the  results  are  not  yet  apparent.  Though  the  new 
Constitution  did  not  alter  the  economic  condition  of  the  workmen 
and  farmers,  it  might  have  been  thought  that  the  crisis,  which 
suddenly  startled  this  busy  and  (in  San  Francisco)  luxurious 
society,  would  rouse  good  citizens  to  a  more  active  interest  in 
politics,  make  them  see  the  necessity  of  getting  honester  men  into 
the  offices  and  the  legislature,  and,  indeed,  of  purifying  public 
life  altogether.  But  these  consequences  do  not  seem  to  have 
followed.  In  the  stress  and  hurry  of  Californian  life,  impressions 
pass  swiftly  away.  Good  citizens  are  disposed  to  stand  aside ; 
and  among  the  richer  many  look  forward  to  a  time  when,  having 
made  their  fortunes,  they  will  go  East  to  spend  them.  San 
Francisco  in  particular  continued  to  be  deplorably  misgoverned, 
and  has  passed  from  the  tyranny  of  one  Ring  to  that  of  another, 
with  no  change  save  in  the  persons  of  those  who  prey  upon  her, 
and  in  the  fact  that  there  is  now  a  well  organized  Labour 
party  which  in  1909  carried  its  candidate  for  Mayor.  The 
earthquake  of  1906  was  incidentally  the  means  of  unveiling 
corruptions  which  led  to  a  temporary  purification  of  city  poli¬ 
tics  ;  but  there  was  presently  a  relapse.  It  may  be  that  an¬ 
other  social  and  political  shock  is  in  store  for  the  Golden  State, 
a  shock  which,  now  that  socialistic  doctrines  have  made  more 
progress,  might  be  more  violent  than  that  of  1879,  yet  still  within 
legal  limits,  for  there  seems  no  danger,  in  spite  of  such  outbreaks 
as  marked  the  great  railway  strikes  of  1894,  of  mere  mob  law 
and  anarchy.  The  forces  at  the  disposal  of  order  are  always  the 
stronger.  It  may  on  the  other  hand  be  that  as  society  settles 
down  from  the  feverish  instability  of  these  early  days,  as  the 
mass  of  the  people  acquire  a  more  enlightened  view  of  their 
true  interests,  as  those  moral  influences  which  count  for  so  much 
in  America  assert  their  dominion  more  widely,  the  present  evils 
will  slowly  pass  away.  The  president  of  the  Vigilance  Committee 
of  1856  told  me  that  all  he  had  seen  happen  in  San  Francisco, 
since  the  days  when  it  was  a  tiny  Spanish  mission,  made  him  con¬ 
fident  that  everything  would  come  out  straight.  Probably  he  is 


CHAP.  XC 


KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA 


447 


right.  American  experience  shows  that  the  optimists  generally 
are.  But  as  respects  the  municipal  government  of  this  great  city 
his  prophecy  was  in  1910  still  awaiting  fulfilment. 

Epilogue  to  this  and  the  Two  Last  Preceding 
.  Chapters 

The  illustrations  given  in  these  three  chapters  of  perversions 
of  popular  government  carry  their  moral  with  them,  and  only 
a  few  parting  comments  are  needed. 

Neither  of  the  two  great  political  parties  has  had  in  respect  of 
the  events  narrated  a  better  record  than  its  rival.  If  the 
Tammany  Ring  sheds  little  lustre  upon  the  Democrats  of  New 
York,  the  Gas  Ring  of  Philadelphia  is  no  more  creditable  to  the 
Republicans  of  Pennsylvania. 

Both  in  New  York  and  in  Philadelphia  there  was  nothing 
truly  political  in  the  character  and  career  of  the  Rings.  Tam¬ 
many  had  been  for  thirty  years  a  selfish  combination  of  men 
who  had  purely  personal  ends  to  serve ;  and  Tweed  in  par¬ 
ticular  was  a  mere  vulgar  robber.  So  the  Gas  Ring  strove 
and  throve,  and  its  successors  have  striven  and  thriven,  solely 
to  secure  patronage  and  gain  to  their  respective  members.  True 
indeed  it  is  that  neither  in  New  York  nor  in  Philadelphia  could 
the  Rings  have  won  their  way  to  power  without  the  connivance 
of  chiefs  among  the  national  parties,  who  needed  the  help  of 
the  vote  the  Rings  controlled ;  true  also  that  that  vote  would 
never  have  become  so  large  had  not  many  citizens  looked  on  the 
Rings  as  the  “regular”  organizations,  and  heirs  of  the  local 
party  traditions.  But  neither  Ring  had  ever  any  distinctive 
principles  or  proposals  :  neither  ever  appealed  to  the  people 
on  behalf  of  a  doctrine  or  a  scheme  calculated  to  benefit  the 
masses.  Lucre,  with  office  as  a  means  to  lucre,  was  their  only 
aim,  the  party  for  the  sake  of  the  party  their  only  watchword. 

What,  then,  are  the  salient  features  of  these  two  cases,  and 
what  the  lessons  they  enforce  ?  They  are  these.  The  power 
of  an  organization  in  a  multitude  ;  the  facility  with  which  the 
administrative  machinery  of  government  may  be  made  the 
instrument  of  private  gain  ;  the  disposition  of  the  average  re¬ 
spectable  citizen  to  submit  to  bad  government  rather  than 
take  the  trouble  of  overthrowing  it.  These  are  not  wholly  new 
phenomena,  but  they  are  hardly  such  as  would  have  been  looked 


448 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


for  in  the  United  States  ;  and  not  one  of  them  was  feared  when 
Tocqueville  wrote. 

Very  different,  and  far  less  discreditable  to  those  concerned, 
was  the  case  of  California.  The  movement  which  gave  birth  to 
the  new  Constitution  was  a  legitimate  political  movement.  It 
was  crude  in  its  aims,  and  tainted  with  demagogism  in  its 
methods.  But  it  was  evoked  by  real  evils  ;  'and  it  sought,  how¬ 
ever  ignorantly,  the  public  good.  Kearney  had  no  sordid 
personal  ends  to  serve,  and  gained  for  himself  nothing  more 
solid  than  notoriety.  His  agitation  was  essentially  the  same 
as  that  which  has  appeared  in  the  Western  States  under  the 
forms  of  Grangerism,  the  Farmers’  Alliance,  and  Populism, 
an  effort  to  apply  political  remedies  to  evils,  real  or  supposed, 
which  are  mainly  economic  rather  than  political,  and  only  a 
part  of  which  legislation  can  remove.  Similar  movements 
must  from  time  to  time  be  expected  ;  all  that  can  be  hoped  is 
to  keep  them  within  constitutional  lines,  and  prevent  them 
from  damaging  the  credit  and  retarding  the  prosperity  of  the 
States  they  affect.  Nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  those 
who  suffer  from  hard  times  and  see  that  a  few  men  grow  rich 
while  the  vast  majority  remain  poor  should  confound  the  mis¬ 
chiefs  which  arise  from  State  or  city  maladministration  and 
from  the  undue  power  which  the  laws  have  permitted  corpo¬ 
rations  to  acquire  with  other  hardships  due  to  the  constitution  of 
human  nature  and  the  conditions  of  the  world  we  live  in,  and 
should,  possessing  the  whole  power  of  the  State,  strike  out  wildly 
at  all  three  at  once.  In  a  country  so  little  restrained  by  ancient 
traditions  or  deference  to  the  educated  class  as  is  Western  America, 
a  country  where  the  aptitude  for  politics  is  so  much  in  advance 
of  economic  wisdom,  it  is  less  surprising  that  these  storms  should 
sometimes  darken  the  sky  than  that  they  should  uproot  so  little 
in  their  course. 


CHAPTER  XCI 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  NATION 

cThere  are  three  points  wherein  the  territories  which  consti¬ 
tute  the  United  States  present  phenomena  new  in  the  annals 
of  the  world.  They  contain  a  huge  people  whose  blood  is 
becoming  mixed  in  an  unprecedented  degree  by  the  concurrent 
immigration  of  numerous  European  races.  We  find  in  them, 
besides  the  predominant  white  nation,  ten  millions  of  men 
belonging  to  a  dark  race,  thousands  of  years  behind  in  its  intel¬ 
lectual  development,  but  legally  equal  in  political  and  civil 
rights.  And  thirdly,  they  furnish  an  instance  to  which  no  paral¬ 
lel  can  be  found  of  a  vast  area,  including  regions  very  dissimilar 
in  their  natural  features,  occupied  by  a  population  nearly  the 
whole  of  which  speaks  the  same  tongue,  and  all  of  which  lives 
under  the  same  institutions.  Of  these  phenomena  the  first 
two,  already  more  than  once  referred  to,  are  dealt  with  in 
later  chapters.  The  third  suggests  to  us  thoughts  and  ques¬ 
tions  which  cannot  pass  unnoticed  No  one  can  travel  in  the 
United  States  without  asking  himself  whether  this  immense 
territory  will  remain  united  or  be  split  up  into  a  number  of 
independent  communities  ;  whether,  even  if  it  remain  united, 
.diverse  types  of  life  and  character  will  spring  up  within  it ; 
whether  and  how  far  climatic  and  industrial  conditions  will 
affect  those  types,  carrying  them  farther  from  the  prototypes 
of  Europe.  These  questions,  as  well  as  other  questions  regard¬ 
ing  the  future  local  distribution  of  wealth  and  population,  open 
fields  of  inquiry  and  speculation  too  wide  to  be  here  explored. 
Yet  some  pages  may  well  be  given  to  a  rapid  survey  of  the  geo¬ 
graphical  conditions  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  influence 
those  conditions  have  exerted  and  may,  so  far  as  can  be  fore¬ 
seen,  continue  to  exert  on  the  growth  of  the  nation,  its  politi¬ 
cal  and  economical  development.  Beginning  with  a  few  observa¬ 
tions  first  on  the  orography  of  the  country  and  then  upon  its 
meteorology,  we  may  consider  how  mountain  ranges  and  cli- 
2  g  449 


450 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


mate  have  hitherto  affected  the  movement  of  colonization  and 
the  main  stream  of  political  history.  The  chief  natural  sources 
of  wealth  may  next  be  mentioned,  and  their  possible  effect 
indicated  upon  the  development  of  population  in  particular 
areas,  as  well  as  upon  the  preservation  of  the  permanent  unity  of 
the  Republic. 

One  preliminary  remark  must  not  be  omitted.  The  relation 
of  geographical  conditions  to  national  growth  changes,  and  with 
the  upward  progress  of  humanity  the  ways  in  which  Nature 
moulds  the  fortunes  of  man  are  always  varying.  Alan  must 
in  every  stage  be  for  many  purposes  dependent  upon  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  of  his  physical  environment.  Yet  the  character 
of  that  dependence  changes  with  his  advance  in  civilization. 
At  first  he  is  helpless,  and,  therefore,  passive.  With  what 
Nature  gives  in  the  way  of  food,  clothing,  and  lodging  he  must 
be  content.  She  is  strong,  he  is  weak  :  so  she  dictates  his  whole 
mode  of  life.  Presently,  always  by  slow  degrees,  but  most 
quickly  in  those  countries  where  she  neither  gives  lavishly  nor 
yet  presses  on  him  with  a  discouraging  severity,  he  begins  to 
learn  how  to  make  her  obey  him,  drawing  from  her  stores  materials 
which  his  skill  handles  in  such  wise  as  to  make  him  more  and 
more  independent  of  her.  He  defies  the  rigours  of  climate ; 
he  overcomes  the  obstacles  which  mountains,  rivers,  and  forests 
place  in  the  way  of  communications ;  he  discovers  the  secrets 
of  the  physical  forces  and  makes  them  his  servants  in  the  work  of 
production.  But  the  very  multiplication  of  the  means  at  his 
disposal  for  profiting  by  what  Nature  supplies  brings  him  into 
ever  closer  and  more  complex  relations  with  her.  The  variety 
of  her  resources,  differing  in  different  regions,  prescribes  the  kind 
of  industry  for  which  each  spot  is  fitted ;  and  the  competition 
of  nations,  growing  always  keener,  forces  each  to  maintain 
itself  in  the  struggle  by  using  to  the  utmost  every  facility  for 
production  or  for  the  transportation  of  products.  Thus  certain 
physical  conditions,  whether  of  soil  or  of  climate,  of  accessibility 
or  inaccessibility,  or  perhaps  of  such  available  natural  forces  as 
water-power,  conditions  of  supreme  importance  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  man’s  progress,  are  now  of  less  relative  moment,  while 
others,  formerly  of  small  account,  have  received  their  full  signifi¬ 
cance  by  our  swiftly  advancing  knowledge  of  the  secrets  of  Nature 
and  mastery  of  her  forces.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  examina¬ 
tion  of  the  influence  of  physical  environment  on  the  progress  of 


CHAP.  XCI 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  NATION 


451 


nations  so  intricate  a  matter;  for  while  the  environment  remains, 
as  a  whole,  constant,  its  several  parts  vary  in  their  importance 
from  one  age  to  another.1  A  certain  severity  of  climate,  for  in¬ 
stance,  which  retarded  the  progress  of  savage  man,  has  been 
found  helpful  to  semi-civilized  man,  in  stimulating  him  to  exer¬ 
tion,  and  in  maintaining  a  racial  vigour  greater  than  that  of  the 
inhabitants  of  those  hotter  regions  where  civilization  first  arose. 
And  thus  in  considering  how  man’s  lot  and  fate  in  the  Western 
Continent  have  been  affected  by  the  circumstances  of  that  con¬ 
tinent,  we  must  have  regard  not  only  to  what  he  found  on  his 
arrival  there,  but  to  the  resources  which  have  been  subsequently 
disclosed.  Nor  can  this  latter  head  be  exhausted,  because  it  is 
impossible  to  conjecture  what  still  latent  forces  or  capacities 
may  be  revealed  in  the  onward  march  of  science,  and  how  such 
a  revelation  may  affect  the  value  of  the  resources  now  known  to 
exist  or  hereafter  to  be  explored. 

It  is  only  on  a  very  few  salient  points  of  this  large  and  com¬ 
plex  subject  that  I  shall  touch  in  sketching  the  outlines  of  North 
American  geography  and  noting  some  of  the  effects  on  the  growth 
of  the  nation  attributable  to  them. 

The  territory  of  the  United  States  extends  nearly  3000  miles 
east  and  west  from  the  Bay  of  Funcly  to  the  mouth  of  the  Colum¬ 
bia  River,  and  1400  miles  north  and  south  from  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  at  Galveston.  Compared  with 
Europe,  the  physical  structure  of  this  area  of  3,025,000  square 
miles  2  (excluding  Alaska)  is  not  only  larger  in  scale,  but  far 
simpler.  Instead  of  the  numerous  peninsulas  and  islands  of 
Europe,  with  the  bold  and  lofty  chains  dividing  its  peoples  from 
one  another,  we  find  no  isles  (except  Long  Island)  of  any  size 
on  the  two  coasts  of  the  United  States,  only  one  large  peninsula 
(that  of  Florida),  and  only  two  mountain  systems.  Not  only 


1  Navigable  rivers,  for  instance,  were  at  one  time  the  main  channels  of  com¬ 
merce,  so  that  towns  were  founded  and  prospered  in  respect  of  the  advantages 
they  gave.  The  extension  of  railways  diminished  their  importance,  and  many 
great  cities  now  owe  their  growth  to  their  having  become  centres  where  trunk 
lines  meet.  The  discovery  of  means  of  cheaply  transmitting  electric  power 
has  given  to  flowing  water  a  new  commercial  value,  which  however  is  greatest 
where  the  streams  are  too  rapid  for  navigation. 

2  The  area  of  China,  the  country  with  which  the  United  States  is  most  fit 
to  be  compared,  since  India  and  the  Russian  Empire  are  inhabited  by  many  di¬ 
verse  races,  speaking  wholly  diverse  tongues,  is  estimated  at  1,336,000  square 
miles  ;  and  the  population,  the  estimates  of  which  range  from  280,000,000  to 
350,000,000,  may  possibly  be,  in  a.d.  2000,  equalled  by  that  of  the  United  States. 


452 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  lakes  and  rivers,  but  the  plains  also,  and  the  mountain 
ranges,  are  of  enormous  dimensions.  The  coast  presents  a  smooth 
outline.  No  great  inlets,  such  as  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Baltic,  pierce  the  land  and  cut  off  one  district  from  another,  fur¬ 
nishing  natural  boundaries  behind  which  distinct  nations  may 
grow  up. 

This  vast  area  may  be  divided  into  four  regions  — -  two  of 
level  country,  two,  speaking  roughly,  of  mountain.  Beginning 
from  the  Atlantic,  we  find  a  strip  which  on  the  coast  is  nearly 
level,  and  then  rises  gradually  westwards  into  an  undulating 
country.  It  varies  in  breadth  from  thirty  or  forty  miles  in  the 
north  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  in  the  south,  and  has  been  called 
by  geographers  the  Atlantic  Plain  and  Slope.  Behind  this  strip 
comes  a  range,  or  rather  a  mass  of  generally  parallel  ranges, 
of  mountains.  These  are  the  Alleghanies,  or  so-called  “  Appa¬ 
lachian  system/’  in  breadth  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred 
miles,  and  with  an  average  elevation  of  from  two  to  four  thou¬ 
sand  feet,  some  few  summits  reaching  six  thousand.  Beyond 
them,  still  further  to  the  west,  lies  the  vast  basin  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  and  its  tributaries,  1100  miles  wide  and  1200  miles  long. 
Its  central  part  is  an  almost  unbroken  plain  for  hundreds  of  miles 
on  each  side  the  river,  but  this  plain  rises  slowly  westward  in 
rolling  undulations  into  a  sort  of  plateau,  which,  at  the  foot  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  has  attained  the  height  of  5000  feet  above  the 
sea.  The  fourth  region  consists  of  the  thousand  miles  that  lie 
between  the  Mississippi  basin  and  the  Pacific.  It  includes 
three  not  entirely  disconnected  mountain  ranges,  the  Rockies, 
the  Sierra  Nevada  (continued  northwards  in  the  Cascade  Range), 
and  the  much  lower  Coast  Range  (or  rather  series  of  roughly 
parallel  ranges),  which  runs  along  the  shore  of  the  ocean.  This 
region  is  generally  mountainous,  though  within  it  there  are 
some  extensive  plateaux  and  some  wide  valleys.  Most  of  it 
is  from  4000  to  8000  feet  above  the  sea,  with  many  summits  ex¬ 
ceeding  14,000,  though  none  reaches  15,000.  A  considerable 
part  of  it,  including  the  desert  of  Nevada,  does  not  drain  into 
the  ocean,  but  sees  its  feeble  streams  received  by  lakes  or  swal¬ 
lowed  up  in  the  ground. 

Before  we  consider  how  these  natural  divisions  have  influ¬ 
enced,  and  must  continue  to  influence,  American  history,  it 
is  well  to  observe  how  materially  they  have  affected  the  climate 
of  the  continent,  which  is  itself  a  factor  of  prime  historical  im- 


CHAP.  XCI 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  NATION 


453 


portance.  Two  points  deserve  special  notice.  One  is  the  great 
extent  of  temperate  area  which  the  continent  presents.  As 
North  America  is  crossed  by  no  mountain  chains  running  east 
and  west,  corresponding  to  the  Alps  and  Pyrenees  in  Europe, 
or  to  the  Caucasus,  Himalaya  and  Altai  in  Asia,  the  cold  winds 
of  the  north  sweep  down  unchecked  over  the  vast  Mississippi 
plain,  and  give  its  central  and  southern  parts,  down  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  winters  cooler  than  the  latitude  seems  to  promise, 
or  than  one  finds  in  the  same  latitudes  in  Europe.  Nor  ought  the 
influence  of  the  neighbouring  seas  to  pass  unregarded.  Europe 
has,  south  of  the  narrow  Mediterranean,  a  vast  reservoir  of  heat 
in  the  Sahara  :  North  America  has  the  wide  stretch  of  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean  Sea,  with  no  region  both  hot  and 
arid  beyond.  Thus  Tennessee  and  Arkansas,  in  the  latitude  of 
Andalusia  and  Damascus  have  a  winter  like  that  of  Edinburgh 
twenty  degrees  further  to  the  north  ;  and  while  the  summer  of 
Minnesota,  in  latitude  45°,  is  as  hot  as  that  of  Bordeaux  or  Venice 
in  the  same  latitude,  the  winter  is  far  more  severe.  Only  the 
low  lands  along  the  Atlantic  coast  as  far  north  as  Cape  Hatteras 
have  a  high  winter  as  well  as  summer  temperature,  for  they  are 
warmed  by  the  hot  water  of  the  Gulf  Stream,  just  as  the  extreme 
north-eastern  coast  is  chilled  by  the  Polar  current  which  washes 
it.  The  hilly  country  behind  these  southern  Atlantic  lowlands  — 
the  western  parts  of  the  two  Carolinas,  northern  Georgia  and 
Alabama  —  belongs  to  the  Appalachian  system,  and  is  high 
enough  to  have  cool  and  in  parts  even  severe  winters. 

The  other  point  relates  to  the  amount  of  moisture.  The  first 
two  of  our  four  regions  enjoy  an  ample  rainfall.  So  do  the  eastern 
and  the  central  parts  of  the  Mississippi  basin.  When,  however, 
we  reach  the  centre  of  the  continent,  some  four  hundred  miles 
west  of  the  Mississippi,  the  air  grows  dry,  and  the  scanty  showers 
are  barely  sufficient  for  the  needs  of  agriculture.  It  is  only  by 
the  help  of  irrigation  that  crops  can  be  raised  all  along  the  east 
foot  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  in  the  valleys  of  the  fourth 
region,  until  we  cross  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  come  within  two 
hundred  miles  of  the  Pacific.  In  much  of  this  Rocky  Mountain 
region,  therefore,  stock  rearing,  or  “ ranching,”  as  it  is  called, 
takes  the  place  of  tillage,  though  the  recently  invented 
methods  of  “dry  farming”  have  enlarged  the  cultivable  area. 
In  some  districts  there  is  not  enough  moisture  even  to  sup¬ 
port  grass.  Between  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Sierra 


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ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


Nevada  there  lie  vast  deserts,  the  largest  that  which  stretches 
westward  from  the  Great  Salt  Lake,1  a  desert  of  clay  and  stones 
rather  than  of  sand,  bearing  only  alkaline  plants  with  low,  prickly 
shrubs,  and,  apparently,  destined  to  remain,  save  in  some  few 
spots  where  brooks  descend  from  the  mountains,2  eternally 
sterile  and  solitary.  Lofty  as  these  environing  mountains  are, 
they  bear  scarce  any  perpetual  snow,  and  no  glaciers  at  all  south 
of  the  fortieth  parallel  of  north  latitude.3  The  great  peaks 
of  Colorado  lie  little  further  south  than  the  Pennine  Alps,  which 
they  almost  equal  in  height,  but  it  is  only  in  nooks  and  hollows 
turned  away  from  the  sun  that  snow  lasts  through  the  summer, 
so  scanty  is  the  winter  snow-fall  and  so  rapidly  does  evaporation 
proceed  in  the  dry  air.  That  same  general  north  and  south  direc¬ 
tion  of  the  American  mountain  ranges,  which  gives  cool  winters 
to  the  Southern  States,  cuts  off  the  west-borne  rain-clouds  from 
the  Pacific,  and  condemns  one-half  or  more  of  our  fourth  region 
to  aridity.  On  the  other  hand,  North-western  California,  with 
the  western  parts  of  Oregon  and  Washington,  washed  by  the 
Japan  current,  enjoy  both  a  moderate  and  a  humid  —  in  some 
places  very  humid  —  climate,  which,  along  the  Pacific  coast 
north  of  latitude  43°,  resembles  that  of  South-western  England. 

Reserving  for  the  moment  a  consideration  of  the  wealth-pro¬ 
ducing  capacities  of  the  regions  at  whose  physical  structure  and 
climate  we  have  glanced,  let  us  note  how  that  structure  and  cli¬ 
mate  have  affected  the  fortunes  of  the  people. 

Whoever  examines  the  general  lines  of  a  nation’s  growth  will 
observe  that  its  development  has  been  guided  and  governed  by 
three  main  factors.  The  first  is  the  pre-existing  character  and 
habits  of  the  Race  out  of  which  the  Nation  grows.  The  second 
is  the  physical  aspect  of  the  land  the  Nation  is  placed  in,  and  the 
third  embraces  the  international  concomitants  of  its  formation, 
• —  that  is  to  say,  the  pressure  of  other  nations  upon  it,  and  the 
external  political  circumstances  which  have  controlled  its  move¬ 
ment,  checking  it  in  one  direction  or  making  it  spread  in  another. 


1  Similar  but  smaller  deserts  occur  in  Idaho  and  South-eastern  Oregon,  and 
also  in  the  extreme  south-west.  Part  of  the  desert  of  Southern  California  is, 
like  part  of  the  Sahara  and  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea,  beneath 
the  level  of  the  ocean. 

2  In  Central  Colorado,  when  snow  falls,  it  does  not  melt  but  disappears  by 
evaporation,  so  dry  is  the  air.  Sir  J.  D.  Hooker  has  (in  his  Himalayan  Jour¬ 
nals)  noted  the  same  phenomenon  in  Tibet. 

3  There  is  a  small  glacier  on  Mount  Shasta. 


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The  first  of  these  factors  may,  in  the  case  of  the  American  people, 
be  assumed  as  known,  for  their  character  and  habits  were 
substantially  English.1  To  the  second  I  will  return  presently. 
The  third  factor  has  been  in  the  United  States  so  unusually 
simple  that  one  may  dismiss  it  in  a  few  sentences.  In  examining 
the  origin  of  such  nations  as  the  German  or  French  or  Russian 
or  Swiss  or  Spanish,  one  must  constantly  have  regard  to  the  hostile 
or  friendly  races  or  powers  which  acted  on  them  ;  and  these  mat¬ 
ters  are,  for  the  earlier  periods  of  European  history,  often  ob¬ 
scure.  About  America  we  know  everything,  and  what  we  know 
may  be  concisely  stated.  The  territory  now  covered  by  the 
United  States  was,  from  a  political  point  of  view,  practically 
vacant  when  discovered  in  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century ; 
for  the  aborigines,  though  their  resistance  was  obstinate  in  places, 
and  though  that  resistance  did  much  to  form  the  character  of  the 
Western  pioneers,  may  be  left  out  of  account  as  a  historical 
force.  This  territory  was  settled  from  three  sides,  east,  south, 
and  west,  and  by  three  European  peoples.  The  Spaniards  and 
French  occupied  points  on  the  coast  of  the  Gulf.  The  Span¬ 
iards  took  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  The  English  (reckoning 
among  the  English  the  cognate  Dutchmen  and  Swedes)  planted 
a  series  of  communities  along  the  Atlantic  coast.  Of  these 
three  independent  colonizations,  that  on  the  Gulf  was  feeble, 
and  passed  by  purchase  to  the  Anglo-Americans  in  1803  and 
1819.  That  on  the  Pacific  was  still  more  feeble,  and  also 
passed,  but  by  conquest,  to  the  Anglo-Americans  in  1848. 
Thus  the  occupation  of  the  country  has  been  from  its  eastern 
side  alone  (save  that  California  received  her  immigrants  by 
sea  between  1847  and  1867),  and  the  march  of  the  people 
has  been  steadily  westward  and  south-westward.  They  have 
spread  where  they  would.  Other  powers  have  scarcely  affected 
them.  Canada,  indeed,  bounds  them  on  the  north,  but  not 
till  about  1890  did  they  begin  to  settle  in  the  rich  wheat  lands  of 
her  North-West,  while  from  1860  onwards  there  has  been  a  con¬ 
siderable  immigration  from  Eastern  Canada  into  the  bordering 

1  There  were  doubtless  other  influences,  especially  Dutch  ;  and  the  Scoto- 
Irish  element  differed  somewhat  from  the  English.  But  these  are,  after  all, 
relatively  small,  not  ten  per  cent,  so  to  speak,  of  the  whole.  Far  more  impor¬ 
tant  than  the  diverse  elements  of  blood  were  the  conditions  of  colonial,  and 
especially  of  frontier,  life  which  moulded  the  young  nation,  repeating  in  the 
period  between  1780  and  1820  many  of  the  phenomena  which  had  accompanied 
the  first  settlements  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


456 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


parts  of  the  United  States.  Like  the  Spaniards  in  South  Amer¬ 
ica,  like  the  British  in  Australia,  like  the  Russians  in  Siberia, 
the  Anglo-Americans  have  had  a  free  field ;  and  we  may  pass 
from  the  purely  political  or  international  factor  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  nation  to  consider  how  its  history  has  been  affected 
by  those  physical  conditions  which  have  been  previously  noted. 

The  English  in  America  were,  when  they  began  their  march, 
one  people,  though  divided  into  a  number  of  autonomous  com¬ 
munities  ;  and,  to  a  people  already  advanced  in  civilization, 
the  country  was  one  country,  as  if  destined  by  nature  to  retain 
one  and  undivided  whatever  nation  might  occupy  it. 

The  first  settlements  were  in  the  region  described  above  as 
the  Atlantic  Plain  and  Slope.  No  natural  boundary,  whether 
of  water  or  mountain  or  forest,  divided  the  various  communi¬ 
ties.  The  frontier  line  which  bounded  each  colony  was  an 
artificial  line,  —  a  mere  historical  accident.  So  long  as  they 
remained  near  the  coast,  nature  opposed  no  obstacle  to  their 
co-operation  in  war,  nor  to  their  free  social  and  commercial  inter¬ 
course  in  peace.  When,  however,  they  had  advanced  westwards 
as  far  as  the  Alleghanies,  these  mountains  barred  their  prog¬ 
ress,  not  so  much  in  the  North,  where  the  valley  of  the  Hudson 
and  Mohawk  gave  an  easy  path  inland,  as  in  Pennsylvania, 
Virginia,  and  Carolina.  The  dense,  tangled,  and  often  thorny 
underwood,  even  more  than  the  high  steep  ridges,  checked  the 
westward  movement  of  population,  prevented  the  settlers  from 
spreading  out  widely,  as  the  Spaniards  dispersed  themselves 
over  Central  and  South  America,  and  helped,  by  inducing  a 
comparatively  dense  population,  to  build  up  compact  common¬ 
wealths  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  So,  too,  the  existence  of  this 
rough  and,  for  a  long  time,  almost  impassable  mountain  belt, 
tended  to  cut  off  those  who  had  crossed  it  into  the  western 
wilderness  from  their  more  polished  parent  stock,  to  throw 
them  on  their  own  resources  in  the  struggle  with  the  fierce  abo¬ 
rigines  of  Kentucky  and  Ohio,  and  to  give  them  that  distinctive 
character  of  frontiersmen  which  was  so  marked  a  feature  of 
American  history  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  and  has  left  deep  traces  on  the  Western  men  of  to-day. 

When  population  began  to  fill  the  Mississippi  basin  the 
essential  physical  unity  of  the  country  became  more  signifi¬ 
cant.  It  suggested  to  Jefferson,  and  it  led  Congress  to  approve, 
the  purchase  of  Louisiana  from  Napoleon,  for  those  who  had 


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begun  to  occupy  the  valleys  of  the  Ohio  and  Tennessee  rivers 
felt  that  they  could  not  afford  to  be  cut  off  from  the  sea  to 
which  these  highways  of  commerce  led.  Once  the  stream  of 
migration  across,  and  around  the  southern  extremity  of,  the  Alle- 
ghanies  had  begun  to  flow  steadily,  the  settlers  spread  out  in  all 
directions  over  the  vast  plain,  like  water  over  a  marble  floor. 
The  men  of  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  filled  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
and  Arkansas  ;  the  men  of  Virginia  and  Kentucky  filled  Southern 
Indiana,  Southern  Illinois,  and  Missouri ;  the  men  of  New 
England,  New  York,  and  Ohio  filled  Michigan,  Northern  Illinois, 
Wisconsin,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota.  From  the  source  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi  there  was  nothing  to  break  them  up 
or  keep  them  apart.  Every  Western  State,  except  where  it  takes 
a  river  as  a  convenient  boundary,  is  bounded  by  straight  lines, 
because  every  State  is  an  artificial  creation.  The  people  were 
one,  and  the  wide  featureless  plain  was  also  one.  It  has  been 
cut  into  those  huge  plots  we  call  States,  not  because  there  were 
physical  or  racial  differences  requiring  divisions,  but  merely 
because  political  reasons  made  a  Federal  seem  preferable  to  a 
unitary  system.  As  the  size  of  the  plain  showed  that  the  nation 
would  be  large,  so  did  the  character  of  the  plain  promise  that  it 
would  remain  united.  When  presently  steamers  came  to  ply 
upon  the  rivers,  each  part  of  the  vast  level  was  linked  more 
closely  to  the  others  ;  and  when  the  network  of  railways  spread 
itself  out  from  the  East  to  the  Mississippi,  the  Alleghanies  prac¬ 
tically  disappeared.  They  were  no  longer  a  barrier  to  communi¬ 
cation.  Towns  sprang  up  in  their  valleys  ;  and  now  the  three 
regions,  which  have  been  described  as  naturally  distinct,  the 
Atlantic  Slope,  the  Alleghanies,  and  the  Mississippi  Basin,  have 
become,  economically  and  socially  as  well  as  politically,  one 
country,  though  the  dwellers  in  the  wilder  parts  of  the  broad 
mountain  belt  still  lag  far  behind  their  neighbours  of  the  east¬ 
ern  and  western  lowlands. 

When,  however,  the  swelling  tide  of  emigration  reached  the 
arid  lands  at  the  eastern  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  its 
course  was  for  a  time  stayed.  This  fourth  region  of  mountain 
and  desert,  lying  between  the  prairies  of  the  Mississippi  affluents 
and  the  Pacific  Ocean,  was,  except  its  coast  line,  a  practically 
unknown  land  till  its  cession  by  Mexico  in  1846,  and  the  inner 
and  higher  parts  of  it  remained  unexplored  for  some  twenty  years 
longer.  As  it  was  mostly  dry  and  rugged,  there  was  little  to  tempt 


458 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


settlers,  for  vast  tracts  of  good  land  remained  untouched  in  the 
central  Mississippi  plain.  Many  years  might  have  passed  be¬ 
fore  it  began  to  fill  up,  but  for  the  unexpected  finding  of  gold 
in  California.  This  event  at  once  drew  in  thousands  of  settlers  ; 
and  fresh  swarms  followed  as  other  mines,  principally  of  silver, 
began  to  be  discovered  in  the  inland  mountain  ranges ;  till  at 
last  for  the  difficult  and  dangerous  wagon  track  there  was  sub¬ 
stituted  a  railway,  completed  in  1869,  over  mountains  and 
through  deserts  from  the  Missouri  to  the  Pacific.  Had  the 
Americans  of  1850  possessed  no  more  scientific  resources  than 
their  grandfathers  in  1790,  the  valleys  of  the  Pacific  coast, 
accessible  only  by  sea  round  Cape  Horn,  or  across  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama,  would  have  remained  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  coun¬ 
try,  with  a  tendency  to  form  a  character  and  habits  of  their  own, 
and  possibly  disposed  to  aim  at  political  independence.  This, 
however,  the  telegraph  and  the  railways  have  prevented.  Yet 
the  Rocky  Mountains  have  not,  like  the  Alleghanies,  disap¬ 
peared.  The  populous  parts  of  California,  Oregon,  and  Wash¬ 
ington  still  find  that  range  and  the  deserts  a  far  more  effective 
barrier  than  are  the  lower  and  narrower  ridges  on  the  eastern 
side  of  the  continent.  The  fourth  region  remains  a  distinct 
section  of  the  United  States,  both  geographically  and  to  some 
extent  in  its  social  and  industrial  aspects.  All  this  was  to  be 
expected.  What  need  not  have  happened,  and  might  even  have 
been  thought  unlikely,  was  the  easy  acquisition  by  the  Anglo- 
Americans  of  California,  Oregon,  and  Washington,  regions  far 
removed  from  the  dominions  which  the  Republic  already 
possessed.  Had  the  competition  for  unappropriated  temperate 
regions  been  half  as  keen  in  1840  as  it  was  fifty  years  later  for 
tropical  Africa  (a  less  attractive  possession)  between  Germany, 
France,  and  Britain,  some  European  power  might  have  pounced 
upon  these  territories.  They  might  then  have  become  and 
remained  a  foreign  country  to  the  United  States,  and  have 
had  few  and  comparatively  slight  relations  with  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  Basin.  It  is  not  nature,  but  the  historical  accident  which 
left  them  in  the  hands  of  a  feeble  power  like  Mexico,  that  has 
made  them  now,  and,  so  far  as  can  be  foreseen,  for  a  long  future, 
members  of  the  great  Federation. 

In  the  south-east  as  well  as  in  the  west  of  the  North  Ameri¬ 
can  Continent,  climate  has  been  a  prime  factor  in  determining 
the  industrial  and  political  history  of  the  nation.  South  of 


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459 


the  thirty-fifth  parallel  of  latitude,  although  the  winters  are 
cool  enough  to  be  reinvigorative,  and  to  enable  a  race  drawn 
from  Northern  Europe  to  thrive  and  multiply,1  the  summers, 
are,  in  the  lowest  grounds,  too  hot  for  such  a  race  to  sustain 
hard  open-air  work,  or  to  resist  the  malaria  of  the  marshy 
coast  lands.  Thus  when  very  soon  after  the  settlement  of 
Virginia,  and  for  nearly  two  centuries  afterwards,  natives  of 
the  tropics  were  imported  from  Africa  and  set  to  till  the  fields, 
this  practice  was  defended  on  the  ground  of  necessity,  though 
the  districts  in  which  white  people  cannot  work  have  now  been 
shown  to  be  very  few  indeed.  By  this  African  labour  large 
crops  of  tobacco,  cotton,  rice,  and  sugar  were  raised,  and  large 
profits  made  ;  so  that,  while  in  the  North-eastern  States  slavery 
presently  died  out,  and  the  negroes  themselves  declined  in  num¬ 
bers,  all  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  South  came  to  depend 
upon  slave  labour,  and  slavery  became  intertwined  with  the 
pecuniary  interests  as  well  as  the  social  habits  of  the  ruling  class. 
Thus  a  peculiar  form  of  civilization  grew  up,  so  dissimilar  from 
that  of  the  northern  half  of  the  country,  that  not  even  the  large 
measure  of  State  independence  secured  under  the  Federal  Con¬ 
stitution  could  enable  the  two  sections  to  live  together  under  the 
same  government.  Civil  war  followed,  and  for  a  time  it  seemed 
as  if  the  nation  were  to  be  permanently  rent  in  twain.  Physical 
differences  —  differences  of  climate,  and  of  all  those  industrial 
and  social  conditions  that  were  due  to  climate  —  were  at  the 
bottom  of  the  strife.  Yet  Nature  herself  fought  for  imperilled 
unity.  Had  the  seceding  States  been  divided  from  the  North¬ 
ern  States  by  any  natural  barrier,  such  as  a  mountain  range 
running  from  east  to  west  across  the  continent,  the  operations 
of  the  invading  armies  would  have  been  incomparably  more 
difficult.  As  it  was,  the  path  into  the  South  lay  open,  and  the 
great  south-flowing  rivers  of  the  West  helped  the  invader.  Had 
there  not  existed,  in  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  a  broad  belt  of 
elevated  land,  thrusting  into  the  revolted  territory  a  wedge  of 
white  population  which,  as  it  did  not  own  slaves  (for  in  the 
mountains  there  were  scarce  any),  did  not  sympathize  with 
Secession,  and  for  the  most  part  actively  opposed  it,  the  chances 
of  the  Southern  Confederates  would  have  been  far  greater. 
The  Alleghanies  interrupted  the  co-operation  of  their  Eastern 

1  New  Orleans  is  in  the  same  latitude  as  Delhi,  whence  the  children  of  Euro¬ 
peans  have  to  be  sent  home  in  order  that  they  may  grow  up  in  health. 


460 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS- 


PART  V 


and  Western  armies,  and  furnished  recruits  as  well  as  adherents 
to  the  North  ;  and  it  need  hardly  be  added  that  the  climatic 
conditions  of  the  South  made  its  white  population  so  much 
smaller,  and  on  the  whole  so  much  poorer,  than  that  of  the 
North,  that  exhaustion  came  far  sooner.  He  who  sees  the 
South  even  to-day,  when  it  has  in  many  places  gained  vastly 
since  the  war,  is  surprised  not  that  it  succumbed,  but  that  it 
was  able  so  long  to  resist. 

With  the  extinction  of  slavery,  the  political  unity  of  the 
country  was  secured,  and  the  purpose  of  nature  to  make  it  the 
domain  of  a  single  people  might  seem  to  have  been  fulfilled. 
Before  we  inquire  whether  this  result  will  be  a  permanent  one, 
so  far  as  physical  causes  are  concerned,  another  set  of  physical 
conditions  deserves  to  be  considered,  those  conditions,  namely, 
of  earth  and  sky,  which  determine  the  abundance  of  useful 
products,  that  is  to  say,  of  wealth,  and  therethrough,  of  popu¬ 
lation  also. 

The  chief  natural  sources  of  wealth  are  fertile  soils,  mineral 
deposits,  and  standing  timber.1  Of  these  three  the  last  is  now 
practically  confined  to  three  districts,  —  the  hills  of  Maine,  the 
Alleghanies,  and  the  ranges  of  the  Pacific  coast,  especially  in 
Washington,  with  a  few  spots  in  the  Rockies,  and  the  Sierra 
Nevada.  Elsewhere,  though  there  is  a  great  deal  of  wooded 
country,  the  cutting  and  exporting  of  timber,  or,  as  it  is  called 
beyond  the  Atlantic,  “  lumber, ”  is  not  (except  perhaps  in 
Michigan)  an  important  industry  which  employs  or  enriches 
many  persons.  It  is,  moreover,  one  which  constantly  declines, 
for  the  forests  perish  daily  before  fires  and  the  axe  far  more 
swiftly  than  nature  can  renew  them. 

As  no  nation  possesses  so  large  an  area  of  land  available  for 
the  sustenance  of  man,  so  also  none  of  the  greatest  nations 
can  boast  that  out  of  its  whole  domain,  so  large  a  proportion 
of  land  is  fit  for  tillage  or  for  stock-rearing.  If  we  except 
the  stony  parts  of  New  England  and  Eastern  New  York,  where 
the  soil  is  thinly  spread  over  crystalline  rocks,  and  the  sandy 
districts  which  cover  a  considerable  area  in  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina,  nearly  the  whole  of  the  more  level  tracts  between 

1  I  omit  the  fisheries,  because  their  commercial  importance  is  confined  to 
three  districts,  the  coasts  of  Maine  and  Massachusetts,  the  rivers  of  Wash¬ 
ington  and  parts  of  Alaska,  and  the  seal-bearing  Pribyloff  Isles.  The  sea 
fisheries  of  the  Pacific  coast  (Washington,  Oregon,  and  California)  are  still 
not  fully  developed. 


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461 


the  Atlantic  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  is  good  agricultural 
land,  while  in  some  districts,  especially  on  the  upper  Missis¬ 
sippi,  this  land  has  proved  remarkably  rich.  Which  soils 
will  in  the  long  run  turn  out  most  fertile,  cannot  yet  be  pre¬ 
dicted.  The  prairie  lands  of  the  North-west  have  needed 
least  labour  and  have  given  the  largest  returns  to  their  first 
cultivators ;  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  this  superiority  will 
be  maintained  when  protracted  tillage  has  made  artificial 
aids  necessary,  as  has  already  happened  in  not  a  few  places. 
Some  of  the  soils  in  the  Eastern  and  Southern  States  are  said 
to  improve  with  cultivation,  being  rich  in  mineral  constituents. 
Not  less  rich  than  the  Mississippi  prairies,  but  far  smaller 
in  area,  are  the  arable  tracts  of  the  Pacific  slope,  where,  in 
Washington  especialty,  the  loam  formed  by  the  decomposition 
of  the  trappean  rocks  is  eminently  productive.  In  the  inner 
parts  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  region  and  between  the  Rockies 
and  the  Pacific  coast,  lie  many  plains  and  valleys  of  great 
natural  fertility,  but  dependent,  so  deficient  is  the  rainfall, 
upon  an  artificial  supply  of  water.  The  construction  of  irri¬ 
gation  works,  and  the  sinking  of  artesian  wells  has,  since  1890, 
brought  large  areas  under  cultivation,  the  discovery  of  dry 
farming  methods  promises  to  make  available  others  where 
irrigation  cannot  be  employed,  and  it  is  probable  that  much 
more  may  still  be  done  to  reclaim  tracts  which  were  not  long 
ago  deemed  hopelessly  sterile.  The  Mormon  settlements  on 
the  east  and  to  the  south  of  Great  Salt  Lake  were  the  first 
considerable  districts  to  be  thus  reclaimed  by  patient  industry. 

In  estimating  mineral  resources,  it  is  well  to  distinguish 
between  mines  of  gold,  silver,  copper,  and  lead  on  the  one 
hand,  and  those  of  coal  and  iron  on  the  other.  The  former 
are  numerous,  and  have  given  vast  wealth  to  a  few  lucky  specu¬ 
lators.  In  some  parts  of  the  Rockies  and  the  ranges  link¬ 
ing  them  to  the  Sierra  Nevada,  the  traveller  saw,  even  as  early 
as  1881,  silver  mining  claims  staked  out  on  every  hill.  But 
these  mines  are  uncertain  in  their  yield ;  and  the  value  of 
silver  is  subject  to  great  fluctuations.  The  growth  of  elec¬ 
trical  industries  has  of  late  years  enhanced  the  importance  of 
copper,  also  a  metal  the  price  of  which  oscillates  violently. 
Coal  and  iron  present  a  surer,  if  less  glittering  gain,  and  they 
are  needed  for  the  support  of  many  gigantic  undertakings. 
Now,  while  gold,  silver,  and  lead  are  chiefly  found  in  the  Rocky 


462 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


Mountain  and  Sierra  Nevada  system,  copper  mainly  in  the  West 
and  on  Lake  Superior,  the  greatest  coal  and  iron  districts1  are 
in  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  and  along  the  line  of  the  Alleghanies 
southwards  into  Alabama.  It  is  chiefly  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  coal  deposits  that  manufactures  develop,  yet  not  exclusively 
for  the  water-power  available  along  the  foot  of  the  New  Eng¬ 
land  hills  led  to  the  establishment  of  many  factories  there,  which 
still  remain  and  flourish  under  changed  conditions,  receiving 
their  coal,  however,  largely  by  sea  from  Nova  Scotia.  Mineral 
oils,  first  largely  exploited  in  Pennsylvania,  and  then  in  Ohio, 
have  been  discovered  in  many  other  regions,  and  most  recently 
in  Texas,  Oklahoma,  and  California. 

What  has  been  the  result  of  these  conditions,  and  what  do 
they  promise  ? 

First :  An  agricultural  population  in  the  Mississippi  Basin 
already  great,  and  capable  of  reaching  dimensions  from  which 
imagination  recoils,  for  though  the  number  of  persons  to  the 
square  mile  will  be  less  than  in  Bengal  or  Egypt,  where  the 
peasants’  standard  of  comfort  is  incomparably  lower  than  that 
of  the  American  farmer,  it  may  be  as  dense  as  in  the  most 
prosperous  agricultural  districts  of  Europe. 

Secondly :  An  industrial  population  now  almost  equalling 
the  agricultural,2  concentrated  chiefly  in  the  North-eastern 
States  and  along  the  skirts  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  in  large 
cities  springing  up  here  and  there  where  (as  at  Chicago,  Cleve¬ 
land,  Minneapolis,  and  St.  Louis)  commerce  plants  its  centres 
Of  exchange  and  distribution.  This  industrial  population  grows 
far  more  swiftly  than  the  agricultural,  and  the  aggregate  value 
of  manufactured  products  increases  faster  from  census  to  census 
than  does  that  of  the  products  of  the  soil. 

Thirdly  :  A  similar  but  very  much  smaller  agricultural  and 
industrial  population  along  the  Pacific,  five-sixths  of  it  within 
eighty  miles  of  the  coast. 

Fourthly :  Between  the  Mississippi  Basin  and  this  well- 
peopled  Pacific  shore  a  wide  and  very  thinly  inhabited  tract, 
sometimes  quite  arid,  and  therefore  a  wilderness,  sometimes 

1  There  are  other  smaller  coal  districts,  including  one  in  Washington,  on 
the  shores  of  Puget  Sound. 

2  The  population  inhabiting  cities  of  8000  people  and  upwards  was  in  1910 
still  only  33.1  per  cent  of  the  total  population  (though  in  the  North  Atlantic 
division  it  reached  58. G  per  cent).  But  a  large  part  of  those  engaged  in  mining 
or  manufactures  may  be  found  in  places  below  that  limit  of  population. 


CHAP.  XCI 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  NATION 


463 


showing  grass-bearing  hills  with  sheep  or  cattle,  and  a  few 
ranchmen  upon  the  hill-slopes,  more  rarely  valleys  which  irri¬ 
gation  has  taught  to  wave  with  crops.  And  here  and  there 
through  this  tract,  redeeming  it  from  solitude,  there  will  lie 
scattered  mining  towns,  many  of  them  quick  to  rise  and  almost 
as  quick  to  vanish,  but  others  destined,  if  placed  in  the  cen¬ 
tre  of  a  mining  district,  to  maintain  a  more  permanent  impor¬ 
tance. 

Thus  the  enormous  preponderance  of  population  will  be  on 
the  eastern  side  of  the  continental  watershed.  It  was  so  in 
1900,  —  56,000,000,  of  people  against  6,000,000,  —  it  is  likely  to 
remain  so,  though  the  disparity  may  be  somewhat  less  marked. 
The  face  of  the  nation  will  be  turned  eastward  ;  and,  to  borrow 
a  phrase  of  Lowell’s,  the  front  door  of  their  house  will  open 
upon  the  Atlantic,  the  back  door  upon  the  Pacific.  Faint  and 
few,  so  far  as  we  can  now  predict,  though  far  greater  than  at 
this  moment,  and  likely  to  increase  rapidly  after  the  opening 
of  the  Panama  Canal,  will  be  the  relations  maintained  with 
Eastern  Asia  and  Australia  across  the  vast  expanse  of  that 
ocean  compared  with  those  that  must  exist  with  Europe,  to 
which  not  only  literature  and  social  interests,  but  commerce 
also,  will  bind  America  by  ties  growing  always  closer  and  more 
numerous. 

That  the  inhabitants  of  this  territory  will  remain  one  nation 
is  the  conclusion  to  which,  as  already  observed,  the  geography 
of  the  continent  points.  Considerations  of  an  industrial  and 
commercial  kind  enforce  this  forecast.  The  United  States, 
with  nearly  all  the  vegetable  staples  of  the  temperate  zone, 
and  many  that  may  be  called  subtropical,  has  within  its  borders 
a  greater  variety  of  products,  mineral  as  well  as  vegetable, 
than  any  other  country,  and  therefore  a  wider  basis  for  inter¬ 
nal  interchange  of  commodities.  Free  Trade  with  other  coun¬ 
tries,  desirable  as  it  may  be,  is  of  less  consequence  where  a 
vast  home  trade,  stretching  across  a  whole  continent,  has 
its  freedom  secured  by  the  Constitution.  The  advantages 
of  such  freedom  to  the  wheat  and  maize  growers  of  the  West, 
to  the  cotton  and  rice  and  sugar  planters  of  the  Gulf  States,  to 
the  orange  growers  of  Florida  and  the  vine  and  fruit  growers 
of  California,  to  the  cattle  men  of  the  West  and  the  horse 
breeders  of  Kentucky  and  Idaho,  to  the  lumbermen  of  Maine 
and  Washington,  to  the  coal  and  iron  men  of  Pennsylvania 
2  H 


464 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


and  the  Alleghany  States,  to  the  factories  of  New  England, 
both  employers  and  workmen,  as  well  as  to  the  consuming 
populations  of  the  great  cities,  are  so  obvious  as  to  constitute 
an  immense  security  against  separatist  tendencies.  Such  ad¬ 
vantages,  coupled  with  the  social  and  political  forces  discussed 
in  other  chapters,  are  now  amply  sufficient  to  hold  the  Pacific 
States  to  the  Union,  despite  the  obstacles  which  nature  has 
interposed.  In  earlier  stages  of  society  these  obstacles  might 
well  have  proved  insurmountable.  Had  communication  been 
as  difficult  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  it  was 
in  the  sixteenth,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Pacific  coast  might 
have  formed  a  distinct  nationality  and  grown  into  independent 
States  ;  while  in  the  inner  recesses  of  the  wide  mountain  land 
other  and  probably  smaller  communities  would  have  sprung 
up,  less  advanced  in  culture,  and  each  developing  a  type  of 
its  own.  But  the  age  we  five  in  favours  aggregation.  The 
assimilative  power  of  language,  institutions,  and  ideas,  as  well 
as  of  economic  and  industrial  forces,  is  enormous,  especially 
when  this  influence  proceeds  from  so  vast  a  body  aS  that 
of  the  American  people  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  com¬ 
pared  to  which  the  dwellers  on  the  western  slope  are  still  but 
few.  The  failure  of  the  Mormon  attempt  to  found  a  State 
is  an  instance  to  show  how  vain  is  the  effort  to  escape  from 
these  influences ;  for  even  without  an  exertion  of  the  military 
power  of  the  United  States,  they  must  soon,  by  the  natural 
process  of  colonization,  have  been  absorbed  into  its  mass. 
There  is,  accordingly,  no  such  reason  to  expect  detachment 
now  as  there  might  have  been  had  neither  railroads  nor  tele¬ 
graphs  existed,  and  California  been  accessible  only  round 
Cape  Horn  or  across  the  Isthmus.  Now  seven  great  trunk  lines 
cross  the  continent ;  and  though  much  of  the  territory  which 
lies  between  the  populous  margin  of  the  Pacific  and  the  cities 
of  Colorado,  Nebraska,  and  Dakota  is  and  must  remain  wild 
and  barren,  many  settlements,  mining,  pastoral,  and  even  agri¬ 
cultural,  have  begun  to  spring  up  in  this  intervening  space, 
and  the  unpeopled  gaps  are  narrowing  day  by  day.  Especially 
along  the  line  of  the  more  northerly  railroads,  population, 
though  it  must  always  be  sparse,  may  become  practically  con¬ 
tinuous.  A  close,  observer  can,  however,  detect  some  differ¬ 
ences  in  character  between  Californians  and  the  Americans  of 
the  Eastern  and  Mississippi  States ;  and  it  is  possible,  though 


CHAP.  XCI 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  NATION 


465 


perhaps  hardly  probable,  that  when  immigration  has  ceased, 
and  the  Pacific  coasts  and  valleys  are  peopled  by  the  great 
grandchildren  of  Californians  and  Oregonians,  this  difference 
may  become  more  marked,  and  a  Pacific  variety  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  species  be  discernible. 

We  have  so  far  been  proceeding  on  the  assumption  that  the 
inhabitants  of  the  United  States  will  be  in  the  future  what 
they  have  been  during  the  last  three  generations.  It  must, 
however,  be  admitted  that  two  agents  are  at  work  which  may 
create  differences  between  those  who  occupy  different  parts  of 
the  country  greater  than  any  which  now  exist.  One  of  these 
is  immigration  from  Europe,  whereof  I  will  only  say  that 
reasons  have  been  given  in  a  later  chapter  for  doubting 
whether  it  will  substantially  alter  the  people  in  any  section 
of  the  country,  so  strong  is  the  assimilative  power  which  the 
existing  population  exerts  on  the  newcomers.1  Large  as  it 
has  been,  it  has  nowhere  yet  affected  the  English  spoken ; 
and  one  may  indeed  note  that  though  there  are  marked 
differences  of  pronunciation  there  are,  as  respects  the  words, 
hardly  any  dialectic  variations  over  the  vast  area  of  the 
Union.  The  other  is  climate.  Now  climatic  influences  seem 
to  work  but  slowly  on  a  national  type  already  moulded  and,  so 
to  speak,  hammered  into  a  definite  shape  by  many  centuries. 
The  English  race  is,  after  all,  a  very  recent  arrival  in  Amer¬ 
ica.  Few,  indeed,  of  the  progenitors  of  the  present  dwellers  in 
the  South  have  been  settled  there  for  two  centuries  ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  present  generation  is  at  most  only  the  sixth  on 
which  the  climate  has  had  time  to  tell.  It  is  therefore  quite 
possible  that,  when  five  or  six  more  centuries  have  passed, 
the  lowlanders  of  the  Gulf  States  may,  under  the  ener¬ 
vating  heat  of  their  summers,  together  with  the  desistance 
from  physical  exertion  which  that  heat  compels,  have  become 
different  from  what  they  now  are ;  though  the  comparative 
coolness  and  consequent  reinvigorative  powers  of  the  winters, 
and  the  infiltration  into  their  population  of  newcomers  from 
the  hardier  North,  will  be  influences  working  in  the  contrary 
direction.2  The  moral  and  social  sentiments  predominant  in 

1  See  Chapter  XCII. 

2  The  malarial  fevers  might  tell  in  the  same  direction,  but  science  has  done 
so  much  to  diminish  their  prevalence  that  this  deleterious  influence  counts  for 
less  to-day  than  it  did  through  last  century.  Of  the  negroes,  the  race  more 
naturally  fitted  for  these  Gulf  lowlands,  I  shall  speak  in  a  later  chapter. 


466 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


a  nation,  and  the  atmosphere  of  ideas  it  breathes,  tend,  as 
education  is  more  and  more  diffused,  and  the  movements  of 
travel  to  and  fro  become  constantly  brisker,  to  be  more  and 
more  powerful  forces  in  producing  similarity  of  character,  and 
similarity  of  character  tells  on  the  man’s  whole  life  and  con¬ 
stitution. 

A  like  question  has  been  raised  regarding  the  whole  people 
of  the  United  States  as  compared  with  the  European  stocks 
whence  they  sprung.  The  climate  of  their  new  country  is  one 
of  greater  extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  and  its  air  more  generally 
stimulative,  than  are  the  climate  and  air  of  the  British  Isles, 
or  even  of  Germany  and  Scandinavia.  That  this  climate 
should,  given  sufficient  time,  modify  the  physical  type  of  a 
race,  and  therewith  even  its  intellectual  type,  seems  only 
natural.  Arctic  winters  and  scanty  nutriment  have,  in  nine 
centuries,  markedly  reduced  the  stature  of  the  Norwegians 
who  inhabit  Iceland,  a  country  which  has  received  practically 
no  admixture  of  foreign  blood,  while  the  stern  conditions  of 
their  lonely  life  have  given  them  mental  and  moral  habits 
distinguishable  from  those  of  the  natives  of  modern  Norway. 
But  the  problem  is  an  obscure  one,  for  many  elements  be¬ 
sides  climate  enter  into  it ;  and  history  supplies  so  few  cases 
in  point,  that  the  length  of  time  required  to  modify  a  physi¬ 
cal  type  already  settled  for  centuries  is  matter  for  mere  con¬ 
jecture.  There  have  been  many  instances  of  races  from  cold 
or  damp  countries  settling  in  warmer  or  dryer  ones ;  but  in 
all  of  these  there  has  been  also  a  mixture  of  blood,  which  makes 
it  hard  to  say  how  much  is  to  be  attributed  to  climatic  influ¬ 
ences  alone.  What  can  be  stated  positively  is,  that  the  Eng¬ 
lish  race  has  not  hitherto  degenerated  physically  in  its  new 
home ;  in  some  districts  it  may  even  seem  to  have  improved. 
The  tables  of  life-insurance  companies  show  that  the  average 
of  life  is  as  long  as  in  Western  Europe.  People  walk  less  and 
climb  mountains  less  than  they  do  in  England,  but  quite  as 
much  physical  strength  and  agility  are  put  forth  in  games, 
and  these  are  pursued  with  as  much  ardour.  It  was  noted  in 
the  War  of  Secession  that  the  percentage  of  recoveries  from 
wounds  was  larger  than  in  European  wars,  and  the  soldiers  in 
both  armies  stood  well  the  test  of  the  long  marches  through 
rough  and  sometimes  unhealthy  regions  to  which  they  were 
exposed,  those,  perhaps,  faring  best  who  were  of  the  purest 


CHAP.  XCI 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  NATION 


467 


American  stock,  i.e.  who  came  from  the  districts  least  affected 
by  recent  immigration.1  It  has,  however,  already  been  remarked 
that  the  time  during  which  physical  conditions  have  been  able 
to  work  on  the  Anglo-American  race  is  much  too  short  to  enable 
any  but  provisional  conclusions  to  be  formed  ;  and  for  the  same 
reason  it  is  premature  to  speculate  upon  the  changes  in  char¬ 
acter  and  intellectual  tastes  which  either  the  natural  scenery 
of  the  American  Continent,  and  in  particular  its  vast  central 
plain,  or  the  occupations  and  economic  environment  of  the 
people,  with  their  increasing  tendency  to  prefer  urban  to  rural 
life,  may  in  the  course  of  ages  produce.  The  science  of  ethno¬ 
graphic  sociology  is  still  only  in  its  infancy,  and  the  working 
of  the  causes  it  examines  is  so  subtle  that  centuries  of  experi¬ 
ence  may  be  needed  before  it  becomes  possible  to  determine 
definite  laws  of  national  growth. 

Let  us  sum  up  the  points  in  which  physical  conditions  seem 
to  have  influenced  the  development  of  the  American  people, 
by  trying  to  give  a  short  answer  to  the  question,  What  kind  of 
a  home  has  Nature  given  to  the  nation  ? 

She  has  furnished  it  with  resources  for  production,  that  is, 
with  potential  wealth,  ampler  and  more  varied  than  can  be 
found  in  any  other  country,  —  an  immense  area  of  fertile  soil, 
sunshine  and  moisture  fit  for  all  the  growths  of  the  temperate, 
and  even  a  few  of  the  torrid,  zone,  a  store  of  minerals  so  large 
as  to  seem  inexhaustible. 

She  has  given  it  a  climate  in  which  the  foremost  races  of 
mankind  can  thrive  and  (save  in  a  very  few  districts)  labour, 
an  air  in  most  regions  not  only  salubrious,  but  more  stimulating 
than  that  of  their  ancient  European  seats. 

She  has  made  communication  easy  by  huge  natural  water¬ 
courses,  and  by  the  general  openness  and  smoothness  of  so 
much  of  the  continent  as  lies  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

In  laying  out  a  vast  central  and  almost  unbroken  plain,  she 
has  destined  the  largest  and  richest  region  of  the  country 
to  be  the  home  of  one  nation,  and  one  only.  That  the  lands 
which  lie  east  of  this  region  between  the  Alleghanies  and  the 
Atlantic,  and  those  which  lie  west  of  it  between  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  the  Pacific,  are  also  occupied  by  that  one  nation 

1  Some  valuable  remarks  on  .this  subject  will  be  found  in  Professor  N.  S. 
Shaler’s  interesting  book,  Nature  and  Man  in  America,  from  which  I  take 
these  facts  regarding  life  insurance  and  the  experience  of  the  Civil  War. 


468 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


is  due  to  the  fact  that  before  the  colonization  of  the  central 
region  had  gone  far,  means  of  communication  were  invented 
which  made  the  Alleghanies  cease  to  be  a  barrier,  and  that 
before  the  Pacific  coast  had  been  thickly  settled,  the  rest  of 
the  country  was  already  so  great  in  population,  wealth,  and 
power  that  its  attraction  was  as  irresistible  as  the  Moon  finds 
the  attraction  of  the  Earth  to  be. 

Severing  its  home  by  a  wide  ocean  from  the  old  world  of 
Europe  on  the  east,  and  by  a  still  wider  one  from  the  half  old, 
half  new,  world  of  Asia  and  Australasia  on  the  west,  she  has 
made  the  nation  sovereign  of  its  own  fortunes.  It  need  fear 
no  attacks  nor  even  any  pressure  from  the  military  and  naval 
powers  of  the  eastern  hemisphere,  and  it  has  little  temptation 
to  dissipate  its  strength  in  contests  with  them.  It  has  no  doubt 
a  strong  neighbour  on  the  North,  but  a  friendly  one,  linked  by 
many  ties  of  interest  as  well  as  kinship,  and  not  likely  ever 
to  become  threatening.  It  had  on  the  South  neighbours  who 
might  have  been  dangerous,  but  fortune  favoured  it  by  making 
one  of  them  hopelessly  weak,  and  obliging  the  other,  strong  as 
she  was,  to  quit  possession  at  a  critical  moment.  Thus  is  it 
left  to  itself  as  no  great  State  has  ever  yet  been  in  the  world ; 
thus  its  citizens  enjoy  an  opportunity  never  before  granted  to  a 
nation,  of  making  their  country  what  they  will  to  have  it. 

These  are  unequalled  advantages.  They  contain  the  elements 
of  immense  defensive  strength,  of  immense  material  prosperity. 
They  disclose  an  unrivalled  field  for  the  development  of  an 
industrial  civilization.  Nevertheless,  students  of  history,  know¬ 
ing  how  unpredictable  is  the  action  of  what  we  call  moral 
causes,  that  is  to  say,  of  emotional  and  intellectual  influences 
as  contrasted  with  those  rooted  in  physical  and  economic  facts, 
will  not  venture  to  base  upon  the  most  careful  survey  of  the 
physical  conditions  of  America  any  bolder  prophecy  than  this, 
that  not  only  will  the  State  be  powerful  and  the  wealth  of  its 
citizens  prodigious,  but  that  the  Nation  will  probably  remain 
one  in  its ‘government,  and  still  more  probably  one  in  speech, 
in  character,  and  in  ideas. 


CHAPTER  XCII 


THE  LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 

Since  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  centuries  of  the  Christian 
Era,  when  vast  displacements  of  population  took  place  in 
Europe  and  Western  Asia,  carrying  many  Teutonic  and  Slavonic 
tribes  out  of  their  ancient  seats  into  the  territories  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  no  age  has  seen  migrations  of  the  races  of  men  com¬ 
parable  in  magnitude  to  those  which  have  since  1845  poured 
like  a  flood  into  the  United  States.1  These  new  settlers  have 
come  from  all  parts  of  Europe  except  France,  which  few  leave, 
and  Spain,  whose  emigrants  go  to  the  Spanish-speaking  parts 
of  the  New  World.  Latterly  some  have  come  from  the  Levant 
also. 

The  immigration  falls  into  three  periods,  or  rather  consists  of 
three  successive  streams,  each  of  which  brought  on  the  scene  a 
new  race  or  group  of  races,  while  the  former  streams  still  con¬ 
tinued  to  flow,  though  with  a  diminished  volume. 

Ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  had 
been  a  steady  but  slender  influx  of  settlers,  which  did  not  ex¬ 
ceed  20,000  per  annum  until  1820  a.d.  From  that  number  it 
rose  slowly  with  the  prosperity  of  the  country,  and  latterly  with 
the  cheaper  and  more  rapid  transportation  by  steam  vessels, 
till  1842,  when  100,000  entered.  With  the  years  1845-1846, 
the  time  of  the  terrible  famine  in  Ireland,  begins  the  first  or  Irish 
period  of  the  full  rush  of  immigration.2  In  the  ten  years  1845- 
1855,  more  than  1,250,000  people  came  from  Ireland  to  the 
United  States.  The  largest  number  was  in  1851,  when  221,253 
landed.  Thenceforward  the  flow  was  generally  large,  varying 

1  Upon  the  subject  of  the  new  immigrants  the  reader  may  be  referred  to  Mr. 
J.  R.  Commons’  book,  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  to  Professor  Steiner’s 
books,  On  the  Trail  of  the  Immigrant  and  The  Immigrant  Tide,  and  to  the  reports 
of  the  Bureau  of  Immigration.  Some  interesting  facts  and  suggestive  views 
may  also  be  found  in  Professor  W.  Z.  Ripley’s  lecture  entitled  “  The  European 
Population  of  the  United  States'.” 

2  The  Bureau  of  Immigration  (Report  for  1909)  estimates  that  from  1776 
to  1820  only  250,000  immigrants  arrived,  and  from  1820  to  1909,  26,852,723. 

469 


470 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


greatly,  but  seldom  below  30,000  and  sometimes  as  high  as 
80,000.  Of  late  years  it  has  tended  to  decrease,  and  in  1909 
was  only  25,033  ;  the  total  from  1820  to  1909,  inclusive,  being 
4,218,107,  a  number  equal  to  the  whole  population  of  Ireland 
in  1909.  Upon  the  top  of  this  Celtic  immigration  there  soon 
after  came  a  second  great  wave,  and  this  time  from  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  parts  of  Europe.  The  arrivals  from  Germany  rose  sud¬ 
denly  in  1852  from  72,000  to  145,000,  and  in  1854  reached 
215,000,  a  number  only  once  thereafter  exceeded,  viz.,  in  1882, 
when  the  total  was  250,000.  Since  1894  there  has  been  a  de¬ 
cline,  and  in  1909  only  25,540  immigrants  came  from  Germany. 
The  total  number  from  1820  till  1909  was  5,320,312. 

Somewhat  later  began  the  inrush  from  the  three  Scandina¬ 
vian  countries.  Insignificant  till  1849,  the  number  suddenly 
rose  in  1866  to  13,000,  and  thereafter  reached  from  30,000  to 
50,000  during  many  years,  the  highest  tide-mark  being  105,000 
in  1882.  In  1909  the  number  was  32,496,  and  the  total  from 
1820  to  1909  is  given  as  1,896,139. 

All  this  time  the  immigration  from  the  rest  of  Europe  had 
been  trifling,  except  of  course  that  from  Great  Britain,  whence 
there  came  a  steady  though  never  copious  stream.  But  in  1880 
the  theretofore  small  flow  from  the  Austro-Hungarian  mon¬ 
archy  rose  swiftly,  and  in  1882  there  was  also  an  increase  from 
Italy  and  Russia.  The  great  prosperity  then  reigning  in  the 
United  States  was  causing  a  strong  indraught,  and  the  immigra¬ 
tion  from  all  quarters  reached  a  volume  not  equalled  thereafter 
till  1907.  From  1882  onwards  other  parts  also  of  Europe  have 
been  affected  ;  and  after  1890,  as  the  arrivals  from  Ireland  and 
Germany  began  slowly  to  decline,  Central  and  Southern  Europe 
became  the  main  source  of  the  gigantic  flood  of  new  immigrants, 
whose  total  numbered  in  1882,  789,000  and  in  1907,  1,285,000. 
Czechs,  Poles,  Slovaks,  Croats,  Serbs,  Magyars,  Finns,  Russians, 
—  these  last  nearly  all  Jews,  —  Slovenes,  Roumans  (mostly  from 
Transylvania),  and  Greeks,  with  a  smaller  number  of  Armen¬ 
ians,  Syrians,  and  Bulgarians,  have  (taken  together)  latterly  far 
outnumbered  the  entering  Teutons,  as  the  Italians  have  far  out¬ 
numbered  the  Irish.  It  is  computed  that  over  eight  millions  in 
all  entered  between  1900  and  the  end  of  1909,  and  that  over 
twenty-seven  millions  have  entered  in  the  seventy  years  between 
1840  and  1910,  twice  what  the  total  white  population  of  the 
United  States  was  in  the  former  year. 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


471 


The  population  of  the  United  States  was  in  1840  almost 
wholly  —  perhaps  as  to  seven-eighths  —  of  British  origin,  i.e. 
roughly  two-thirds  Teutonic  and  one-third  Celtic.  Now  it  is  a 
remarkable  fact  that  in  the  immigration  of  the  next  fifty  years, 
1840-1890,  the  Teutonic  and  Celtic  elements  which  entered 
corresponded  pretty  nearly  to  the  proportions  which  those  two 
elements  bore  to  one  another  in  the  population  of  1840,  Teutons, 
including  Germans,  Scandinavians,  and  English  from  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  parts  of  Britain,  constituting  about  two-thirds,  Irish  about 
one-third,  of  the  whole.  Thus  the  racial  composition  of  the 
American  people  as  a  whole  was  not  markedly  altered  during 
that  half-century,  the  proportion  of  Teutons  to  Celts  remaining 
about  the  same.  Neither  was  the  proportion  of  religious  per¬ 
suasions  much  altered,  for  though  nearly  all  the  Irish  and  many 
Germans  were  Roman  Catholics,  all  the  Scandinavians,  nearly 
all  the  English,  and  a  majority  of  the  Germans  were  Protestants. 

Far  otherwise  is  it  with  the  third  influx.  New  elements, 
hitherto  unrepresented  in  the  American  people,  and  unlike  either 
the  Teuton  or  the  Celt,  have  now  been  added.  The  American 
people  of  the  future  will  be  an  amalgam  from  a  much  greater 
number  of  component  elements  than  had  entered  into  it  thereto¬ 
fore.  Moreover,  these  new  accretions,  except  the  Jews,  Greeks, 
some  of  the  Roumans,  the  Finns,  and  the  Armenians,  belong 
almost  wholly  to  the  Roman  Church,  so  that  if  the  children  of 
the  immigrants  remain  connected  with  that  church,  its  share 
of  the  population  will  be  relatively  larger. 

The  chief  causes  of  great  migrations  have  in  time  past  been 
four  :  (1)  war ;  (2)  political  or  religious  oppression ;  (3)  the 
desire  of  a  growing  population  to  find  fresh  land  to  cultivate  ; 
(4)  the  movement  of  labour  from  regions  where  it  is  abundant 
and  cheap  to  regions  where  it  is  scarce  and  dear.  Of  these 
four,  the  first  has  not  been  operative  in  the  present  case,  and 
the  second  only  as  respects  Jews  and  Armenians.  It  is  the 
third,  and  latterly  even  more  markedly  the  fourth  cause,  that 
have  brought  about  this  vast  outflow  from  the  Old  World  to  the 
New.  The  stirring  of  men’s  minds  out  of  their  fixed  and  ancient 
ways  has  reached  even  the  illiterate  peasantry  of  backward 
regions,  and  made  them  desire  to  better  their  condition.  But 
the  outflow  has  been  accelerated  and  increased  by  two  facts 
without  precedent  in  earlier  times.  One  is  the  extraordinary 
cheapness  and  swiftness  of  transportation  by  sea,  the  other  the 


472 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


facilities  which  modern  methods  of  advertising  have  enabled 
steamship  companies  to  use,  and  which  they  have  strenuously 
used,  to  induce  the  peasants  of  the  most  secluded  corners  of 
Europe  to  seek  new  homes  beyond  the  ocean.1  Some  indeed 
come,  not  to  settle,  but  to  earn  money  and  return.  Yet  these 
also  help  the  movement,  for  those  immigrants,  especially  Italians 
and  Austro-Hungarian  Slavs,  who  return  home  with  their  earn¬ 
ings  after  working  for  some  months  or  a  year  in  America,  scatter 
abroad  tales  of  the  high  wages  they  have  gained,  and  thus  excite 
the  curiosity  and  eagerness  of  their  neighbours.  So  the  impulse 
spreads,  and  more  and  more  are  drawn  from  their  humble 
homes  to  the  Western  Land  of  Promise. 

The  quality  of  the  earlier  immigrants,  Irish  and  Teutonic,  is 
too  well  known  to  need  description.  Many  were  uneducated, 
the  Scandinavians  probably  least  so,  but  they  were  intelligent 
peasants,  of  strong  stocks,  industrious,  energetic,  and  capable 
of  quickly  accommodating  themselves  to  the  conditions  of 
their  new  land  and  blending  with  its  people.  The  Slavs  and 
Italians  from  Central  and  Southern  Europe  are  also  peasants, 
and  also  industrious.2  But  they,  and  nearly  all  others  of  the 
newly  arrived  races,  arrive  more  largely  illiterate  than  the  Ger¬ 
mans  or  Irish,  and  are  on  a  lower  grade  of  civilization.  The 
Jews  and  Greeks  are  more  frequently  small  traders  than  agri¬ 
culturists,  but  are  also  illiterate,  and  very  clannish,  less  inclined 
than  any  other  group  to  mix  with  native  Americans  or  other 
immigrants.  This  third  stream  of  newcomers,  taken  in  all  its 
elements,  is,  therefore,  socially  below  the  two  earlier  ones,  and 
in  every  way  more  alien  to  American  habits  and  standards. 

It  was  the  increase  of  this  new  flood  that  led  to  the  passing 

1  Regarding  the  methods  by  which  immigrants  are  induced  to  come,  the 
following  passage  is  found  in  the  Report  for  1909  of  the  Commissioner  General 
of  Immigration,  p.  112  :  — 

“  The  peasants  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  have  for  a  number  of  years 
supplied  a  rich  harvest  to  the  promoter  of  immigration.  The  promoter  is 
usually  a  steamship  ticket  agent,  employed  on  a  commission  basis,  or  a  pro¬ 
fessional  money  lender,  or  a  combination  of  the  two.  His  only  interest  is  the 
wholly  selfish  one  of  gaining  his  commission  and  collecting  his  usury.  He  is 
employed  by  the  steamship  lines  large  and  small  without  scruple,  and  to  the 
enormous  profit  of  such  lines.  The  more  aliens  they  bring  over  the  more  are 
there  to  be  carried  back  if  failure  meets  the  tentative  immigrant,  and  the 
more  are  likely  to  follow  later  if  success  is  his  lot.  Whatever  the  outcome,  it  is 
a  good  proposition  for  the  steamship  line.” 

2  Often  they  might  have  done  better  to  stay  at  home.  Greeks  have  been 
leaving  fertile  Thessaly,  where  a  good  deal  of  land  lies  untilled,  to  plant  them¬ 
selves  in  the  slums  of  Chicago. 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


473 


of  immigration  laws  more  stringent  than  had  previously  been 
thought  needful,  laws  which  have  established  a  system  of 
rigorous  tests  for  admission,  following  on  a  law  forbidding 
labourers  to  be  imported  under  a  contract  to  work  if  there  are 
any  persons  in  the  United  States  who  are  unemployed  in  the 
particular  kind  of  work.  Under  the  present  laws  an  average 
number  slightly  exceeding  one  per  cent  are  annually  rejected. 
A  growing  zeal  for  sanitary  measures  and  an  alarm  at  the  en¬ 
trance  of  many  persons  likely  to  prove  undesirable  citizens  had 
much  to  do  with  this  legislation,  but  something  must  also  be 
ascribed  to  the  desire  of  the  labour  unions  to  keep  out  as  many 
as  possible  of  those  who  come  as  competitors  for  labour,  willing 
to  take  lower  wages  than  those  received  by  the  workmen  who 
were  already  American  citizens.1  Public  opinion  did  not  wish 
to  see  the  established  standard  of  wages  and  living  reduced. 

The  difference  between  these  recent  immigrants  and  the  Ger¬ 
mans  and  Scandinavians  who  preceded  them  appears  in  this  also, 
that  whereas  the  former  started  at  once  for  the  land,  and  set 
themselves  to  fell  the  woods  or  till  the  prairies  of  the  West,  the 
bulk  of  the  later  comers  have  either,  like  the  Jews  and  Greeks, 
flocked  into  the  cities  and  taken  to  the  life  of  retail  trading  or  of 
handicrafts  and  petty  industries  there,  or  have,  like  the  Slovaks 
and  Poles  and  Italians,  found  occupation  in  the  mining  districts 
or  in  railway  construction  and  other  forms  of  unskilled  work.2 
To-day  most  of  the  hard,  rough  toil  of  the  country  is  everywhere 
done  by  recent  immigrants  from  Central  or  Southern  Europe, 

1  In  1908-1909,  10,411  aliens  (about  1.09  per  cent  of  the  total  number  seeking 
admission)  were  turned  back,  nearly  a  half  because  likely  to  become  a  public 
charge,  a  little  over  a  fifth  because  afflicted  with  a  contagious  disease,  most  of 
the  residue  because  coming  in  under  a  contract  to  labour. 

2  “  The  competition  of  races  is  the  competition  of  standards  of  living.  .  .  . 
The  race  with  lowest  necessities  displaces  others.  The  textile  industry  of  New 
England  was  originally  operated  by  the  educated  sons  and  daughters  of  Ameri¬ 
can  stock.  The  Irish  displaced  many  of  them,  then  the  French  Canadians 
completed  the  displacement.  Then,  when  the  children  of  the  French  had  begun 
to  acquire  a  higher  standard,  contingents  of  Portuguese,  Greeks,  Syrians,  Poles, 
and  Italians  entered  to  prevent  a  rise.  .  .  .  Branches  of  the  clothing  industry 
in  New  York  began  with  English  and  Scotch  tailors  then  were  captured  by 
Irish  and  Germans,  then  by  Russian  Jews,  and  lastly  by  Italians  ;  while  in 
Boston  the  Portuguese  took  a  share,  and  in  Chicago  the  Poles,  Bohemians,  and 
Scandinavians.  Almost  every  great  manufacturing  and  mining  industry  has 
experienced  a  similar  substitution  of  races.  As  rapidly  as  a  race  rises  in  the 
scale  of  living  and  through  organization  begins  to  demand  higher  wages  and 
resist  the  pressure  of  long  hours  and  over-exertion,  the  employers  substitute 
another  race,  and  the  process  is  repeated.”  —  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America, 
pp.  152,  153. 


474 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


or  (to  a  smaller  extent  in  the  North  and  scarcely  at  all  in  the 
West)  by  negroes.  The  Irish  and  the  urban  part  of  the  Ger¬ 
man  population  have  risen  in  the  scale,  and  no  longer  form 
the  bottom  stratum. 

Few  indeed  among  the  Slavonic  or  Italian  immigrants  have 
either  the  knowledge  of  the  country  or  the  enterprise  or  the 
capital  needed  to  take  up  a  farm,  small  as  is  the  capital  needed 
even  now,  when  land  is  not  so  abundant  as  in  1890.  But  already 
one  hears  of  Poles  and  Finns  in  New  England  and  Bohemians 
in  Iowa,  and  a  few  Russians  (not  Jewish)  in  one  or  two  places 
settling  down  to  cultivate  little  plots  of  ground,  and  doubtless 
the  number  of  those  who  spread  out  in  this  way  will  go  on  in¬ 
creasing.  At  present,  however,  it  is  chiefly  in  New  York  and 
the  country  all  round  it,  in  Chicago  and  in  the  mining  regions 
of  Pennsylvania  and  the  West,  such  for  instance  as  Colorado, 
that  the  traveller  is  struck  by  the  presence  of  a  population 
obviously  non-American  and  not  even  West  European.  The 
Jews,  who  occupy  a  large  district  in  New  York,  and  seem  likely 
to  remain  a  city-dwelling  folk,  form  nearly  one-fourth  of  its 
population.  Both  they  and  the  Italians  are  numerous  in  Boston, 
though  that  ancient  home  of  Puritanism  is  now  rather  an  Irish 
than  an  American  city.1  In  parts  of  New  Jersey  and  southern 
New  York  one  may  in  asking  one’s  way  along  the  roads  find 
hardly  any  one  who  can  speak  either  English  or  German.  So 
in  Pennsylvania  the  Bible  Society  distributes  copies  of  the  New 
Testament  in  forty-two  languages,  while  forty-nine  are  said  to 
be  spoken  in  New  York  City.  In  Chicago  there  are  fourteen 
groups,  of  not  less  than  ten  thousand  persons  each,  speaking, 
foreign  languages.  •  The  foreign-born  and  their  offspring  con¬ 
stituted  in  1900 2  forty-eight  per  cent  of  the  total  population  of 
the  country  and  much  more  than  half  of  the  white  population 
of  the  Northern  States,  for  it  need  hardly  be  said  that  there  has 
been  practically  no  immigration  into  the  Southern  States  either 
of  Celts,  Teutons,  or  Slavs,  though  a  little  of  Italians  into 
Louisiana  and  of  Germans  into  Texas.  The  older  South  (Vir- 

1  In  New  York  and  Chicago  77  per  cent  of  the  population  was  in  1900  of 
foreign  extraction,  and  out  of  a  population  of  over  fourteen  millions  in  thirty- 
eight  of  the  greatest  cities,  05.5  per  cent  were  either  foreign- born  or  the  children 
of  foreign-born  persons. 

2  The  census  figures  of  1900  gave  the  foreign-born  at  10,460,000  and  the 
persons  of  foreign  parentage  26,198,000  out  of  a  total  population  of  76,000,000. 
See  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  U.  S.  for  1908. 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


475 


ginia  and  the  Carolinas)  is  the  most  purely  English  part  of 
the  United  States. 

A  certain  part  of  this  recent  immigration  is  transitory.  Ital¬ 
ians  and  Slovaks,  for  instance,  after  they  have  by  thrift  accumu¬ 
lated  a  sum  which  is  large  for  them,  return  to  their  native  vil¬ 
lages,  and  carry  back  with  them  new  notions  and  habits  which 
set  up  a  ferment  among  the  simple  rustics  of  a  Calabrian  or 
North  Hungarian  Valley.1  For  the  United  States  the  practice  has 
the  double  advantage  of  supplying  a  volume  of  cheap  unskilled 
labour  when  employment  is  brisk  and  of  removing  it  when  em¬ 
ployment  becomes  slack,  so  that  the  number  of  the  unem¬ 
ployed,  often  very  large  when  a  financial  crisis  has  brought 
bad  times,  is  rapidly  reduced,  and  there  is  more  work  for  the 
permanently  settled  part  of  the  labouring  class.  It  is  the  easier 
to  go  backwards  and  forwards,  because  two-thirds  among  all  the 
races,  except  the  Jews,  are  men,  either  unmarried  youths  or 
persons  who  have  left  their  wives  behind.  (Many,  however, 
bring  out  their  wives  afterwards.)  Nor  are  there  many  children. 
Four-fifths  of  the  whole  who  enter  are  stated  to  be  between 
fourteen  and  forty-five  years  of  age. 

Between  those  of  the  new  immigrants  who  work  in  mines  or  on 
the  construction  of  public  works  and  the  native  Americans 
there  is  very  little  contact  and  practically  no  admixture.  Even 
in  the  cities  the  Italians  and  the  Jews  keep  to  themselves,  often 
occupying  poor  quarters  exclusively  their  own.  Sometimes, 
however,  a  group  of  Magyars  or  Czechs,  working  on  a  quarry  or 
in  a  factory,  will  awaken  the  kindly  interest  of  their  neighbours 
who  may,  perhaps,  build  a  chapel  for  them  and  gather  their 
growing  boys  into  a  Young  Men’s  Christian  Association.  On 
the  whole,  however,  they  seem  to  be  left  pretty  much  to  the 
mercies,  not  always  tender,  of  their  employers.  The  condi¬ 
tion  of  many  who  toil  in  the  coal  mines  and  iron  furnaces  of 
Pennsylvania  is  described  as  wretched.  But  they  earn  as  much 
in  two  months  as  they  would  have  earned  in  a  year  at  home. 
Thus  the  outdraught  from  Europe  continues,  and  has  now  ex¬ 
cited  so  much  disquiet  in  Hungary,  as  threatening  a  scarcity  of 
labour,  that  the  Government  has  been  taking  steps  to  dis¬ 
courage  the  departure  of  the  peasants.2 

1  Interesting  instances  of  the  influence  of  these  returned  immigrants  may  be 
found  in  Professor  Steiner’s  books  above  referred  to. 

2  Some  years  ago  building  operations  in  Budapest  came  almost  to  a  stand¬ 
still  owing  to  the  departure  of  a  large  number  of  workers. 


476 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


That  the  recent  immigrants  should  contribute  largely  to  the 
crime  of  the  districts  where  they  abound  is  only  natural,  for 
everywhere  it  is  from  the  poorest  and  least  educated  class  that 
the  largest  proportion  of  offenders  comes.  Three-fifths  of  the 
aliens  in  New  York  are  illiterate.  This  fact,  their  strange 
tongues,  and,  for  the  first  few  years,  a  certain  want  of  finish 
in  their  personal  habits,  have  created  among  native  Americans 
a  prejudice  against  them  which  is  not  altogether  just,  for  the 
great  majority  are,  when  they  come,  simple,  honest  folk,  who, 
having  heard  of  America  as  the  land  of  freedom  and  prosperity, 
are  prepared  to  love  it  and  to  serve  it  by  hard  and  patient  work. 

The  more  ignorant,  and  especially  those  who  go  to  seek  em¬ 
ployment  in  mines,  quarries,  and  railroad  construction,  do  not 
apply  for  citizenship.  In  1906  a  statute  was  passed  placing  the 
naturalization  of  alien  immigrants  under  the  supervision  of  the 
Bureau  of  Immigration,  and  providing,  among  other  things, 
that  the  applicant  for  naturalization  must  be  neither  an  anar¬ 
chist  nor  a  polygamist,  must  intend  to  make  the  United  States 
his  home,  and  must  be  able  to  speak  English.  Adherence  to 
anarchist  or  polygamist  opinions  is  indeed  also  made  one  of  the 
grounds  for  refusing  entrance  to  an  immigrant.  The  object  of 
the  law  was,  however,  not  merely  to  exclude  undesirable  persons 
from  citizenship,  but  to  prevent  persons  who  might  desire  to 
return  to  their  country  of  origin  with  the  character  of  American 
citizens,  from  acquiring  that  character  and  the  protection 
abroad  which  it  implies.  The  early  immigrants,  Irish,  Ger¬ 
mans,  and  Scandinavians,  usually  applied  for  and  obtained 
citizenship  very  soon  after  their  arrival.  The  political  organi¬ 
zations  laid  hold  of  them  and  got  them  enrolled,  desiring  their 
votes.  The  more  recent  immigrants,  and  especially  the  Italians 
and  Slavs,  show  less  desire,  and  have  not  been  looked  after  by 
the  parties  with  the  same  assiduity.  In  1900  more  than  half 
of  the  immigrants  of  those  races  were  still  aliens.  It  is  generally 
the  more  ignorant,  and  especially  those  who  do  not  settle  on  the 
land,  who  so  remain.  The  Jewish  immigrants,  ignorant  as  they 
often  are,  are  keen-witted,  and  as  they  mean  to  stay  in  America, 
they  appreciate  the  advantage  of  becoming  citizens  at  once. 
Numbering  in  New  York  about  a  million  all  told,  they  are 
already  a  power  in  politics.  Alany  have  joined  Tammany  Hall, 
and  as  they  are  even  more  cohesive  than  the  Irish,  their  share 
in  the  control  of  that  organization  promises  to  be  a  large  one. 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


477 


Not  a  few  of  the  immigrants  have  brought  with  them  from 
Russia  or  Eastern  Germany  or  Poland,  the  tenets  of  Socialism, 
and  some  few  the  doctrines  of  a  revolutionary  anarchism.  The 
murder  of  President  McKinley  by  such  an  one  (born,  however, 
in  America),  together  with  the  inflammatory  harangues  delivered 
by  adherents  of  this  extreme  creed,  have  done  much  to  draw  on 
them,  even  on  those  who  nowise  deserve  it,  the  suspicion  of 
native  Americans. 

If  the  influence  in  politics  of  the  new  immigrants  has  as  yet 
been  slender  in  proportion  to  their  numbers,  this  is  not  merely 
because  many  of  them  still  remain  non-voters,  but  also  because 
they  have  not  had  time  to  learn  to  care  about  political  topics. 
Those  Southern  Italians,  for  instance,  who  vote  are  said  to  be 
generally  led  to  do  so  by  pecuniary  inducements.  The  first 
question  which  really  lays  hold  on  and  appeals  directly  to  the 
newcomer  from  strange  lands,  the  first  thing  that  brings 
him  into  direct  touch  with  American  life,  is  a  labour  dispute. 
Little  as  he  has  known  of  such  matters  before,  a  leader  of  his 
own  race  and  tongue  can  easily  draw  him  into  a  labour  union, 
and  when  he  is  in  it,  and  especially  when  a  strike  begins,  no 
one  can  be  more  ardent  or  combative.  Some  unions  have  racial 
sections,  which  debate  in  their  own  language,  and  soon  master 
the  facts  of  the  situation.  If  they  are  led  by  one  not  of  their 
own  race,  he  is  usually  an  Irishman,  such  is  the  Irish  aptitude 
for  leadership.  Employers  who  have  brought  together  foreign¬ 
ers  and  put  their  faith  in  them  as  strike-breakers  have  some¬ 
times  been  wofully  disappointed.  Indeed,  the  Pole  or  Slovak 
follows  a  militant  chief  more  blindly  than  a  native  American 
would.  He  has  less  to  lose,  and  his  standard  of  comfort  is  so 
low  that  the  privations  of  a  strike  affect  him  less. 

In  enquiring  how  far  these  newest  comers  are  intermingling 
with  the  pre-existing  population,  one  must  carefully  distinguish 
between  the  original  immigrants  and  their  children  born  in  the 
United  States.  The  latter  attend  the  common  schools,  —  in 
places  where  truancy  laws  are  enforced,  ■ —  mix  with  the  native 
inhabitants,  grow  up  speaking  English,  and  mostly  forget  their 
own  language  before  they  reach  manhood.  So  far  from  desiring 
to  remember  it  and  to  cling  to  their  old  nationality,  they  are 
eager  to  cast  it  away  and  to  become  in  every  sense  Americans. 
Often  they  treat  their  parents,  because  foreign-born,  with  a 
sort  of  contempt.  However  slight  may  be  their  social  contact 


478 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


with  their  native  neighbours,  they  receive  the  same  instruction, 
they  tend  to  form  the  same  habits  of  life,  they  read  the  same 
newspapers,  they  frequent  the  same  public  entertainments,  and 
the  more  capable  rise  before  long  into  positions  where  they  are 
not  merely  units  in  a  herd  of  workers  “  bossed  ”  by  an  Amer¬ 
ican  or  Irish  foreman,  but  have  a  chance  of  forcing  their  own 
way  upward.  Exactly  how  far  they  intermarry  outside  their 
own  race  is  not  easy  to  say,  but  we  may  safely  assume  that 
those  who  have  been  born  in  the  United  States,  or,  entering 
very  young,  have  grown  up  under  American  influences,  find 
their  race  no  insurmountable  obstacle  to  alliances  with  those 
of  native  stock.  There  are  more  men  than  women  among 
them,  and  the  men  try  to  marry  into  a  social  stratum  a  little 
above  their  own,  a  native  American  girl,  if  possible,  or  an  Irish 
one.  In  such  a  land  as  the  United  States  distinctions  of  race, 
unless  marked  by  distinctions  of  colour,  count  for  little. 

Both  as  respects  social  admixture,  however,  and  as  respects 
propensity  to  crime,  one  must  emphasize  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  immigrants  settling  in  large  cities,  or  in  mining  regions, 
and  those  who  are  scattered  out  into  smaller  cities  or  country 
districts.  In  the  latter  they  soon  tend  to  mingle  with  the 
other  residents,  and  the  children  grow  up  under  similar  and 
fairly  wholesome  conditions.  But  in  such  places  as  New  York 
or  Chicago  they  keep  to  themselves,  often  in  streets  inhabited 
entirely  by  those  of  the  same  race.  It  is  difficult  for  parents 
who  must  themselves  toil  all  day  long  to  retain  any  control  over 
children  who  enjoy  the  license  and  are  exposed  to  the  tempta¬ 
tions  of  a  vast  city.  Accordingly,  the  percentage  of  juvenile 
crime  among  the  children  of  the  foreign-born  is  more  than  twice 
as  great  as  it  is  among  children  of  native  white  parents.1  This 
is  so  easily  explicable  by  the  conditions  under  which  they  live 
that  it  need  not  be  taken  to  indicate  moral  inferiority.  It  has 
often  happened  that  when  people  of  rude  and  simple  habits 
come  into  a  more  civilized  environment  they  lose  their  best 
native  qualities  and  acquire  the  vices  of  civilization  before  its 
virtues.  Out  of  this  transitory  phase  the  children  of  the  im¬ 
migrants  may  ere  long  pass. 

Of  the  East  Asiatic  races  that  have  entered  the  United  States 
on  the  Pacific  side  of  the  Continent  it  has  not  been  necessary 
to  speak  in  this  chapter,  because  their  immigration  has  been 

1  Commons,  Races  and  Immigrants,  p.  170. 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


479 


stopped.  Statutes  passed  at  the  urgent  instance  of  Californian 
working-men,  who  disliked  the  competition  of  Chinese  coolies, 
exclude  all  Chinese,  except  persons  of  the  educated  class,  such 
as  merchants,  students,  and  travellers  for  pleasure :  while 
under  an  arrangement  made  with  the  Japanese  Government  in 
1908,  the  influx  of  Japanese  labourers,  which  was  rising  rapidly, 
has  also  been  stopped.  In  1900  there  were  in  the  United  States 
81,000  foreign-born  Chinese,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  num¬ 
ber  may  increase  slightly  by  illicit  importation  on  the  frontiers 
of  Mexico  and  Canada.  In  1908  there  were  more  than  150,000 
Japanese ;  but  since  then  many  have  departed  and  scarce  any 
have  arrived.  Neither  they,  nor  Chinese,  nor  Malays,  nor 
Hindus,  can  be  naturalized,  but  the  children  of  these  races, 
born  in  the  United  States,  are  born  citizens,  and  may  vote  if 
registered,  so  any  large  addition  to  their  numbers  is  all  the 
more  deprecated.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  they  remain  quite 
distinct  from  the  white  inhabitants.  The  feeling  against  the 
entrance  of  the  yellow  races,  less  strong  against  the  Chinese 
than  it  was  in  1880,  and  qualified  among  the  employers  by  the 
desire  to  have  plenty  of  steady  labour,  is  still  strong  enough  to 
maintain  the  policy  of  exclusion,  and  does  not  seem  likely  to 
disappear  in  any  period  which  can  at  present  be  foreseen.  A 
like  feeling  exists  in  Australia  and  has  there  dictated  an  even 
more  rigid  warning  off  of  all  Asiatics.  The  humanitarian  senti¬ 
ment  towards  other  races  which  was  so  strong  in  the  middle  of 
last  century  has  visibly  declined.  No  one,  except  a  fruit  grower 
who  wants  Japanese  labourers  for  his  orchards,  openly  com¬ 
plains  of  the  exclusion,1  and  the  all  too  frequent  outrages  per¬ 
petrated  by  whites  upon  men  of  a  different  colour  excite  less 
censure  than  they  would  have  done  in  the  last  generation. 

Two  large  questions  remain  to  be  considered.  The  first  is, 
Will  European  immigration  continue  from  1910  till  I960  on  a 
scale  similar  to  that  of  the  years  1860  to  1910,  during  which 
more  than  twenty  millions  have  arrived  ?  To  answer  this  ques¬ 
tion  we  must  consider  two  sets  of  facts  :  first,  the  capacity  of 
Europe  to  send  emigrants  out,  and  secondly  the  attractiveness 
for  immigrants  of  the  United  States. 

It  has  already  been  noted  that  the  number  coming  from 
Ireland  now  averages  only  about  one-sixth  of  what  it  was  from 

1  Or  a  well-to-do  householder  who  suffers  from  the  difficulty  of  obtaining 
domestic  service,  which,  while  great  everywhere,  is  greatest  on  the  Pacific  coast. 


480 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


1847  to  1854.  The  Ireland  of  1910  has  about  half  as  many 
people  as  she  had  in  1845,  and  her  agricultural  conditions  are  so 
much  more  favourable  now  than  they  were  then  that  the  motives 
for  expatriation  are  less.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  hence¬ 
forth  fewer  Irishmen  will  leave  their  country.  So  also  as  to 
Germany.  She  sends  out  from  one-fourth  to  one-fifth  of  the 
number  that  came  in  the  years  between  1881  and  1891.  The 
drop  in  Norse  and  Swedish  immigration  is  less  marked,  but  it 
averaged  from  1905  to  1909  less  than  a  half  of  what  it  was  be¬ 
tween  1880  and  1893.  One  may  fairly  conclude  such  surplus 
population  as  there  was  when  the  large  outflow  began  has  now 
been  drained  off,  so  that  what  will  in  future  depart  will  be 
merely  any  natural  excess  of  population  beyond  those  for  whom 
there  is  opportunity  enough  at  home.  In  the  Scandinavian 
countries,  especially  in  Sweden,  a  scarcity  of  labour  has  begun 
to  be  felt,  and  the  Government  deplores  even  such  emigration 
as  still  continues. 

As  respects  the  new  sources  of  migration  —  Italy,  Austria- 
Hungary,  and  Russia  —  no  decline  is  yet  evident,  and  the 
fluctuations  which  are  recorded  seem  to  depend  on  the  state  of 
the  labour  market  in  America.  But  it  may  be  assumed  that 
what  has  happened  in  Ireland,  Germany,  and  Scandinavia  will 
presently  happen  in  South-eastern  Europe  also.  The  large  out¬ 
flow  of  peasants  will  leave  more  land  available  for  the  next 
generation.  Wages  will  rise  as  labour  grows  scarcer,  so  there 
will  be  less  reason  for  emigrating.  As  these  countries  were  not 
overpopulated  in  the  sense  in  which  Ireland  was  overpopulated 
in  1840,  the  overflow  which  marked  the  years  from  1890  to  191Q 
can  hardly  last  much  longer,  unless,  indeed,  the  sluices  be  raised 
in  Russia.  From  that  vast  multitude  of  peasants  new  Slavonic 
millions  might  come,  were  the  Government  to  permit  their  de¬ 
parture. 

The  other  side  of  the  question  relates  to  the  attraction  which 
America  has  exercised.  Will  the  prospects  of  comfort  and 
freedom  she  offers  continue  to  stir  the  hopes  of  the  European 
peasantry  as  they  have  done?  Land  is  in  the  fertile  West  al¬ 
ready  scarcer  and  higher  in  price  than  it  was,  and  virgin  land 
is  almost  unattainable,  except  in  the  limited  areas  which  are 
being  made  available  by  irrigation  or  by  the  new  processes  of 
dry  farming.  Those  who  leave  Europe  to  till  the  soil  elsewhere 
have  now  quite  as  great,  if  not  greater,  allurements  in  Canada 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


481 


or  Argentina,  and  many  who  might  formerly  have  gone  to  the 
United  States  are  now  seeking  one  or  other  of  those  countries. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  still  a  great  demand  for  unskilled 
labour  in  the  mine  and  the  quarry  and  the  forest,  as  well  as  for 
the  construction  of  railroads.  This  is  likely  to  continue  for 
many  a  year  to  come,  though  every  now  and  then  a  passing 
depression  of  trade  may  intervene  to  throw  multitudes  out  of 
work. 

It  may  therefore  be  expected  that  the  natives  of  those  parts 
of  Europe,  such  as  Russia,  Poland,  and  South  Italy,  where  wages 
are  lowest  and  conditions  least  promising,  will  continue  their 
movement  to  the  United  States  until  there  is  a  nearer  approach 
to  an  equilibrium  between  the  general  attractiveness  of  life  for 
the  poorer  classes  in  the  Old  World  and  in  the  New.  But  the 
stream  is  likely  to  diminish  in  volume,  as  the  outflow  from  a 
reservoir  diminishes  with  the  falling  level  of  the  water  within. 
We  must  not  expect  the  forty  years  from  1910  to  1950  to  show 
an  addition  of  twenty  millions  coming  from  without  to  the 
population  of  the  United  States,  as  did  the  forty  years  from 
1870  to  1910. 

The  vast  majority  of  the  immigrants  enter  by  the  port  of 
New  York,  and  are  on  their  arrival  sent  to  Ellis  Island,  a  rocky 
islet  in  the  Pludson  River,  where  they  are  inspected  by  officers 
of  the  Immigration  Bureau  before  being  permitted  to  proceed 
to  their  several  destinations.  In  the  great  hall  where  they  are 
penned  together  like  sheep,  there  are  a  number  of  iron  stair¬ 
cases,  by  which  the  immigrants  mount  from  the  ground  floor  to 
the  floor  above  where  they  are  inspected  under  the  stringent  pro¬ 
visions  of  the  law.  The  spectator,  as  he  stands  listening  to  the 
incessant  tramp,  tramp  of  the  feet  of  the  men,  women,  and  chil¬ 
dren  as  their  shoes  ring  upon  these  iron  steps,  seems  to  hear  the 
races  of  the  Old  World  marching  like  an  army  into  the  New, 
and  thinks  of  the  tribes  from  Northern  Europe  who  climbed  the 
steep  rock-paths  over  the  Alpine  passes  whence  they  descended 
into  the  Roman  Empire.  Those  came  as  conquerors  ;  these 
come  as  humble  suppliants  for  entrance  into  the  land  of  a  people 
rich  and  strong.  But  their  coming  cannot  but  affect  that 
people.  There  were  in  the  United  States  only  forty-eight  mil¬ 
lions  of  white  people,  when  the  ten  millions  from  Central  and 
Southern  Europe  who  have  arrived  since  1885  began  to  enter, 
an  addition  to  the  nation  such  as  no  nation  ever  received  before. 

2 i 


482 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


These  ten  millions,  whose  children  are  now  counted  by  millions 
more,  have  indeed  hardly  yet  begun  to  blend  with  the  older 
population.  But  they  must  ultimately  do  so.  Already  they 
tell  on  the  social  and  economic  life  of  the  country.  Long  before 
the  end  of  the  century  their  blood  will  have  been  largely  mingled 
with  that  of  the  Anglo-American  and  Irish  and  German  inhab¬ 
itants.  Thus  the  reflection  is  forced  upon  us,  What  changes  in 
the  character  and  habits  of  the  American  people  will  this  influx 
of  new  elements  make?  elements  wholly  diverse  not  only  in 
origin  but  in  ideas  and  traditions,  and  scarcely  less  diverse  from 
the  Irish  and  Teutonic  immigrants  of  previous  years  than  from 
the  men  of  predominantly  English  stock  who  inhabited  the 
country  before  the  Irish  or  the  Continental  Teutons  arrived. 

This  is  the  crucial  question  to  which  every  study  of  the  immi¬ 
grant  problem  leads  up.  It  is  a  matter  of  grave  import  for 
the  world,  seeing  that  it  is  virtually  a  new  phenomenon  in 
world  history,  because  no  large  movement  of  the  races  of  man¬ 
kind  from  one  region  of  the  earth  to  another  has  ever  occurred 
under  conditions  at  all  resembling  these.  But  it  is  primarily 
momentous  for  the  United  States,  and  that  all  the  more  so 
because  these  new  immigrants  go  to  swell  the  class  which 
already  causes  some  disquietude,  the  class  of  unskilled  labour¬ 
ers,  the  poorest,  the  most  ignorant,  and  the  most  unsettled 
part  of  the  population. 

In  the  United  States  the  uneasiness  which  this  invasion  excites 
takes  shape  in  the  question  so  often  on  men’s  lips,  Will  the  new 
immigrants  be  good  Americans?  In  the  most  familiar  sense  of 
these  words  the  enquiry  can  be  easily  answered.  If  by  the  words 
“good  Americans”  is  meant  “patriotic  Americans,”  patriotic 
they  will  be.  They  will  be  proud  of  America,  loyal  to  the  flag, 
quick  to  discard  their  European  memories  and  sentiments, 
eager  to  identify  themselves  with  everything  distinctive  of  their 
new  country.  Within  a  few  years  the  Italian  or  the  Magyar,  the 
Pole  or  the  Bouman  deems  himself  an  American  even  if  he  be 
not  yet  a  citizen.  Much  more  do  his  children  glory  in  the 
flag  under  which  they  were  born.  So  far  as  politics  are  con¬ 
cerned,  the  unity  and  the  homogeneity  of  the  nation  will  not 
ultimately  suffer. 

Neither  is  there  ground  for  apprehending  any  decline  in  the 
intellectual  quality  or  practical  alertness  of  the  composite 
people  of  the  future.  Nearly  all  the  instreaming  races  are 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OP  IMMIGRATION 


483 


equal  in  intelligence  to  the  present  inhabitants.  Of  the  acute¬ 
ness  of  Jews  and  Greeks  and  Italians  it  is  superfluous  to  speak. 
One  is  told  that  the  children  of  these  stocks  are  among  the 
brightest  in  the  public  schools,  and  that  in  New  York  they  use 
the  public  libraries  more  than  any  others  do.  So,  too,  the 
Poles  and  the  Czechs  are  naturally  gifted  races,  quite  as  apt  to 
learn  as  are  the  Germans,  even  if  less  solid  and  persistent. 
Than  the  Armenians  there  is  no  abler  race  in  the  world.  A 
blending  of  races  has  often  in  past  times  been  followed  by  an 
increase  in  intellectual  fertility.  It  is  possible  that  from  among 
the  Jews  and  Poles  with  their  musical  faculty,  or  the  Italians 
with  their  artistic  faculty,  there  may  arise  those  who,  stimulated 
by  the  new  opportunities  that  surround  them  here,  will  carry 
the  creative  power  of  the  country  to  a  higher  level  of  production 
in  those  branches  of  art  than  it  has  yet  reached. 

Whether  the  ethical  quality  of  the  nation  will  be  affected,  it 
is  more  difficult  to  conjecture.  Of  the  races  that  are  now  enter¬ 
ing,  some  have  suffered  in  their  birthland  from  economic  and  po¬ 
litical  conditions  unfavourable  to  veracity  and  courage.  Others, 
banded  together  against  authority,  have  become  prone  to  vio¬ 
lence.  But  there  are  others,  the  Piedmontese  and  Lombards 
for  instance,  who  come  of  a  manly  and  industrious  stock.  The 
Czechs  and  the  Poles,  the  Magyars  and  the  Slovenes,  do  not  ap¬ 
pear  to  one  who  has  seen  them  in  their  European  homes  to  have 
less  than  their  Teutonic  neighbours  of  the  virtues  that  belong  to 
simple  peasant  folk.  If  the  new  immigrants  or  their  children  are 
found  to  sink  below  the  average  of  conduct  in  the  class  they  enter 
and  show  themselves  more  disorderly  or  dishonest  than  the  native 
American,  this  will  happen,  not  because  the  races  are  naturally 
more  criminal,  but  rather  because  the  conditions  under  which 
they  begin  life  in  their  new  country  are  unfavourable.  The  im¬ 
migrant  is  cut  loose  from  his  old  ties  and  from  the  influences 
that  restrained  him.  He  is  far  from  his  parents  and  his  priest. 
He  has  no  longer  the  public  opinion  of  his  neighbours  to  regard, 
no  longer  any  disapproval  of  the  local  magnate  to  fear.  He 
does  not  see  round  him  the  signs  of  a  vigilant,  even  if  oppres¬ 
sive,  public  authority  which  were  conspicuous  in  his  native  vil¬ 
lage.  In  the  rough,  unsettled,  perhaps  homeless,  life  he  leads, 
a  tossing  atom  in  a  seething  crowd  who  toil  for  employers  with 
whom  they  have  no  healthy  human  relation,  propensities 
towards  evil  are  apt  to  spring  into  activity,  and  the  softer  feel- 


484 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


ings  as  well  as  the  sense  of  duty  to  perish  from  inanition.  The 
immigrant’s  child  is  in  one  way  better  placed,  for  he  is  influenced 
by  his  American  school-teachers  and  school  companions,  but 
in  another  way  worse,  because  the  traditions  and  habits  of  the 
simple  life  of  rural  Europe  have  for  him  faded  away  altogether, 
if  indeed  he  ever  knew  them.  He  starts  in  life  as  an  American, 
but  without  the  fundamental  ideas  and  ingrained  traditions 
of  the  New  Englander  or  Virginian  of  the  old  stock,  for  these 
ideas  and  sentiments  do  not  go  with  the  language  and  the  right 
to  vote.  Whether  his  religion  will  cling  to  him  remains  to  be 
seen.  Its  power  is  at  any  rate  likely  to  be  weaker,  perhaps 
least  weak  among  the  Jews,  whom  their  faith  and  their  habits 
hold  apart.  Though  they  also  are  divided  into  sects  some  of 
which  render  slight  or  no  obedience  to  the  Mosaic  law,  they 
show  much  less  tendency  to  blend  with  the  rest  of  the  popula¬ 
tion  than  do  the  other  races.  How  long  the  Greeks  and  the 
Armenians  will  be  kept  distinct  by  loyalty  to  their  ancient 
churches  I  will  not  venture  to  predict.  Among  all  the  immi¬ 
grants  the  grasp  of  religion  seems  to  loosen  ;  many  are  lost 
to  their  church  in  the  second  and  even  more  in  the  third 
generation. 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  the  influence  of  the  immigrant 
on  American  society  as  a  member  of  it,  not  so  much  in  the  way 
of  influencing  others,  as  in  that  of  constituting  one  of  a  body 
whose  conduct  forms  a  part  of  the  average  conduct  of  the  inhab¬ 
itants  of  the  country. 

There  is,  however,  another  aspect  of  the  matter,  really  dif¬ 
ferent  though  apt  to  be  confounded  with  that  already  con¬ 
sidered.  It  is  this,  What  difference  to  the  national  type  of 
character  will  be  produced  by  the  infusion  of  these  new  strains 
of  blood?  Before  the  year  1950  arrives,  the  children  and 
grandchildren  of  the  immigrants  who  have  entered  since  1885 
will  be  distinguished  from  other  Americans  only  by  their  sur¬ 
names,  and  sometimes  by  their  features  and  complexion.1 
They  will  no  longer  be  Poles  or  Italians  or  Slovaks,  but  Amer¬ 
icans.  They  will  have  intermarried  with  the  original  Anglo- 
Americans,  and  with  other  immigrants,  so  that  the  generation 

1  Even  surnames  are  often  changed  so  as  no  longer  to  denote  racial  origin. 
I  remember  a  case  of  a  German  named  Klein,  one  of  whose  sons  became  Cline 
and  another  Little.  Poles  frequently  change  the  spelling  of  their  names  or  drop 
them  and  take  new  ones. 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


485 


born  in  1950  will  contain  racial  elements  quite  diverse  from 
any  that  were  present  a  century  before.  In  some  parts  of  the 
country  these  racial  elements  may  be  so  largely  represented, 
that  prima  facie  one  would  expect  them  to  be  traceable  in  the 
physical  and  mental  characteristics  of  the  inhabitants.  When 
a  stream  of  whitish  hue  receives  a  reddish  stream  with  even 
one-third  its  volume,  it  runs  thenceforth  with  water  of  an  altered 
tint.  Will  something  similar  happen  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States  ? 

Here  let  us  pause  to  note  a  significant  factor  in  the  situation. 

It  has  been  observed  since  about  1870  that  the  fecundity  of 
the  original  Anglo-American  race  tends  to  decline.  Benjamin 
Franklin  considered  six  children  to  constitute  the  normal  Amer¬ 
ican  family.  The  average  is  now  slightly  above  two  children, 
and  the  percentage  of  childless  marriages  much  larger  than 
formerly.  Birth-rate  statistics  show  that  whereas  the  number 
of  births  to  the  thousand  of  population  is  in  Hungary  about  40, 
in  Germany  36,  in  England  and  Scotland,  Norway  and  Denmark 
30,  it  is  in  Massachusetts  and  Michigan  only  25,  in  Rhode 
Island  and  Connecticut  24.  In  some  States  of  the  Union  it 
is  doubtless  higher  than  in  these  four.  But  in  all  the  Northern 
States  it  is  much  smaller  among  native-born  Americans  than 
among  the  immigrants.  In  Massachusetts  the  birth  rate  of 
the  foreign-born  is  three  times  as  large  as  that  among  the 
native-born,  and  the  decline  in  fecundity  among  American-born 
as  compared  with  foreign-born  all  over  the  Union  is  indubi¬ 
table.  Thus  we  have  the  fact,  not  only  that  far  more  than  half 
the  total  white  population  was  in  1910  either  foreign  or  the 
offspring  of  foreigners,  but  the  further  fact,  that  at  least  twice 
as  many  children  were  then  being  born  to  the  foreign-born  as  to 
the  native-born.  Should  immigration  continue  on  a  large  scale, 
and  should  this  disparity  in  the  fertility  of  the  foreign  and  the 
native  stocks  also  continue,  the  population,  which  was  in  1840 
almost  wholly  Anglo-American,  and  in  1900  half  native  and 
half  foreign,  may  in  1950  be  three-fourths  or  more  of  foreign 
blood,  i.e.  three-fourths  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  may  be  the  offspring  of  those  who  have  entered  America 
since  1840. 

Two  qualifying  facts  may  deserve  mention.  One  is  that  a 
large  part,  possibly  one-half,  of  these  three-fourths  of  foreign  . 
stock  to  be  expected  in  1950  may  probably  be  the  descendants 


486 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


of  those  who  have  come  from  the  United  Kingdom,  from  Ger¬ 
many,  and  from  Scandinavia,  and  the  smaller  part,  perhaps  15 
to  25  per  cent  of  the  total  white  population,  the  children  of 
immigrants  from  Central  and  Southern  Europe.  The  other  is 
that  the  fecundity  of  the  foreign  stock  already  shows  signs  of 
declining  in  their  new  American  environment.  It  is  certainly 
greater  among  the  immigrants  than  among  their  offspring  born 
in  the  United  States.  The  latter  seem  to  be  caught  by  the 
desire  to  reach  a  higher  standard  of  living  and  rise  in  the  social 
scale,  a  desire  apt  to  express  itself,  among  the  ambitious,  in 
taking  a  native  American  or  an  Irish  wife.  Thus,  in  the  second 
generation,  families  tend  to  be  smaller  ;  and  so  by  1950  the  birth 
rate  of  the  children  of  foreigners  may  have  sunk  to  the  native 
American  level. 

Be  these  things  as  they  may,  —  and  of  course  all  forecasts 
must  be  speculative  where  the  data  are  still  so  imperfect,  —  the 
problem  confronts  us  :  What  will  be  the  result  on  the  American 
people  of  this  infusion  we  see  beginning  of  a  great  volume  of 
new  blood  drawn  from  races  unlike  the  original  Anglo-American 
stock  ? 

In  the  problem  there  are  two  factors.  One  is  the  hereditary 
Race  Character,  by  which  an  average  Italian  or  Jew  or  Pole  is 
born  different  from  the  average  American  of  British  ancestry. 
As  racial  quality  shows  itself  in  the  lines  of  the  face  and  the 
colour  of  hair  and  eyes,  so  is  it  also  distinguishable  in  certain 
intellectual  and  emotional  traits.  The  virtues  and  the  faults  of 
a  Tuscan  are  not  quite  the  same  as  those  of  a  Prussian. 

The  other  factor  is  the  environment  in  which  a  child  grows 
up  to  manhood  and  by  which  his  character  is  moulded.  An 
Italian  or  Polish  infant,  brought  up  in  Un  American  family  and 
mixing  during  youth  only  with  Americans,  may  in  manhood  still 
retain  some  racial  traits,  but  they  will  be  far  less  marked  than 
if  he  had  grown  up  in  Naples  or  Krakow  among  people  of  his 
own  nation.  What  is  the  relative  importance  of  these  two 
factors,  Heredity  and  Environment  ?  When  ten  or  twelve  mil¬ 
lions  of  Italians,  Poles,  and  other  “new  immigrants”  have  inter¬ 
married  with  Americans,  will  their  offspring  give  evidence  in 
physical  and  mental  quality  of  a  diverse  element  brought  into 
the  nation,  or  will  the  social  forces  at  work  which  are  moulding 
all  persons  born  in  America  overlay  and  end  by  obliterating 
these  racial  differences? 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


487 


(1)  Scientific  students  are  so  far  from  agreed  as  to  many 
of  the  phenomena  of  hereditary  transmission  that  while  stating 
that  side  of  the  problem,  I  will  not  venture  to  discuss  it.  But 
the  other  side  is  within  the  field  of  any  observer  who  gives 
steady  attention  to  the  facts.  So  let  us  note  some  facts  that 
show  what  in  the  United  States  the  power  of  environment  is 
capable  of  effecting. 

The  climate  and  food  in  North  America  are  different  from 
those  that  have  helped  to  form  in  past  centuries  the  type  of  each 
of  these  European  races.  Some  observers  claim  to  have  already 
discovered  among  the  American-born  children  of  certain  among 
the  immigrant  stocks,  such  as  Jews  and  Southern  Italians, 
physical  divergences,  particularly  in  skull  form,  from  the  normal 
European  characteristics  of  the  race  as  examined  in  the  foreign- 
born  parents  of  these  children.1  The  enquiry  is  still  incomplete, 
but  some  sort  of  divergence  may  well  be  expected  after  there 
has  been  time  enough  for  the  new  conditions  to  work,  and  if 
physical  structure  is  affected  in  the  way  which  the  observations 
made  on  Jews  and  Italians  indicate,  much  more  may  mental 
changes  follow. 

(2)  The  immigrants  belong  to  so  many  different  races  that 
no  one  race  can  in  the  long  run  maintain  any  distinctive  type. 
Even  should  the  first  generation  born  in  the  United  States  tend 
to  marry  each  within  its  own  race,  the  next  generation  will  not ; 
and  before  the  end  of  the  twentieth  century  all  will  have  been 
commingled,  and  the  blood  of  the  nation  of  that  time  will  have 
been  the  product  of  many  different  strains.  So  the  intellectual 
and  moral  character  of  the  future  American,  whether  or  no 
altered  by  qualities  added  from  these  new  races,  will  not  bear 
a  mark  distinctive  of  any  one  of  them.  Large  as  may  be  the 
contribution  of  all  the  immigrants  taken  together,  the  contri¬ 
bution  of  each  taken  separately  will  be  too  small  to  leave  a 
permanent  trace.  Neither  the  four  and  a  half  millions  of 
Irishmen  nor  the  five  millions  of  Germans  who  have  come  since 


1  Reference  may  be  made  to  an  interesting  report  on  this  subject  published  by 
the  Immigration  Commission  (Senate  Document  No.  208  of  1910)  in  which  the 
conclusion  is  drawn  from  a  large  number  of  measurements  made  of  Sicilians  and 
Jews  in  New  York  that  the  long  skulls  of  the  former  race  are  growing  shorter 
and  wider  in  the  children  of  the  immigrants  than  are  the  skulls  of  their  parents, 
while  the  round  skulls  of  the  Jewish  children  are  growing  longer  than  those  of 
their  parents,  both  tending  to  approximate  to  the  “  cephalic  index  ”  character¬ 
istic  of  native  Americans. 


488 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


1845,  though  they  may  possibly  have  modified  the  national 
character,  have  added  anything  that  can  be  called  distinctively 
Irish  or  distinctively  German. 

(3)  The  point  in  which  the  present  case  of  race  fusion  most 
differs  from  all  preceding  cases,  is  in  the  immense  assimilative 
potency  of  the  environment.  Never  before  did  less  advanced 
races  come  into  a  country  and  people  which  possessed  a  like 
capacity  for  permeating  newcomers  with  its  ways  of  thinking, 
its  tastes,  its  habits  of  life.  The  American  type  of  civilization, 
whether  in  its  material  and  economic,  or  in  its  social  and 
political  aspect,  is  at  least  as  distinctive  as  any  the  Old  World 
can  show.  The  effigy  and  device  —  so  to  speak  —  which  the 
American  die  impresses  on  every  kind  of  metal  placed  beneath 
its  stamp,  is  sharp  and  clear.  The  schools,  the  newspapers,  the 
political  institutions,  the  methods  of  business,  the  social  usages, 
the  general  spirit  in  which  things  are  done,  all  grasp  and 
mould  and  remake  a  newcomer  from  the  first  day  of  his 
arrival,  and  turn  him  out  an  American  far  more  quickly  and 
more  completely  than  the  like  influences  transform  a  stranger 
into  a  citizen  in  any  other  country.  Nowhere  is  life  so  intense  ; 
nowhere  are  men  so  proud  of  the  greatness  and  prosperity  of 
their  country.  These  things  strengthen  the  assimilative  force 
of  American  civilization,  because  here  the  ties  that  held  the 
stranger  to  the  land  of  his  birth  are  quickly  broken  and  soon 
forgotten.  His  transformation  is  all  the  swifter  and  more 
thorough  because  it  is  a  willing  transformation. 

Even,  therefore,  should  another  ten  millions  pour  in  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  even  should  this  infusion  of  new 
blood  affect  the  quality  of  the  nation  in  some  way  not  yet  to  be 
foreseen,  the  Type  seems  destined  to  stand,  retaining  the  fea¬ 
tures  that  make  it  distinctively  American.  Changes  in  national 
character  there  will  of  course  be,  for  a  nation  is  always  chang¬ 
ing,  even  if  it  receives  no  accretions  from  without.  It  changes 
with  the  events  that  befall  it  and  the  influences  that  play  on  it 
from  age  to  age.  As  the  Americans  of  1850,  who  had  not  yet 
been  affected  by  immigration,  were  different  from  those  of  1750, 
so  the  Americans  of  a.d.  2000  will  in  any  case  be  different  from 
those  of  1900,  nor  will  it  be  then  possible  to  determine  how  much 
of  the  difference  should  be  ascribed  to  the  addition  of  new 
racial  elements,  how  much  to  the  working  of  other  economic 
and  moral  causes.  Thus  the  problem  of  ascertaining  the  'effect 


CHAP.  XCII 


LATEST  PHASE  OF  IMMIGRATION 


489 


of  the  commingling  of  a  group  of  widely  diverse  and  less  ad¬ 
vanced  racial  stocks  with  a  stock  and  a  civilization  of  unusual 
assimilative  power  may  be  no  nearer  solution  then  than  it  is 
now. 

If  the  incoming  of  these  masses  of  uneducated  European 
peasants  should,  as  some  fear,  be  followed  by  a  decline,  either 
generally  or  in  the  places  where  they  chiefly  settle,  of  respect  for 
the  law  and  of  the  ethical  standards  generally,  the  cause  will 
lie  not  so  much  in  any  moral  inferiority  of  the  immigrants  as 
in  the  unfavourable  conditions  which  surround  them  and  their 
offspring  in  a  land  with  whose  people  they  have  little  in  com¬ 
mon,  and  where  most  of  them  are  huddled  together  in  the  slums 
of  vast  cities,  having  lost  one  set  of  guiding  influences  before 
they  have  gained  another.  In  these  conditions  there  does  lie  a 
danger,  and  it  is  the  greater  because  the  aggregation  of  mul¬ 
titudes  of  men  in  huge  industrial  centres  where  the  social  rela¬ 
tions  that  in  former  generations  linked  the  poorer  to  the  richer 
and  more  educated  scarcely  exist  to-day,  is  itself  a  phenom¬ 
enon  of  serious  import.  Grave  and  urgent,  therefore,  is  the 
need  for  efforts  to  reach  and  befriend  the  immigrants  and  to 
form  in  their  children  high  ideals  of  American  citizenship. 
Much  is  already  being  done.  The  teachers  in  the  schools  of 
some  of  the  cities  realize  the  need  and  are  devoting  themselves 
in  a  worthy  spirit  to  the  work.  So,  too,  in  many  places  the 
churches,  wisely  avoiding  whatever  savours  of  proselytism,  as 
well  as  the  University  and  Neighbourhood  “ settlements’ ’  and 
the  Young  Men’s  Christian  Associations,  are  trying  to  get  hold 
of  the  neglected  strangers  and  help  them  to  “find  themselves” 
in  their  unfamiliar  surroundings.  Yet  much  more  needs  to  be 
done,  for  in  these  cities  and  in  the  mining  regions  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  natural  and  wholesome  human  contact  between  the 
educated  class  and  these  new  elements  in  the  labouring  class 
are  but  scanty.  , 

That  there  is  ground  for  anxiety  in  the  presence  of  this  vast 
and  growing  multitude  of  men  ignorant  and  liable  to  be  misled 
cannot  be  denied.  One  often  hears  the  wish  expressed  that  it 
had  been  found  possible  to  withhold  electoral  power  from  them 
till  they  had  lived  long  enough  in  the  country  to  imbibe  its  spirit 
and  be  familiar  with  its  institutions.  While  sharing  this  anxiety, 
I  must  add  that  it  is  least  felt  by  those  who  know  the  immi¬ 
grants  best.  The  public-spirited  and  warm-hearted  men  and 


490 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


women  who  work  among  them  are  not  despondent.  They  de¬ 
clare  that  the  immigrants  respond  quickly  to  any  touch  of  per¬ 
sonal  kindness,  and  that  not  a  few  soon  show  themselves  nowise 
inferior  to  other  persons  in  the  same  grade  of  life.  Great  is  the 
stimulative  and  educative  as  well  as  the  assimilative  power  of 
the  American  environment. 


CHAPTER  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 

Though  in  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  sought,  so  far  as 
possible,  to  describe  the  political  phenomena  of  America  in 
general  terms,  applicable  to  all  parts  of  the  Union,  it  has  often 
been  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that  the  conditions  of  the 
Southern  States,  both  political  and  social,  are  in  some  respects 
exceptional,  one  may  almost  say,  abnormal.  The  experience 
of  this  section  of  the  country  has  been  different  from  that  of 
the  more  populous  and  prosperous  North,  for  the  type  of  its 
civilization  was  till  thirty  years  ago  determined  by  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  slavery.  It  has  suffered,  and  has  been  regenerated,  by 
a  terrible  war.  It  is  still  confronted  by  a  peculiar  and  menacing 
problem  in  the  presence  of  a  mass  of  negroes  much  larger  than 
was  the  whole  population  of  the  Union  in  a.d.  1800,  persons 
who,  though  they  are  legally  and  industrially  members  of  the 
nation,  are  still  virtually  an  alien  element,  unabsorbed  and 
unabsorbable.  In  the  present  chapter  I  propose  to  sketch 
in  brief  outline  the  fortunes  of  the  Southern  States  since  the 
war,  and  their  present  economic  and  social  condition,  reserving 
for  the  two  chapters  which  follow  an  equally  succinct  account  of 
the  state  of  the  coloured  population,  and  their  relations,  present 
and  prospective,  to  the  whites. 

The  history  and  the  industrial  situation  of  the  Southern 
States  cannot  be  understood  without  a  comprehension  of  their 
physical  conditions.  That  part  of  them  which  lies  east  of  the 
Mississippi  consists  of  two  regions.  There  is  what  may  be 
called  the  plantation  country,  a  comparatively  level,  low,  and 
fertile  region,  lying  along  the  coast  of  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  stretching  up  the  basin  of  the  Mississippi 
River.  And  there  is  the  highland  region,  a  long,  broad  tongue 
of  elevated  land  stretching  down  from  the  north  into  this  level 
plantation  country,  between  the  39th  and  the  33d  parallels 
of  north  latitude.  Although  the  mountain  country  encloses 

491 


492 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


within  its  network  of  parallel  ridges  many  fertile  valleys,  while 
upon  its  outer  slopes,  where  they  sink  to  the  plain,  there  is 
plenty  of  good  land,  the  greater  part  of  its  area  is  covered  by 
thick  forests,  or  is  too  steep  and  rough  for  tillage.  To  men 
with  capital  and  to  the  better  sort  of  settlers  generally,  it 
was  uninviting,  and  thus  while  the  rest  of  the  South  was  being 
occupied  and  brought  under  cultivation,  it  long  remained 
thinly  peopled  and  in  many  districts  quite  wild,  with  scarcely 
any  roads  and  no  railways.  As  the  soil  was  not  fit  for  tobacco, 
cotton,  rice,  or  sugar,  the  planters  had  no  motive  to  bring  slave 
labour  into  it,  not  to  add  that  the  winter  cold  made  it  no  fit 
dwelling  place  for  the  swarthy  children  of  the  tropics.  Hence 
this  region  was  left  to  be  slowly  and  sparsely  peopled  by  the 
poorest  of  the  whites,  and  a  race  of  small  farmers  and  wood¬ 
men  grew  up.  They  were  rude  and  illiterate,  cut  off  from  the 
movements  of  the  world,  and  having  little  in  common  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  low  country  east  and  west  of  them,  yet 
hardy  and  vigorous,  with  the  virtues,  and  some  of  the  fierce¬ 
ness,  of  simple  mountaineers,  honest  among  themselves,  and 
with  a  dangerously  keen  sense  of  personal  honour,  but  hostile 
to  the  law  and  its  ministers.  While  the  whole  cultivation  of 
the  plain  country  of  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  Georgia,  Tennes¬ 
see,  and  Kentucky  was  done  by  negroes,  and  these  States, 
more  particularly  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  were  ruled  by 
an  oligarchy  of  wealthy  planters,  negroes  were  scarcely  to  be 
seen  in  the  mountains  of  Eastern  Kentucky,  Western  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  and  Eastern  Tennessee,  and  the  scanty  white 
population  of  these  mountains  had  no  influence  on  the  conduct 
of  public  affairs.  Hence  when  the  Civil  War  broke  out,  this 
race  of  hillmen,  disliking  slavery,  and  having  no  love  for  the 
planters,  adhered  to  the  Union  cause,  and  sent  thousands  of 
stalwart  recruits  into  the  Union  armies.  Even  to-day,  though, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  it  has  been  much  affected  by  the 
running  of  railways  through  it,  the  opening  of  mines  and  the 
setting  up  of  iron  works,  the  mountain  land  of  the  South  re¬ 
mains  unlike  the  plain  country  both  in  the  character  of  its 
inhabitants  and  in  the  physical  conditions  which  have  created 
that  character,  conditions  which,  as  will  appear  in  the  se¬ 
quel,  are  an  important  factor  in  the  so-called  Negro  Prob¬ 
lem. 

Excluding  these  highlanders,  —  and  excluding  also  the  three 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


493 


Border  States  which  did  not  secede,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and 
Missouri,  —  there  were  at  the  end  of  the  war  three  classes  of 
persons  in  the  South.  There  was  the  planting  aristocracy, 
which  the  war  had  ruined.  The  elder  men  had  seen  their 
estates  laid  waste,  such  savings  as  they  possessed  exhausted, 
their  whole  negro  property,  estimated  (over  the  whole  country) 
at  nearly  $20,000,000,  gone  from  them  into  freedom.  Of  the 
younger  men,  a  large  part  had  fallen  in  the  field.  All,  old 
and  young,  had  no  capital  left  with  which  to  work  the  estates 
that  still  remained  in  their  hands.  Land  and  negroes  had 
been  their  only  wealth,  for  there  were  practically  no  manu¬ 
factures  and  little  commerce,  save  at  the  half  dozen  seaports ; 
credit  was  gone ;  and  everything,  even  the  railroads,  was  in 
ruins.  Thus  the  country  was,  as  a  whole,  reduced  to  poverty, 
and  the  old  plantation  life  broken  up  forever. 

The  second  class  consisted  of  the  poor  or,  as  they  were  often 
called,  “mean”  whites,  who,  in  the  lowlands  and  outside  the 
few  cities,  included  all  the  white  population  below  the  level 
of  the  planters.  On  them,  too,  slavery  had  left  its  hateful 
stamp.  Considering  themselves  above  field  labour,  for  which 
in  any  case  they  were  little  disposed  in  the  hot  regions 
along  the  Atlantic  and  the  Gulf  coasts,  they  contracted 
habits  of  idleness  and  unthrift ;  they  were  uneducated,  shift¬ 
less,  unenterprising,  and  picked  up  their  living  partly  by  a 
languid  cultivation  of  patches  of  land,  and  by  hunting,  partly 
by  hanging  about  the  plantations  in  a  dependent  condition, 
doing  odd  jobs  and  receiving  occasional  aid.  To  them  the 
war  brought  good,  for  not  only  was  labour  dignified  by  the 
extinction  of  slavery,  but  their  three  or  four  years  of  service 
in  the  Confederate  armies  called  out  their  finer  qualities  and 
left  them  more  of  men  than  it  found  them.  Moreover  with 
the  depression  of  the  planting  oligarchy  their  social  inferiority 
and  political  subservience  became  less  marked. 

The  third  class  were  the  negroes,  then  about  four  millions 
in  number,  whose  sudden  liberation  threw  a  host  of  difficulties 
upon  the  States  where  they  lived,  and  upon  the  Federal  govern¬ 
ment,  which  felt  responsible  not  only  for  the  good  order  of 
the  reconquered  South,  but  in  a  special  manner  for  those  whose 
freedom  its  action  had  procured.  They  were  —  even  the  ma¬ 
jority  of  the  (comparatively  few)  free  blacks  in  the  towns  — 
illiterate,  and  scarcely  more  fit  to  fend  for  themselves  and 


494 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


guide  their  course  as  free  citizens  than  when  they  or  their 
fathers  had  been  landed  from  the  slave  ship. 

In  this  state  of  things,  three  great  problems  presented  them¬ 
selves  to  the  Federal  government  whose  victorious  armies  were 
occupying  the  South.  How  should  the  State  governments  in  the 
States  that  had  seceded  and  been  conquered  be  re-established  ? 
What  provision  should  be  made  for  the  material  support  and 
protection  in  personal  freedom  of  the  emancipated  slaves?  To 
what  extent  should  not  merely  passive  but  also  active  civil 
rights  —  that  is  to  say,  rights  of  participating  in  the  govern¬ 
ment  as  electors  or  officials  —  be  granted  to  these  freedmen  ? 

The  solution  of  these  problems  occupied  twelve  eventful 
years  from  1865  to  1877,  and  constitutes  one  of  the  most  intri¬ 
cate  chapters  in  American  history.  I  must  refrain  from  dis¬ 
cussing  either  the  party  conflicts  at  Washington,  or  the  subtle 
legal  questions  that  were  raised  in  Congress  and  in  the  courts, 
and  be  content  with  touching  on  the  action  taken  by  the  Fed¬ 
eral  and  State  governments  so  far  and  only  so  far  as  it  affected 
the  relations  of  the  negroes  and  the  whites. 

The  first  action  was  taken  by  the  Southern  States  themselves. 
Conformably  to  his  amnesty  proclamation  of  1863,  President 
Lincoln  had  recognized  new  State  governments,  loyal  to  the 
Union,  in  Tennessee  and  Louisiana,  as  he  had  previously  done 
in  Arkansas.  When  the  war  had  ended,  the  other  reconquered 
States  (except  Texas)  took  a  course  similar  to  that  which  the 
loyalists  of  those  States  had  taken.  The  white  inhabitants, 
except  those  excluded  by  the  terms  of  President  Johnson’s 
amnesty  proclamation  of  May,  1865,  chose  conventions  :  these 
conventions  enacted  new  constitutions  :  and  under  these  con¬ 
stitutions,  new  State  legislatures  were  elected.  These  legisla¬ 
tures  promptly  accepted  the  amendment  (the  thirteenth)  to 
the  Federal  Constitution  by  which  (in  1865)  slavery  had  been 
abolished,  and  then  went  on  to  pass  laws  for  the  regulation  of 
negro  labour  and  against  vagrancy,  laws  which,  though  repre¬ 
sented,  and  probably  in  good  faith,  as  necessary  for  the  control 
of  a  mass  of  ignorant  beings  suddenly  turned  adrift,  with  no  one 
to  control  them  and  no  habits  of  voluntary  industry  or  thrift, 
kept  the  negroes  in  a  state  of  inferiority,  and  might  have  been 
so  worked  as  to  reduce  a  large  part  of  them  to  practical  servi¬ 
tude.  This  was  a  false  move,  for  it  excited  alarm  and  resent¬ 
ment  at  the  North ;  and  it  was  accompanied  by  conflicts  here 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


495 


and  there  between  the  whites,  especially  the  disbanded  Con¬ 
federate  soldiers,  and  the  coloured  people ;  conflicts  the  more 
regrettable  because  the  slaves  had,  during  the  war,  behaved 
excellently  towards  the  defenceless  white  women  and  children 
on  the  plantations,  and  had  given  their  former  masters  little 
or  nothing  to  revenge.  It  was,  therefore,  in  a  suspicious  tem¬ 
per  that  Congress  approached  the  question  of  the  resettle¬ 
ment  of  the  South.  The  victors  had  shown  unexampled  clem¬ 
ency  to  the  vanquished,  but  they  were  not  prepared  to  kiss 
and  be  friends  in  the  sense  of  at  once  readmitting  those  whom 
they  deemed  and  called  “ rebels”  to  their  old  full  constitu¬ 
tional  rights.  Slavery,  which  at  the  beginning  of  the  war 
they  had  for  the  most  part  disclaimed  the  purpose  to  abolish, 
had  now  become  utterly  detestable  to  them,  and  the  negro  an 
object  of  special  sympathy.  They  felt  bound  to  secure  for 
him,  after  all  they  had  done  and  suffered,  the  amplest  protec¬ 
tion.  It  might  perhaps  have  been  wiser  to  revert  to  the  gen¬ 
eral  maxims  of  American  statesmanship,  and  rely  upon  the 
natural  recuperative  forces  and  the  interest  which  the  South 
itself  had  in  re-establishing  order  and  just  government.  But 
the  Northern  leaders  could  not  be  expected  to  realize  how 
completely  the  idea  of  another  revolt  had  vanished  from  the 
minds  of  the  Southern  people,  who,  in  a  characteristically 
American  fashion,  had  already  accepted  the  inevitable,  perceiv¬ 
ing  that  both  slavery  and  the  legal  claim  to  secede  were  gone 
forever.  And  these  leaders  —  more  particularly  those  who  sat 
in  Congress  —  were  goaded  into  more  drastic  measures  than 
reflection  might  have  approved  by  the  headstrong  violence  of 
President  Andrew  Johnson,  who,  as  a  Southern  States  Rights 
man  of  the  old  type,  had  announced  that  the  States  were 
entitled  to  resume  their  former  full  rights  of  self-government, 
and  who,  while  stretching  his  powers  to  effect  this  object, 
had  been  denouncing  Congress  in  unmeasured  terms.  Very 
different  might  have  been  the  course  of  events  had  the  patient 
wisdom  of  Lincoln  lived  to  guide  the  process  of  resettlement. 

Under  the  influence  of  these  sentiments,  Congress  refused 
to  allow  the  members  elected  from  the  reconquered  States  to  take 
their  seats,  and  enacted  a  statute  establishing  a  Freedmen’s 
Bureau,  armed  with  large  powers  for  the  oversight  and  sup¬ 
port  of  the  liberated  negroes.  Passed  in  1865,  and  in  1866  con¬ 
tinued  for  two  years  longer,  this  Act  practically  superseded  the 


496 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


legislation  of  the  reconquered  States  regarding  the  coloured 
people.  Congress  then  passed  and  proposed  for  acceptance 
by  the  States  (June,  1866)  an  amendment  (the  fourteenth) 
to  the  Federal  Constitution,  which  conferred  citizenship,  State 
as  well  as  Federal,  on  all  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the 
United  States  and  subject  to  the’ jurisdiction  thereof,  forbade 
legislation  by  a  State  abridging  the  privileges  or  immunities 
of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  provided  for  reducing  the 
representation  in  Congress  of  any  State  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  its  citizens  excluded  from  the  suffrage.  As  all 
danger  of  a  return  of  slavery  had  already  vanished,  it  was  a 
tremendous  forward  move  to  put  this  pressure  upon  the  Southern 
States  to  confer  full  voting  rights  upon  their  negroes.  These 
States,  however,  would  probably  have  done  well  to  accept  the 
amendment,  and  might  perhaps  have  accepted  it  had  they 
realized  what  was  the  temper  of  the  party  dominant  at  the  North. 
But  they  complained  of  the  proposal  to  cut  down  representation 
in  respect  of  excluded  citizens,  arguing  that  there  were  Northern 
States  where  colour  was  a  ground  of  exclusion,  and  which,  never¬ 
theless,  would  suffer  much  less  than  the  Southern  States  because 
the  number  of  their  coloured  residents  was  far  smaller  ;  and  they 
also  resented  a  provision  of  the  amendment  which  disqualified 
from  voting  or  office  all  persons  who  having  ever  taken  an  oath 
to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  had  been  con¬ 
cerned  in  “ insurrection  or  rebellion  against  the  same.”  Accord¬ 
ingly  all  these  States,  except  Tennessee,  rejected  the  amendment. 
This  further  stimulated  the  anger  and  suspicion  of  Congress, 
which  proceeded  (March  2,  1867)  to  pass  the  so-called  Recon¬ 
struction  Act  (a  bill  “to  provide  efficient  governments  for  the 
insurrectionary  States”)  designed  to  create  legitimate  govern¬ 
ments  in  the  States  not  yet  readmitted  to  the  Union  (ignoring  the 
governments  set  up  by  the  white  inhabitants),  and  to  deter¬ 
mine  the  conditions  proper  for  their  readmission.  By  this 
Act  these  States,  that  is,  the  whole  seceding  South  except 
Tennessee,  were  divided  into  five  military  districts,  each  to 
be  governed  by  a  brigadier-general  of  the  Federal  army,  until 
such  time  as  a  State  convention  should  have  framed  a  new 
constitution,  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  have  been  ratified 
and  the  State  have  been  duly  readmitted.  The  delegates  to. 
each  convention  were  to  be  elected  by  all  the  male  citizens,  exclud¬ 
ing  such  as,  having  previously  sworn  to  support  the  Federal 


CHAP.  XCI1I 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


497 


Constitution,  had  been  concerned  in  the  late  rebellion ;  and  it 
was  to  these  same  voters  that  the  new  Constitution  when 
framed  was  to  be  submitted  for  ratification.  This  provision, 
while  it  admitted  the  negroes  to  be  voters  and  delegates  to 
the  conventions,  debarred  from  both  functions  most  of  the  lead¬ 
ing  whites,  and  left  the  conventions  to  be  “run”  by  those  few 
whites  who  had  remained  faithful  to  the  Union,  and  by  adven¬ 
turers  who  had  come  from  the  North  in  the  track  of  the  Federal 
armies.  The  Reconstruction  Act  was  duly  carried  out ;  con¬ 
ventions  were  held  ;  constitutions  granting  equal  suffrage  to  all, 
blacks  and  whites,  were  enacted,  and  new  State  governments 
installed  accordingly,  in  which,  however,  the  leading  white 
men  of  each  State,  since  not  yet  pardoned,  could  obtain  no 
place  either  as  legislators  or  as  officials.  By  this  procedure, 
six  States  were  in  1868  readmitted  to  Congress,  as  having 
satisfied  the  conditions  imposed,  and  the  remaining  States 
within  the  two  years  following.  In  July,  1868,  the  Four¬ 
teenth  Amendment  became  a  part  of  the  Constitution,  having 
been  accepted  by  three-fourths  of  the  States,  and  in  March,  1870, 
the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  forbidding  the  voting  right  of  citizens 
to  be  “denied  or  abridged  an  account  of  race,  colour,  or  previous 
condition  of  servitude,”  also  became  by  similar  acceptance  part 
of  the  Constitution  and  binding  on  all  the  States.  With  this, 
and  with  the  passing  in  1870  and  1871  of  penal  laws,  commonly 
called  the  Force  Acts,  intended  to  protect  the  negroes  in  the 
exercise  of  the  suffrage,  the  direct  interference  of  the  Federal 
legislature  ended.  In  1872,  by  the  general  Amnesty  Act,  it 
readmitted  the  great  bulk  of  the  ex-Confederates  to  full  political 
rights. 

Meanwhile,  how  had  things  been  going  in  the  Southern  States 
themselves?  All  the  leading  whites  having  been  disqualified 
from  voting  or  taking  part  in  the  government,  the  only  factors 
or  forces  left  were,  — 

First,  such  whites  as  had  adhered  to  the  Union  throughout 
the  war  —  in  most  States  neither  a  numerous  nor  an  influential 
body. 

Secondly,  a  vast  mass  of  negroes  suddenly  set  free,  and  abso¬ 
lutely  destitute,  not  only  of  political  experience,  but  even  of  the 
most  rudimentary  political  ideas. 

Thirdly,  men  sent  down  from  the  North  as  agents  of  the  Freed- 
men’s  Bureau,  or  otherwise  in  connection  with  the  Federal 


498 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


government,  and  persons  who  had  come  of  themselves  in  the 
hope  of  profiting  by  such  opportunities  for  enrichment  as  the 
abnormal  conditions  of  the  country  might  create. 

The  voting  strength  was,  of  course,  with  the  negroes,  espe¬ 
cially  in  South  Carolina  and  the  Gulf  States  (except  Texas)  ; 
and  a  certain  number  were  chosen  to  sit  in  the  legislatures  and 
to  fill  the  less  important  offices.  In  the  legislatures  of  South 
Carolina  and  Mississippi,  they  formed  the  majority ;  and  from 
the  latter  State  they  sent  one  of  themselves  to  the  Federal 
Senate.  But  leadership,  of  course,  fell  to  the  whites,  who 
alone  were  capable  of  it,  and  chiefly  to  those  white  adventurers 
whose  scanty  stock  of  portable  property  won  for  them  the  name 
of  “carpet-baggers.”  They  organized  the  negroes  for  elections, 
State  and  local,  they  tampered  with  the  electoral  lists  and  stuffed 
the  ballot-boxes,1  they  “ran”  the  legislatures.  They  pounced 
upon  the  lucrative  places,  satisfying  negro  claims  with  posts  of 
less  consequence,2  they  devised  the  various  methods  by  which 
taxation  was  increased,  debt  rolled  up,  offices  created  and  lavishly 
paid,  frauds  of  every  land  perpetrated  for  the  benefit  of  them¬ 
selves  and  their  friends.  Such  a  Saturnalia  of  robbery  and 
jobbery  has  seldom  been  seen  in  any  civilized  country,  and  cer¬ 
tainly  never  before  under  the  forms  of  free  self-government. 
The  coloured  voters  could  hardly  be  blamed  for  blindly  following 
the  guides  who  represented  to  them  the  party  to  which  they  owed 
their  liberty ;  and  as  they  had  little  property,  taxation  did  not 
press  upon  them  nor  the  increase  of  debt  alarm  them.  Those 
among  the  negroes  to  whom  the  chief  profit  accrued  were  the 
preachers,  who  enjoyed  a  sort  of  local  influence,  and  could  some¬ 
times  command  the  votes  of  their  fellows,  and  the  legislators, 
who  were  accustomed,  in  South  Carolina,  for  instance,  to  be  paid 
a  few  dollars  for  every  bill  they  passed.3  But  nine-tenths  of  the 
illicit  gains  went  to  the  whites.  Many  of  them  were  persons 
of  infamous  character  who  ultimately  saved  themselves  from 

1  Sometimes  the  beautifully  simple  plan  was  adopted  of  providing  the  ballot 
box,  carefully  locked  and  sealed  at  its  proper  aperture,  with  a  sliding  side. 

2  In  South  Carolina,  in  1875,  according  to  the  trustworthy  evidence  of  Gov¬ 
ernor  Chamberlain,  two  hundred  persons  had  been  appointed  justices  of  the 
peace,  with  a  certain  civil  as  well  as  criminal  jurisdiction,  who  could  neither 
read  nor  write. 

3  An  anecdote  is  told  of  an  old  negro  in  North  Carolina  who,  being  discovered 
counting  the  fees  he  had  received  for  his  vote  in  the  legislature,  said  with  a 
chuckle,  “  I  have  been  sold  eleven  times  in  my  life,  and  this  is  the  first  time  I 
ever  got  the  money.” 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


499 


justice  by  flight.  For  the  time  they  enjoyed  absolute  impunity, 
without  even  that  check  which  public  opinion  imposes  on  the 
worst  rulers  when  they  themselves  belong  to  the  district  which 
they  rule. 

The  position  of  these  adventurers  was  like  that  of  k  Roman 
provincial  governor  and  his  suite  in  the  later  days  of  the  Repub¬ 
lic,  or  an  English  official  in  the  East  Indies  in  the  earlier  days 
of  the  Company’s  conquests,  save  that  they  had  less  to  fear 
from  subsequent  prosecution  than  Verres,  and  less  from  a  par¬ 
liamentary  enquiry  than  the  companions  of  Clive.  The  very 
securities  with  which  the  Federal  system  surrounds  State  au¬ 
tonomy  contributed  to  encourage  their  audacity.  The  national 
government  was  not  responsible,  because  the  whole  machinery 
of  State  government  was  in  form  complete  and  to  all  outward 
appearance  in  normal  action.  But  as  voting  power  lay  with 
those  who  were  wholly  unfit  for  citizenship,  and  had  no  interest, 
as  taxpayers,  in  good  government,  as  the  legislatures  were 
reckless  and  corrupt,  the  judges  for  the  most  part  subservient, 
the  Federal  military  officers  bound  to  support  what  purported 
to  be  the  constitutional  authorities  of  the  State,  Congress 
distant  and  little  inclined  to  listen  to  the  complaints  of  those 
whom  it  distrusted  as  rebels,1  greed  was  unchecked  and  roguery 
unabashed.  The  methods  of  plunder  were  numerous.  Every 
branch  of  administration  became  wasteful.  Public  contracts 
were  jobbed,  and  the  profits  shared.  Extravagant  salaries 
were  paid  to  legislators ;  extravagant  charges  allowed  for  all 
sorts  of  work  done  at  the  public  cost.  But  perhaps  the  common¬ 
est  form  of  robbery,  and  that  conducted  on  the  largest  scale, 
was  for  the  legislature  to  direct  the  issue  of  bonds  in  aid  of  a 
railroad  or  other  public  work,  these  bonds  being  then  delivered 
to  contractors  who  sold  them,  shared  the  proceeds  with  the 
governing  Ring,  and  omitted  to  execute  the  work.  Much  money 
was  however  taken  in  an  even  more  direct  fashion  from  the  State 
treasury  or  from  that  of  the  local  authority ;  and  as  not  only 
the  guardians  of  the  public  funds,  but  even,  in  many  cases,  the 
courts  of  law,  were  under  the  control  of  the  thieves,  discovery 
was  difficult  and  redress  unattainable.  In  this  way  the  indus- 

1  Nearly  the  whole  representation  in  Congress  of  these  States  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  then  ruling  Republican  party.  The  Southern  members  were 
largely  accomplices  in  the  local  misgovernment  here  described,  nearly  half 
of  them  being  carpet-baggers  from  the  North,  while  few  of  the  Northern  mem¬ 
bers  had  any  knowledge  of  it,  some  perhaps  not  caring  to  enquire. 


500 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


trious  and  property-holding  classes  saw  the  burdens  of  the  State 
increase,  with  no  power  of  arresting  the  process.  In  North 
Carolina,  $14,000,000  worth  of  railroad  bonds  were  issued,  and 
no  railway  made.  In  Alabama,  the  State  debt  rose  in  four 
years  from  $8,356,000  to  $25,503,000,  with  little  or  nothing  to 
show  for  it.  In  Mississippi,  the  State  levy  had  been  ten  cents 
on  the  $100  of  assessed  value  of  lands.  In  1874  it  had  risen  to 
fourteen  times  that  rate.  In  South  Carolina,  the  State  debt 
leapt  in  four  years  from  $5,407,000  to  $18,515,000,  and  Governor 
Moses,  not  content  with  his  share  of  the  plunder,  openly  sold 
his  pardons,  of  which  he  granted  457  in  two  years.  But  the 
climax  was  reached  in  Louisiana,  where,  in  a  single  year,  the 
State  debt  was  increased  fourfold,  and  the  local  debt  twofold, 
while  in  four  years’  time  the  total  State  and  city  indebtedness 
was  rolled  up  by  the  sum  of  $54,000,000,  all  of  which  went  to 
the  spoilers,  and  nothing  to  permanent  improvements. 

Whether  owing  to  those  amiable  traits  in  the  national  char¬ 
acter  which  often  survive  the  sterner  virtues,  or  to  the  fact 
that  the  thieves  were  too  busy  filling  their  pockets  to  have  leisure 
for  other  outrages,  this  misgovernment  was  accompanied  by  less 
oppression  and  cruelty  than  might  have  been  expected.  Some 
such  acts  there  doubtless  were,  particularly  in  the  rougher  dis¬ 
tricts  of  the  extreme  South-west ;  and  in  several  States  the  domi¬ 
nant  faction,  not  satisfied  with  the  presence  of  Federal  troops, 
sought  to  preserve  order  by  creating  bodies  of  State  guards  or 
State  police,  or  a  negro  militia.  In  Mississippi  the  coloured  people 
were  enrolled  in  a  “ Loyal  League.”  Unlike  the  Federal  civil 
officials,  who  were  often  disreputable  and  unscrupulous  partisans, 
sometimes  most  improperly  combining  the  headship  of  the 
local  Republican  organization  with  an  office  demanding  impartia¬ 
lity,1  the  Federal  military  officers,  though  their  conduct  was  some¬ 
times  impugned,  seem  on  the  whole  to  have  behaved  with  up¬ 
rightness  and  good  sense,  making  their  military  control  as  gentle 
as  such  a  thing  ever  can  be.  Nor  did  the  negroes,  untutored 
as  they  were,  and  jubilant  in  their  new  freedom,  show  the  tur¬ 
bulence  or  the  vindictiveness  which  might  have  been  looked  for 
in  a  less  kindly  race.  Nevertheless,  disorders  broke  out.  A  secret 
combination,  called  the  Ku  Klux  Ivlan,  said  to  have  been  orig- 


1  In  Louisiana,  for  instance,  the  Federal  marshal,  who  was  entitled  to  call 
on  the  Federal  troops  to  aid  him,  was  for  a  time  chairman  of  the  Republican 
State  Committee. 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


501 


inally  formed  in  Tennessee  by  youths  for  purposes  of  amusement, 
spread  rapidly  through  the  country,  and  became  credited  with 
the  numerous  petty  outrages  which,  during  1868,  and  the  follow¬ 
ing  years,  were  perpetrated  upon  negroes,  and  (less  frequently) 
upon  whites  supposed  to  be  in  sympathy  with  negroes,  in  the 
rural  South.  Many  of  these  outrages  were  probably  the  work 
of  village  ruffians  who  had  no  connection  with  any  organization, 
still  less  any  political  motive.  But  the  impossiblity  of  discover¬ 
ing  those  who  committed  them,  and  the  absence  of  any  local 
efforts  to  repress  them,  showed  the  profound  discontent  of  the 
better  class  of  whites  with  the  governments  which  the  coloured 
vote  had  installed,  while  unfortunately  confirming  Congress  in 
its  suspicion  of  the  former  rebels  as  being  still  at  heart  enemies 
of  the  Union  and  the  negro.  No  open  resistance  to  the 
Federal  troops -was  attempted  ;  but  neither  their  activity  nor  the 
penal  laws  passed  by  Congress  were  effective  in  checking  the 
floggings,  house-burnings,  and  murders  which  during  these  years 
disgraced  some  districts.  Meanwhile,  the  North  grew  weary  of 
repression,  and  began  to  be  moved  by  the  accounts  that  reached 
it  of  “ carpet-bag  government.”  A  political  reaction,  due  to  other 
causes,  had  made  itself  felt  in  the  North ;  and  the  old  principle 
of  leaving  the  States  to  themselves  gained  more  and  more  upon 
the  popular  mind,  even  within  the  still  dominant  Republican 
party.  Though  some  of  its  prominent  leaders  desired,  perhaps 
not  without  a  view  to  party  advantage,  to  keep  down  the  South, 
they  were  overborne  by  the  feeling,  always  strong  in  America, 
that  every  community  to  which  self-government  has  been  granted 
must  be  left  to  itself  to  work  out  its  own  salvation,  and  that  con¬ 
tinued  military  occupation  could  not  be  justified  where  no  revolt 
was  apprehended.  The  end  came  in  1876-77.  Between  1869 
and  1876  the  whites  had  in  every  Southern  State,  except  South 
Carolina,  Florida,  and  Louisiana,  regained  control  of  the  govern¬ 
ment,  and  in  1876  those  three  States  were  also  recovered.1 
The  circumstances  were  different,  according  to  the  character  of 
the  population  in  each  State.  In  some  a  union  of  the  moderate 
white  Republicans  with  the  Democrats,  brought  about  by  the 
disgust  of  all  property  holders  at  the  scandals  they  saw  and  at  the 
increase  to  their  burdens  as  tax-payers,  had  secured  legitimately 


1  Those  States  in  which  the  whites  first  recovered  control,  such  as  Georgia, 
have  generally  fared  best  subsequently.  They  have  had  less  debt  to  carry, 
and  commercial  confidence  was  sooner  restored. 


502 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


chosen  majorities,  and  ejected  the  corrupt  officials.  In  some  the 
same  result  was  attained  by  paying  or  otherwise  inducing  the 
negroes  not  to  go  to  the  polls,  or  by  driving  them  away  by  threats 
or  actual  violence.  Once  possessed  again  of  a  voting  majority, 
the  whites,  all  of  whom  had  by  1872  been  relieved  of  their  dis¬ 
abilities,  took  good  care,  by  a  variety  of  devices,  legal  and 
extra-legal,  to  keep  that  majority  safe  ;  and  in  no  State  has  their 
control  of  the  government  been  since  shaken.  President  Hayes 
withdrew,  in  1877,  such  Federal  troops  as  were  still  left  at  the 
South,  and  none  have  ever  since  been  despatched  thither. 

This  sketch  has  been  given,  not  so  much  because  it  is  a  curious 
phase  in  the  history  of  democracy,  and  one  not  likely  ever  to 
recur,  either  in  the  United  States  or  elsewhere,  as  because  it  has 
determined  and  explained  the  whole  subsequent  course  of  events 
and  the  present  attitude,  whereof  more  anon,  of  the  Southern 
people.  That  Congress  made  some  mistakes  is  proved  by  the 
results.  Among  those  results  must  be  reckoned  not  merely  the 
load  of  needless  debt  imposed  upon  the  Southern  States,  and 
the  retardation  of  their  recovery  from  the  losses  of  the  war,  but  the 
driving  of  all  their  respectable  white  citizens  into  the  Democratic 
party  and  their  alienation  from  the  Republicans  of  the  North, 
together  with  the  similar  aggregation  of  the  negroes  in  the  Re¬ 
publican  party,  and  consequent  creation  of  a  so-called  “  colour 
line”  in  politics.  Habits  of  lawlessness  have  moreover  been 
perpetuated  among  the  whites,  and  there  was  formed  in  both 
parties  the  pernicious  practice  of  tampering  with  elections,  some¬ 
times  by  force  and  sometimes  by  fraud,  a  practice  which  strikes 
at  the  very  root  of  free  popular  government. 

But  was  the  great  and  capital  act  of  the  Republican  party 
when  it  secured  the  grant  of  the  suffrage  to  the  negroes  en  bloc 
one  of  those  mistakes  ?  To  nearly  all  Europeans  such  a  step 
seemed  and  still  seems  monstrous.  No  people  could  be  imagined 
more  hopelessly  unfit  for  political  power  than  this  host  of  slaves  ; 
and  their  unfitness  became  all  the  more  dangerous  because 
the  classes  among  whom  the  new  voters  ought  to  have  found 
guidance  were  partly  disfranchised  and  partly  forced  into  hos¬ 
tility.  American  eyes,  however,  saw  the  matter  in  a  different 
light.  To  them  it  has  been  an  axiom,  that  without  the  suffrage 
there  is  no  true  citizenship,  and  the  negro  would  have  appeared 
to  be  scarcely  free  had  he  received  only  the  private  and  passive, 
and  not  also  the  public  and  active,  rights  of  a  citizen.  “  I  realized 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


503 


in  1867/’  said  General  Wade  Hampton,  one  of  the  most  distin¬ 
guished  leaders  of  the  South,  “that  when  a  man  had  been  made 
a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  he  could  not  be  debarred  from  vot¬ 
ing  on  account  of  his  colour.  Such  exclusion  would  be  opposed 
to  the  entire  theory  of  republican  institutions.”  1  It  is  true  that 
there  were  Northern  States,  such  as  even  the  New  England  Con¬ 
necticut  and  the  half  New  England  Ohio,  as  well  as  Michigan 
and  Pennsylvania,  in  which  persons  of  colour  were  so  debarred.2 
But  the  Abolitionist  movement  and  the  war  had  given  an 
immense  stimulus  to  the  abstract  theory  of  human  rights,  and  had 
made  the  negro  so  much  an  object  of  sympathy  to  the  Northern 
people,  that  these  restrictions  were  vanishing  before  the  doctrine 
of  absolute  democratic  equality  and  the  rights  of  man  as  man. 
There  was,  moreover,  a  practical  argument  of  some  weight.  The 
gift  of  the  suffrage  presented  itself  to  the  Northern  statesmen  as 
the  alternative  to  continuance  of  military  government.  Without 
the  suffrage,  the  negro  might  have  been  left  defenceless  and  neg¬ 
lected,  unimproved  and  unimproving.  In  the  words  of  another 
eminent  Southern  statesman,  Mr.  Justice  Lamar,  “In  the  un¬ 
accustomed  relation  into  which  the  white  and  coloured  people  of 
the  South  were  suddenly  forced,  there  would  have  been  a  natural 
tendency  on  the  part  of  the  former  masters,  still  in  the  possession 
of  the  land  and  intelligence  of  the  country  and  of  its  legislative 
power,  to  use  an  almost  absolute  authority,  and  to  develop  the 
new  freedman  according  to  their  own  idea  of  what  was  good  for 
him.  This  would  have  resulted  in  a  race  distinction,  and  in 
such  incidents  of  the  old  system  as  would  have  discontented 
the  negro  and  dissatisfied  the  general  sentiment  of  the  country. 
If  slavery  was  to  be  abolished,  there  could  be  nothing  short  of 
complete  abolition,  free  from  any  of  the  affinities  of  slavery  ; 
and  this  would  not  have  been  effected  so  long  as  there  existed 
any  inequality  before  the  law.  The  ballot  was  therefore  a  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  negro  against  any  such  condition,  and  enabled  him 
to  force  his  interests  upon  the  consideration  of  the  South.”  3 
The  American  view  that  “the  suffrage  is  the  sword  and  shield 
of  our  law,  the  best  armament  that  liberty  offers  to  the  citizen,” 
does  not  at  once  commend  itself  to  a  European,  who  conceives 


1  North  American  Review  for  March,  1879. 

2  Connecticut  as  late  as  1865  and  Ohio  as  late  as  1867  declined  to  extend 
equal  suffrage  to  negroes. 

3  North  American  Review  for  March,  1879. 


504 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  y 


that  every  government  is  bound  to  protect  the  unenfranchised 
equally  with  the  enfranchised  citizen.  But  it  must  be  remem¬ 
bered  that  in  the  United  States  this  duty  is  less  vigilantly  per¬ 
formed  than  in  England  or  Germany,  and  that  there  were  special 
difficulties  attending  its  performance  under  a  Federal  system, 
which  leaves  the  duty,  save  where  Federal  legislation  is  involved, 
to  the  authorities  of  the  several  States. 

It  has  been  usual  to  charge  those  who  led  Congress  with  another 
and  less  noble  motive  for  granting  electoral  rights  to  the  negroes, 
viz.  :  the  wish  to  secure  their  votes  for  the  Republican  party. 
Motives  are  always  mixed  ;  and  doubtless  this  consideration  had 
its  weight.  Yet  it  was  not  a  purely  selfish  consideration.  As 
it  was  by  the  Republican  party  that  the  war  had  been  waged  and 
the  negro  set  free,  the  Republican  leaders  were  entitled  to  assume 
that  his  protection  could  be  secured  only  by  their  continued 
ascendancy.  That  ascendancy  was  not  wisely  used.  But  the 
circumstances  were  so  novel  and  perplexing,  that  perhaps  no 
statesmanship  less  sagacious  than  President  Lincoln’s  could  have 
handled  them  with  success. 

With  the  disappearance  of  the  carpet-bag  and  negro  govern¬ 
ments,  the  third  era  in  the  political  history  of  the  South  since 
the  war  began.  The  first  had  been  that  of  exclusively  white 
suffrage  ;  the  second,  that  of  predominantly  negro  suffrage.  In 
the  third,  universal  suffrage  and  complete  legal  equality  were 
soon  perceived  to  mean  in  practice  the  full  supremacy  of  the 
whites.  To  dislodge  the  coloured  man  simply  as  a  coloured  man 
from  his  rights  was  impossible,  for  they  were  secured  by  the 
Federal  Constitution  which  prevails  against  all  State  action. 
The  idea  of  disturbing  them  by  formal  legislative  action  was 
scarcely  entertained  But  the  more  they  despaired  of  getting 
rid  of  the  amendment,  the  more  resolved  were  the  Southern 
people  to  prevent  it  from  taking  any  effect  which  could  en¬ 
danger  their  supremacy.  They  did  not  hate  the  negro,  cer¬ 
tainly  not  half  so  much  as  they  hated  his  white  leaders  by 
whom  they  had  been  robbed.  “We  have  got,”  they  said,  “to 
save  civilization,”  and  if  civilization  could  be  saved  only  by 
suppressing  the  coloured  vote,  they  were  ready  to  suppress  it. 
This  was  the  easier,  because  while  most  of  the  carpet-baggers 
had  fled,  nearly  all  the  respectable  whites  of  the  South,  including 
those  who  had  been  Whigs  before  the  war  and  who  had  opposed 
secession,  were  now  united  in  the  new  Democratic,  or  rather 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


505 


anti-negro  party.  A  further  evidence  of  the  power  of  the  motives 
which  have  swayed  them  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  nearly 
every  Northern  man  who  has  of  late  years  gone  South  for  com¬ 
mercial  purposes,  has  before  long  ranged  himself  with  this  anti¬ 
negro  party,  whatever  his  previous  1  affiliations”  may  have 
been. 

The  modes  of  suppression  have  not  been  the  same  in  all  dis¬ 
tricts  and  at  all  times.  At  first  there  was  a  good  deal  of  what 
is  called  “bulldozing/’  i.e.  rough  treatment  and  terrorism, 
applied  to  frighten  the  coloured  men  from  coming  to  or  voting 
at  the  polls.  Afterwards,  the  methods  were  less  harsh.  Regis¬ 
trations  were  so  managed  as  to  exclude  negro  voters,  arrange¬ 
ments  for  polling  were  contrived  in  such  wise  as  to  lead  the  voter 
to  the  wrong  place  so  that  his  vote  might  be  refused  ;  and,  if  the 
necessity  arose,  the  Republican  candidates  were  counted  out,  or 
the  election  returns  tampered  with.  “I  would  stuff  a  ballot- 
box,”  said  a  prominent  man,  “in  order  to  have  a  good,  honest 
government ;  ”  and  he  said  it  in  good  faith,  and  with  no  sense  of 
incongruity.  Sometimes  the  local  negro  preachers  were  warned 
or  paid  to  keep  their  flocks  away.  More  humorous  devices  were 
not  disdained,  as  when  free  tickets  to  a  travelling  circus  were 
distributed  among  the  negroes,  and  the  circus  paid  to  hold  its 
exhibition  at  a  place  and  hour  which  prevented  them  from  coming 
to  vote.  South  Carolina  enacted  an  ingenious  law  providing  that 
there  should  be  eight  ballot-boxes  for  as  many  posts  to  be  filled 
at  the  election,  that  a  vote  should  not  be  counted  unless  placed 
in  the  proper  box,  and  that  the  presiding  officer  should  not  be 
bound  to  tell  the  voter  which  was  the  proper  box  in  which  each 
vote  ought  to  be  deposited.  Illiterate  negroes  so  often  voted  in 
the  wrong  box,  the  boxes  being  frequently  shifted  to  disconcert 
instructions  given  beforehand,  that  a  large  part  of  their  votes 
were  lost,  while  the  illiterate  white  was  apt  to  receive  the  benevo¬ 
lent  and  not  forbidden  help  of  the  presiding  officer. 

Notwithstanding  these  impediments,  the  negro  long  main¬ 
tained  the  struggle,  valuing  the  vote  as  the  symbol  of  his  free¬ 
dom,  and  fearing  to  be  re-enslaved  if  the  Republican  party 
should  be  defeated.  Leaders  and  organizers  were  found  in  the 
Federal  office-holders,  of  course  all  Republicans,  a  numerous 
class,  —  Mr.  Nordhoff,  a  careful  and  judicious  observer,  says 
there  were  in  1875  three  thousand  in  Georgia  alone,  —  and  a  class 
whose  members  virtually  held  their  offices  on  condition  of  doing 


506 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


their  political  work  ;  being  liable  to  be  removed  if  they  failed  in 
their  duty,  as  the  Sultan  used  to  remove  a  Vali  who  sent  up  too 
little  money  to  Stamboul.  After  1884,  however,  when  the  presi¬ 
dency  of  the  United  States  passed  to  a  Democrat,  some  of  these 
office-holders  were  replaced  by  Democrats  and  the  rest  became 
less  zealous.  It  was,  moreover,  already  by  that  time  clear  that 
the  whites,  being  again  in  the  saddle,  meant  to  stay  there,  and 
the  efforts  of  the  Republican  organizers  grew  feebler  as  they  lost 
hope.  Their  friends  at  the  North  were  exasperated,  not  with¬ 
out  reason,  for  the  gift  of  suffrage  to  the  negroes  had  resulted  in 
securing  to  the  South  a  larger  representation  in  Congress  and  in 
presidential  elections  than  it  enjoyed  before  the  war,  or  would 
have  enjoyed  had  the  negroes  been  left  unenfranchised.  They 
argued,  and  truly,  that  where  the  law  gives  a  right,  the  law  ought 
to  secure  the  exercise  thereof ;  and  when  the  Southern  men 
replied  that  the  negroes  were  ignorant,  they  rejoined  that  all 
over  the  country  there  were  myriads  of  ignorant  voters,  mostly 
recent  immigrants  whom  no  one  thought  of  excluding.  Ac¬ 
cordingly  in  1890,  having  a  majority  in  both  Houses  of  Congress 
and  a  President  of  their  own  party,  the  Republican  leaders  intro¬ 
duced  a  bill  subjecting  the  control  of  Federal  elections  to  officers 
to  be  appointed  by  the  President,  in  the  hope  of  thus  calling  out 
a  full  negro  vote,  five-sixths  of  which  would  doubtless  have  gone 
to  their  party.  The  measure  appeared  to  dispassionate  observers 
quite  constitutional,  and  the  mischief  it  was  designed  to  remedy 
was  palpable.  It  excited,  however,  great  irritation  at  the  South, 
uniting  in  opposition  to  it  nearly  all  whites  of  every  class,  while 
no  corresponding  enthusiasm  on  its  behalf  was  evoked  at  the 
North.  It  passed  the  House,  but  was  dropped  in  the  Senate 
under  the  threat  of  an  obstructive  resistance  by  the  (then  Dem¬ 
ocratic)  minority.  Secure,  however,  as  the  dominance  of  the 
whites  seemed  to  be  against  either  Northern  legislation  or  ne¬ 
gro  revolt,  the  Southern  people  remained  uneasy  and  sensitive 
on  the  subject,  and  have  been  held  together  in  a  serried  party 
phalanx  by  this  one  colour  question,  to  the  injury  of  their 
political  life,  which  is  thus  prevented  from  freely  developing 
on  the  lines  of  the  other  questions  that  from  time  to  time  arise. 
So  keen  is  their  recollection  of  the  carpet-bag  days,  so  intense 
the  alarm  at  any  possibility  of  their  return,  that  internal  dissen¬ 
sions,  such  as  those  which  the  growth  of  the  Farmers’  Alliance 
party  and  (later)  of  the  Populist  party  evoked,  were  seldom 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


507 


permitted  to  give  Republican  candidates  a  chance  of  a  seat  in 
Congress  or  of  any  considerable  State  office. 

These  remarks  apply  to  the  true  South,  and  neither  to  the 
mountain  regions,  where,  owing  to  the  absence  of  the  negro 
element,  there  is,  save  in  the  wider  valleys,  still  a  strong  Republi¬ 
can  party,  nor  to  the  Border  States,  Maryland,  West  Virginia, 
Kentucky  and  Missouri,  in  which  the  coloured  voters  are  not 
numerous  enough  to  excite  alarm.  When  it  is  desired  to  elimi¬ 
nate  their  influence  on  elections,  a  common  plan  is  to  bribe  them. 
In  Louisville  one  is  told  that  quite  a  small  payment  secures 
abstention.  To  induce  them  to  vote  for  a  Democrat  is,  to  their 
credit  be  it  said,  much  more  costly. 

This  horror  of  negro  supremacy  is  the  only  point  in  which 
the  South  cherishes  its  old  feelings.  Hostility  to  the  Northern 
people  has  virtually  disappeared.  No  sooner  was  Lee’s  surren¬ 
der  at  Appomattox  Court  House  known  over  the  country,  than 
the  notion  of  persisting  in  efforts  for  secession  and  the  hope 
of  maintaining  slavery  expired.  With  that  remarkable  power 
of  accepting  an  accomplished  fact  which  in  America  is  compatible 
with  an  obstinate  resistance  up  to  the  moment  when  the  fact 
becomes  accomplished,  the  South  felt  that  a  new  era  had  arrived 
to  which  they  must  forthwith  adapt  themselves.  They  were 
not  ashamed  of  the  war.  They  were  and  remain  proud  of  it, 
as  one  may  see  by  the  provisions  made  by  not  a  few  States  for 
celebrat  ng  the  birthday  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee  or  of  Ex-Presi¬ 
dent  Jefferson  Davis,  and  by  the  zeal  with  which  the  monuments 
of  the  Civil  War  and  its  battlefields  are  cared  for.  Just  because 
they  felt  that  they  had  fought  well,  they  submitted  with  little 
resentment,  and  it  became  a  proverb  among  them  that  the  two 
classes  which  still  cherished  bitterness  were  the  two  classes  that 
did  not  fight,  —  the  women  and  the  clergy.  Even  when  fresh 
hostility  was  aroused  by  the  reconstructive  action  of  Congress 
in  1866  and  1867,  and  the  abuses  of  carpet-bag  rule,  no  one 
dreamt  of  renewing  the  old  struggle.  Not,  however,  till  the 
whites  regained  control,  between  1870  and  1876,  did  the  industrial 
regeneration  of  the  country  fairly  begin.  Two  discoveries  coin¬ 
cided  with  that  epoch  which  have  had  an  immense  effect  in 
advancing  material  prosperity,  and  changing  the  current  of  men’s 
thoughts.  The  first  was  the  exploration  of  the  mineral  wealth 
of  the  highland  core  of  the  country.  In  the  western  parts  of 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  in  the  eastern  parts  of  Tennessee, 


508 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  northern  parts  of  Georgia  and  Alabama,  both  coal  and  iron, 
not  to  speak  of  other  minerals,  have  been  found  in  enormous 
quantities,  and  often  in  such  close  juxtaposition  that  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  pig  iron  and  steel  can  be  carried  on  with  exceptional 
cheapness.  Thus,  Northern  capital  has  been  drawn  into  the 
country  :  Southern  men  have  had  a  new  field  for  enterprise, 
and  have  themselves  begun  to  accumulate  capital :  prosperous 
industries  have  been  created,  and  a  large  working-class  popula¬ 
tion,  both  white  and  coloured,  has  grown  up  in  many  places, 
while  the  making  of  new  railways  has  not  only  given  employ¬ 
ment  to  the  poorer  classes,  but  has  stimulated  manufacture  and 
commerce  in  other  directions.  The  second  discovery  was  that 
of  the  possibility  of  extracting  oil  from  the  seeds  of  the  cotton 
plant,  which  had  formerly  been  thrown  away,  or  given  to 
hogs  to  feed  on.  The  production  of  this  oil  has  swelled  to 
great  proportions,  making  the  cultivation  of  cotton  far  more 
profitable,  and  has  become  a  potent  factor  in  the  extension  of 
cotton  cultivation  and  the  general  prosperity  of  the  country. 
Most  of  the  crop  now  raised,  which  usually  exceeds  eleven 
millions  of  bales,  and  in  1908  exceeded  thirteen  and  a  half  mill¬ 
ions  (being  more  than  thrice  that  which  was  raised,  almost 
wholly  by  slave  labour,  before  the  war),  is  now  raised  by  white 
farmers  ;  while  the  mills  which  spin  and  weave  it  into  marketable 
goods  are  daily  increasing  and  building  up  fresh  industrial  com¬ 
munities.  The  methods  of  agriculture  have  been  improved ; 
and  new  kinds  of  cultivation  introduced  :  the  raising  of  fruit, 
for  instance  (in  Florida  particularly  of  oranges)  has  become  in 
certain  districts  a  lucrative  industry.  Nor  has  the  creation 
of  winter  health  resorts  in  the  beautiful  mountain  land  of 
North  Carolina,  and  further  south  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia 
and  Florida,  been  wholly  without  importance,  for  the  North¬ 
ern  people  who  flock  thither  learn  to  know  the  South,  and 
themselves  diffuse  new  ideas  among  the  backward  population 
of  those  districts.  Thus  from  various  causes  there  has  come  to 
be  a  sense  of  stir  and  movement  and  occupation  with  practical 
questions,  and  what  may  be  called  a  commercialization  of  society, 
which  has,  in  some  places,  transformed  Southern  life.  Manual 
labour  is  no  longer  deemed  derogatory  by  the  poorer  whites 
(who  are  less  of  a  distinct  class  than  they  used  to  be),  nor  com¬ 
merce  by  the  sons  of  the  old  planting  aristocracy.  Farmers 
no  doubt  complain,  as  they  do  everywhere  in  the  United  States  ; 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


509 


yet  it  is  a  good  sign  that  the  average  size  of  farms  has  been,  in  the 
South-eastern  States,  decreasing,  the  number  of  farmers  and 
also  the  number  of  owners  increasing,  while  the  number  of  tenants 
who  paid  their  rent  in  money  instead  of  in  kind  almost  doubled 
between  1880  and  1890.  As  capital,  which  used  to  be  chiefly 
invested  in  slaves,  has  increased  and  become  more  generally 
diffused,  it  is  more  and  more  placed  in  permanent  improvements, 
and  especially  in  city  buildings.  Cities  indeed  have  largely 
grown  and  are  still  growing,  especially  of  course  in  the  mining- 
regions  ;  and  in  the  cities  a  new  middle  class  has  sprung  up, 
formed  partly  by  the  elevation  of  the  poorer  class  and  partly 
by  the  depression  of  the  old  planting  class,  which  has  made  the 
contrast  between  the  social  equality  of  Northern  and  the  aristo¬ 
cratic  tone  of  Southern  society  far  less  marked  than  it  was  before 
the  war. 

While  slavery  lasted  the  South  was,  except  of  course  as  regarded 
the  children  of  planters  and  of  the  few  merchants,  an  illiterate 
country.  Even  in  1870  the  South-eastern  States  had  only  30 
per  cent  of  their  population  of  school  age  enrolled  as  school 
attendants,  and  the  South  Central  and  Western  States  -only 
34  per  cent.  The  Reconstruction  constitutions  of  1867-70  con¬ 
tained  valuable  provisions  for  the  establishment  of  schools  ;  and 
the  rise  of  a  new  generation,  which  appreciates  the  worth  of 
education  and  sees  how  the  North  has  profited  by  it,  has  induced 
a  wholesome  activity.  The  percentage  of  children  enrolled  to 
school  age  population  has  risen  steadily.1  It  is  no  doubt  true 
that  the  sum  expended  on  schools  is  very  unequal  in  the  various 
States,  —  Arkansas,  for  instance,  spent  in  1908  more  than 
Mississippi  or  North  Carolina,  though  her  population  is  smaller 
than  that  of  either  of  those  States  ;  true,  also,  that  the  expend¬ 
iture  is  much  less  than  in  the  North  or  West,  — Washington, 
for  instance,  spends  more  than  twice  as  much  as  Arkansas, 
with  very  little  more  wealth  ;  —  true,  further,  that  the  average 
number  of  days  of  attendance  by  each  pupil  in  the  year  was  in 
1908  smaller  in  the  Southern  States  (124.7  in  the  South-eastern 
States,  118.2  in  the  South  Central  and  Western,  as  compared 
with  180.8  in  the  North-eastern  States).  Still  the  progress  is 
great,  when  one  considers  the  comparative  poverty  of  the 


1  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1908-9. 

“  School  age  ”  is  taken  in  the  United  States  as  covering  the  years  from  5  to 
18  inclusive. 


510 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


Southern  States,  and  the  predominantly  rural  character  of 
their  very  sparse  population. 

Any  one  seeking  to  disparage  the  South  need  not  want  for 
points  to  dwell  upon.  He  might  remark  that  illiteracy  is  far 
more  common  than  in  the  North  or  West ;  that  there  is  little 
reading  even  among  those  who  can  read,  —  one  need  only  walk 
through  the  streets  of  a  Southern  city  and  look  into  the  few 
bookstores  to  be  convinced  of  this,  —  and  far  less  of  that  kind 
of  culture  which  is  represented  by  lecture  courses  or  by  liter¬ 
ary  and  scientific  journals  and  societies.  He  would  observe 
that  hotels,  railway  stations,  refreshment-rooms,  indeed  all  the 
material  appliances  of  travelling  comfort  in  which  the  North 
shines,  are  still  on  a  lower  level,  and  that  the  scattered  population 
so  neglects  its  roads  that  they  are  in  some  places  impassable. 
Life,  he  might  say,  is  comparatively  rough,  except  in  a  few  of  the 
older  cities,  such  as  Richmond  and  Charleston ;  it  has  in  many 
regions  the  character  of  border  life  in  a  half-settled  country. 
And  above  all,  he  might  dilate  upon  the  frequency  of  homicide, 
and  the  small  value  that  seems  to  be  set  upon  human  life,  if 
one  may  judge  from  the  imperfect  and  lenient  action  of  the 
courts,  which,  to  be  sure,  is  often  supplemented  by  private 
vengeance.  Yet  to  the  enumeration  of  these  and  other  faujts 
born  of  slavery  and  the  spirit  which  slavery  fostered,  it  would 
be  rightly  answered  that  the  true  way  to  judge  the  former  slave 
States,  is  to  compare  them  as  they  are  how  with  what  they  were 
when  the  war  ended.  Everywhere  there  is  progress ;  in  some 
regions  such  progress,  that  one  may  fairly  call  the  South  a  new 
country.  The  population  is  indeed  unchanged,  for  it  is  only 
lately  that  settlers  have  begun  to  come  from  the  North,  and 
no  part  of  the  United  States  has  within  the  present  century 
received  so  small  a  share  of  European  immigration.1  Slavery 
was  a  fatal  deterrent  while  it  lasted,  and  of  late  years  the 
climate,  the  presence  of  the  negro,  and  the  notion  that  work 
was  more  abundant  elsewhere,  have  continued  to  deflect  in 
a  more  northerly  direction  the  stream  that  flows  from  Europe. 
But  the  old  race,  which  is,  except  in  Texas  (where  there  is 
a  small  Mexican  and  a  larger  German  element)  and  in 
Louisiana,  a  pure  English  and  Scoto-Irish  race,  full  of  natural 

1  In  North  Carolina  in  1900  the  foreign-born  were  only  .3  of  the  population, 
in  Mississippi  1.2,  in  Georgia  1.0.  That  the  new  comers  from  Southern  and 
Central  Europe  who  now  furnish  the  bulk  of  Old  World  immigration  do  not 
enter  the  South  is  deemed  by  its  inhabitants  to  be  an  advantage. 


CHAP.  XCIII 


THE  SOUTH  SINCE  THE  WAR 


511 


strength,  has  been  stimulated  and  invigorated  by  the  changed 
conditions  of  its  life.  It  has  made  great  advances  in  almost 
every  direction.  Schools  are  better  and  more  numerous.  The 
roads  are  being  improved.  Cotton  mills  are  rising  in  some  places, 
iron-works  in  others.  It  sees  in  the  mineral  and  agricultural 
resources  of  its  territory  a  prospect  of  wealth  and  population 
rivalling  those  of  the  Middle  and  Western  States.  It  has  re¬ 
covered  its  fair  share  of  influence  in  the  national  government. 
It  has  no  regrets  over  slavery,  for  it  recognizes  the  barbarizing 
influence  that  slavery  exerted.  Neither  does  it  cherish  any 
dreams  of  separation.  It  has  now  a  pride  in  the  Union  as  well 
as  in  its  State,  and  is  in  some  ways  more  fresh  and  sanguine  than 
the  North,  because  less  cloyed  by  luxury  than  the  rich  are  there, 
and  less  discouraged  by  the  spread  of  social  unrest  than  the 
thoughtful  have  been  there.  But  for  one  difficulty  the  South 
might  well  be  thought  to  be  the  most  promising  part  of  the 
Union,  that  part  whose  advance  is  likely  to  be  swiftest,  and  whose 
prosperity  will  be  not  the  least  secure. 

This  difficulty,  however,  is  a  serious  one.  It  lies  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  nine  millions  of  negroes. 


CHAPTER  XCIV 


PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  1 

The  total  coloured  population  of  the  United  States  was  in 
1900,  8,840,789,  and  in  1910  it  was  a  number  far  greater  than 
that  of  the  English  people  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  and 
one  which  might  anywhere  but  in  North  America  be  deemed 
to  form  a  considerable  nation.  Of  this  total,  probably  about 
nine  millions  are  in  the  old  Slave  States,  and  it  is  of  these 
only  that  the  present  chapter  will  speak.2  To  understand  their 
distribution  in  these  States,  the  reader  will  do  well  to  recall 
what  was  said  in  the  last  preceding  chapter  regarding  the 
physical  features  of  the  South,  for  it  is  by  those  features  that 
the  growth  of  the  coloured  population  in  the  various  regions 
of  the  country  has  been  determined.  Though  man  is  of  all 
animals,  except  perhaps  the  dog,  that  which  shows  the  greatest 
capacity  for  supporting  all  climates  from  Borneo  to  Greenland, 
it  remains  true  that  certain  races  of  men  thrive  and  multiply 
only  in  certain  climates.  As  the  races  of  Northern  Europe 
have  been  hitherto  unable  to  maintain  themselves  in  the  torrid 
zone,  so  the  African  race,  being  of  tropical  origin,  dwindles 
away  wherever  it  has  to  encounter  cold  winters.  In  what 
used  to  be  called  the  Border  States  —  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
and  Missouri  —  the  coloured  element  increases  but  slowly.3 
In  West  Virginia,  East  Kentucky,  East  Tennessee,  and  West- 

1  This  chapter,  which  presents  a  general  view  of  the  Southern  Negro  and  his 
relations  with  the  whites,  is  supplemented  by  the  chapter  next  following,  which 
comments  upon  such  changes  in  the  situation  as  have  occurred  during  the  last 
sixteen  years  and  contains  the  latest  conclusions  I  have  been  able  to  form  on  the 
subj  ect. 

2  The  total  white  population  of  these  States  was,  in  1900,  16,521,970,  and  the 
coloured  7,922,969. 

3  Kentucky  showed  a  small  decrease  from  1880  to  1890,  but  this  was  followed 
by  an  increase  in  1900.  There  was  from  1890  to  1900  an  absolute  decrease  of 
coloured  population  in  eight  other  States,  —  Maine  (from  1870,  though  not 
from  1890,  to  1900),  Nebraska,  North  Dakota,  South  Dakota,  Oregon, 
Vermont,  Nevada,  California,  and  New  Mexico. 

512 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  513 


ern  North  Carolina,  the  negro  is  practically  unknown  in 
the  highest  and  coolest  spots,  and  in  the  other  parts  of 
that  elevated  country  has  scarcely  been  able  to  hold  his 
own.  It  is  in  the  low  warm  regions  that  lie  near  the  Gulf 
Stream  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  especially  in  the  sea- 
islands  of  South  Carolina  and  on  the  banks  of  the  lower  Mis¬ 
sissippi  that  he  finds  the  conditions  which  are  at  once  most 
favourable  to  his  development  and  most  unfavourable  to  that 
of  the  whites.  Accordingly  it  is  the  eight  States  nearest  the 
Gulf  —  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Texas  —  that  contain  more  than  half 
the  negro  population,  which  in  two  of  them,  South  Carolina 
and  Mississippi,  exceeds  the  number  of  the  whites.  In  Louisi¬ 
ana,  where  the  two  races  were  equal  in  1890,  the  whites  had  in 
1900  a  majority  of  80,000.  These  eight  States  showed  an  increase 
of  the  coloured  population,  from  1880  to  1890,  at  the  rate  of 
18.4  per  cent,1  while  in  the  rest  of  the  South  the  rate  was  only 
5.1  per  cent,  and  from  1890  to  1900  the  rate  was  10.3.  It  is  thus 
clear  that  the  negro  center  of  population  is  more  and  more 
shifting  southward,  and  that  the  African  is  leaving  the  colder, 
higher,  and  drier  lands  for  regions  more  resembling  his  ancient 
seats  in  the  Old  World. 

A  not  less  important  question  is  the  proportion  between  the 
negroes  and  the  whites.  In  1790  the  negroes  were.  19.3  per 
cent  or  nearly  one-fifth  of  the  whole  population  of  the  Union. 
In  1880  they  were  13.1  per  cent;  in  1890,  11.9  per  cent;  in 
1900,  9.2  per  cent.  The  rate  of  increase  of  the  negro  popula¬ 
tion  of  the  whole  country  from  1890  to  1900  was  18  per  cent, 
while  that  of  the  whites  was  21.2.  Even  in  the  former  Slave 
States  (which  receive  very  few  immigrants  from  Europe)  the 
increase  of  the  whites  during  that  decade  was  25.2,  that  of  the 
negroes  only  17.2  per  cent,  or  about  two-thirds  the  rate  shown 
by  the  whites,2  while  in  the  eight  black  States  mentioned  above 
the  percentage  of  increase  of  the  white  population  is  26.2, 
that  of  the  negroes  only  20.7.  It  thus  appears  that  except 

1  It  was  still  greater  in  Arkansas  (46.7  per  cent),  Florida  (31.2  per  cent), 
and  Texas  (24.1  per  cent),  but  the  negroes  have  been  in  these  three  States 
much  less  numerous  than  the  whites,  and  the  increase  was  probably  largely  due 
to  negro  immigration  from  other  States. 

2  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Arkansas  were  the  States  which  in  1900 
showed  a  higher  rate  of  increase  of  coloured  than  of  white  people.  In  Georgia 
the  increase  of  the  two  races  was  practically  equal;  in  South  Carolina,  Louisi¬ 
ana,  and  Texas  the  negro  race  was  from  one-half  to  two-thirds  behind. 


514 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


in  certain  parts  of  these  eight  States,  where  physical  conditions 
favourable  to  the  growth  of  the  coloured  population  prevail, 
the  whites  increase  everywhere  faster  than  the  negroes,  and 
the  latter  constitute  a  relatively  decreasing  element.1  This 
fact,  suspected  previously  was  placed  beyond  doubt  by  the 
census  of  1890.  It  is  the  dominating  fact  of  the  political  and 
social  situation. 

Of  the  economic  and  industrial  state  of  the  whole  nine 
millions  it  is  hard  to  speak  in  general  terms,  so  different  are 
the  conditions  which  different  parts  of  the  country  present. 
In  one  point  only  are  those  conditions  uniform.  Everywhere, 
alike  in  the  Border  States  and  in  the  farthest  South,  in  the 
cities,  both  great  and  small,  and  in  the  rural  districts,  the 
coloured  population  constitute  the  poorest  and  socially  lowest 
stratum,  corresponding  in  this  respect  to  the  new  immigrants 
in  the  Northern  States,  although,  as  we  shall  presently  observe, 
they  are  far  more  sharply  and  permanently  divided  than  are 
those  immigrants  from  the  classes  above  them.  They  furnish 
nine-tenths  of  the  unskilled  labour,  and  a  still  larger  proportion 
of  the  domestic  and  hotel  labour.  Some,  a  comparatively  small 
but  possibly  growing  number,  have  found  their  way  into  the 
skilled  handicrafts,  such  as  joinery  and  metal  work ;  and  many 
are  now  employed  in  the  mines  and  iron  foundries  of  South¬ 
eastern  Tennessee  and  Northern  Alabama,  where  they  receive 
wages  sometimes  equal  to  those  paid  to  the  white  workmen,  and 
are  even  occasionally  admitted  to  the  same  trade-unions.2  In 
textile  factories  they  are  deemed  decidedly  inferior  to  the  whites  ; 
the  whirr  of  the  machinery  is  said  to  daze  them  or  to  send 
them  to  sleep.  On  the  other  hand,  they  handle  tobacco  better 
than  the  whites,  and  practically  monopolize  the  less  skilled 
departments  of  this  large  industry,  though  not  cigar  making, 
for  which  Spaniards  or  Cubans  are  deemed  best.  In  the 
cities  much  of  the  small  retail  trade  is  in  their  hands,  as 
are  also  such  occupations  as  those  of  barber  (in  which  how¬ 
ever  they  are  said  to  be  yielding  to  the  whites),  shoe-black, 

1  That  which  specially  tends  to  keep  down  the  negro  increase  is  the  very 
large  mortality  among  the  children. 

2  The  average  pay  per  day  of  the  skilled  white  labourer  is  usually  much 
higher,  but  not  double  that  of  the  coloured.  A  large  employer  of  labour  in 
Virginia  assured  me  some  time  ago  that  he  paid  some  of  his  negroes  (iron¬ 
workers)  as  much  as  $4.50  per  day.  He  added  that  they  wrorked  along  with 
the  whites,  and  drank  less. 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  515 


street  vendor  of  drinks  or  fruit,  together  with  the  humbler 
kinds  of  railway  service.  In  the  rural  districts  the  immense 
majority  are  either  hired  labourers  or  tenants  of  small  farms, 
the  latter  class  becoming  more  numerous  the  further  south 
one  goes  into  the  hot  and  malarious  regions,  where  the  white 
man  is  less  disposed  to  work  on  his  own  land.  Of  these  tenants 
many  —  and  some  are  both  active  and  thrifty  —  cultivate 
upon  a  system  of  crop-sharing,  like  that  of  the  metayers  in 
France.  Not  a  few  have  bought  plots  of  land,  and  work  it 
for  themselves.  Of  those  who  farm  either  their  own  land  or 
that  for  which  they  pay  rent,  an  increasing  number  are  raising 
crops  for  the  market,  and  steadily  improving  their  condition. 
Others,  however,  are  content  with  getting  from  the  soil  enough 
food  to  keep  their  families ;  and  this  is  more  especially  the  case 
in  the  lower  lands  along  the  coast,  where  the  population  is 
almost  wholly  black,  and  little  affected  by  the  influences  either 
of  commerce  or  of  the  white  race.  In  these  hot  lowlands  the 
negro  lives  much  as  he  lived  on  the  plantations  in  the  old  days, 
except  that  he  works  less,  because  a  moderate  amount  of  labour 
produces  enough  for  his  bare  subsistence.  No  railway  comes 
near  him.  He  sees  no  newspaper  :  he  is  scarcely  at  all  in  con¬ 
tact  with  any  one  above  his  own  condition.  Thus  there  are 
places,  the  cities  especially,  where  the  negro  is  improving  indus¬ 
trially,  because  he  has  to  work  hard  and  comes  into  constant 
relation  with  the  whites  ;  and  other  places,  where  he  need  work 
very  little,  and  where,  being  left  to  his  own  resources,  he  is  in 
danger  of  relapsing  into  barbarism.  These  differences  in  his 
material  progress  in  different  parts  of  the  country  must  be  con¬ 
stantly  borne  in  mind  when  one  attempts  to  form  a  picture  of 
his  present  intellectual  and  moral  state. 

The  phenomena  he  presents  in  this  latter  aspect  are  abso¬ 
lutely  new  in  the  annals  of  the  world.  History  is  a  record 
of  the  progress  towards  civilization  of  races  originally  bar¬ 
barous.  But  that  progress  has  in  all  previous  cases  been  slow 
and  gradual.  In  the  case  of  the  chief  Asiatic  and  European 
races,  the  earlier  stages  are  lost  in  the  mists  of  antiquity. 
Even  the  middle  and  later  stages,  as  we  gather  them  from  the 
writings  of  the  historians  of  antiquity  and  from  the  records 
of  the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages,  show  an  advance  in  which  there 
is  nothing  sudden  or  abrupt,  but  rather  a  process  of  what 
may  be  called  tentative  development,  the  growth  and  en- 


516 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  Y 


largement  of  the  human  mind  resulting  in  and  being  accom¬ 
panied  by  a  gradual  improvement  of  political  institutions  and 
of  the  arts  and  sciences.  In  this  process  there  are  no  leaps 
and  bounds  ;  and  it  is  the  work,  not  of  any  one  race  alone,  but 
of  the  mingled  rivalry  and  co-operation  of  several.  Utterly 
dissimilar  is  the  case  of  the  African  negro,  caught  up  in  and 
whirled  along  with  the  swift  movement  of  the  American  de¬ 
mocracy.  In  it  we  have  a  singular  juxtaposition  of  the  most 
primitive  and  the  most  recent,  the  most  rudimentary  and  the 
most  highly  developed,  types  of  culture.  Not  greater  is  the 
interval  which  separates  the  chipped  flints  of  the  Stone  Age 
from  the  Maxim  gun  of  to-day.  A  body  of  savages  is  vio¬ 
lently  carried  across  the  ocean  and  set  to  work  as  slaves  on 
the  plantations  of  masters  who  are  three  or  four  thousand 
years  in  advance  of  them  in  mental  capacity  and  moral  force. 
They  are  treated  like  horses  or  oxen,  are  kept  at  labour  by  the 
lash,  are  debarred  from  even  the  elements  of  education,  have 
no  more  status  before  the  law,  no  more  share  in  the  thought 
or  the  culture  of  their  owner  than  the  sheep  which  he  shears. 
The  children  and  grandchildren  of  those  whom  the  slave-ship 
brought  to  the  plantation  remain  like  their  parents,  save  indeed 
that  they  have  learnt  a  new  and  highly  developed  tongue  and 
have  caught  up  so  much  of  a  new  religion  as  comes  to  them 
through  preachers  of  their  own  blood.  Those  who  have  house¬ 
work  to  do,  or  who  live  in  the  few  and  small  towns,  pick  up 
some  knowledge  of  white  ways,  and  imitate  them  to  the  best  of 
their  power.  But  the  great  mass  remain  in  their  notions  and 
their  habits  much  what  their  ancestors  were  in  the  forests  of 
the  Niger  or  the  Congo.  Suddenly,  even  more  suddenly  than 
they  were  torn  from  Africa,  they  find  themselves,  not  only 
freed,  but  made  full  citizens  and  active  members  of  the  most 
popular  government  the  world  has  seen,  treated  as  fit  to  bear 
an  equal  part  in  ruling,  not  themselves  only,  but  also  their  recent 
masters.  Rights  which  the  agricultural  labourers  of  England 
did  not  obtain  till  1885  were  in  1867  thrust  upon  these  children 
of  nature,  whose  highest  form  of  pleasure  had  hitherto  been  to 
caper  to  the  strains  of  a  banjo. 

This  tremendous  change  arrested  one  set  of  influences  that 
were  telling  on  the  negro,  and  put  another  set  in  motion.  The 
relation  of  master  and  servant  came  to  an  end,  and  with  it  the 
discipline  of  compulsory  labour  and  a  great  part  of  such  inter- 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  517 


course  as  there  had  been  between  the  white  and  the  black  races. 
Very  soon  the  whites  began  to  draw  away  from  the  negro,  who 
became  less  a  friend  in  fact  the  more  he  was  an  equal  in  theory. 
Presently  the  mixture  of  blood  diminished,  a  mixture  which  may 
have  been  doing  something  for  the  blacks  in  leavening  their  mass, 

—  only  slightly  on  the  plantations,  but  to  some  extent  in  the 
towns  and  among  the  domestic  servants,  —  with  persons  of  supe¬ 
rior  capacity  and  talent.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  immedi¬ 
ately  turned  on  the  freedman  a  volume  of  new  forces  which  had 
scarcely  affected  him  as  a  slave.  He  had  now  to  care  for  himself, 
in  sickness  and  in  health.  He  might  go  where  he  would,  and 
work  as  much  or  as  little  as  he  pleased.  He  had  a  vote  to  give, 
or  to  sell.  Education  became  accessible  ;  and  facilities  for  ob¬ 
taining  it  were  accorded  to  him,  first  by  his  Northern  liberators, 
and  thereafter,  though  insufficiently,  by  his  old  masters  also. 
As  he  learned  to  read  and  to  vote,  a  crowd  of  modern  American 
ideas,  political,  social,  religious,  and  economic,  poured  in  upon 
him  through  the  newspapers.  No  such  attempt  has  ever  been 
made  before  to  do  for  a  race  at  one  stroke  what  in  other  times 
and  countries  nature  has  spent  centuries  in  doing.  Other  races 
have  desired  freedom  and  a  share  in  political  power.  They 
have  had  to  strive,  and  their  efforts  have  braced  and  disciplined 
them.  But  these  things  were  thrust  upon  the  negro,  who  found 
himself  embarrassed  by  boons  he  had  not  thought  of  demanding. 

To  understand  how  American  ideas  work  in  an  African  brain, 
and  how  American  institutions  are  affecting  African  habits, 
one  must  consider  what  are  the  character  and  gifts  of  the  negro 
himself. 

He  is  by  nature  affectionate,  docile,  pliable,  submissive,  and 
in  these  respects  most  unlike  the  Red  Indian,  whose  conspicu¬ 
ous  traits  are  pride  and  a  certain  dogged  inflexibility.  He  is 
seldom  cruel  or  vindictive,  —  which  the  Indian  often  is,  —  nor  is 
he  prone  to  violence,  except  when  spurred  by  lust  or  drink. 
His  intelligence  is  rather  quick  than  solid  ;  and  though  not  want¬ 
ing  in  a  sort  of  shrewdness,  he  shows  the  childishness  as  well  as  the 
lack  of  self-control  which  belongs  to  the  primitive  peoples.  A 
nature  highly  impressionable,  emotional,  and  unstable  is  in  him 
appropriately  accompanied  by  a  love  of  music,  while  for  art  he  has 

—  unlike  the  Red  Indian  —  no  taste  or  turn  whatever.  Such 
talent  as  he  has  runs  to  words  ;  he  learns  languages  easily  and 
speaks  fluently,  but  shows  no  capacity  for  abstract  thinking, 


518 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


for  scientific  inquiry,  or  for  any  kind  of  invention.  It  is,  how¬ 
ever,  not  so  conspicuously  on  the  intellectual  side  that  his  weak¬ 
ness  lies,  as  in  the  sphere  of  will  and  action.  Having  neither 
foresight  nor  “roundsight,”  he  is  heedless  and  unthrifty,  easily 
elated  and  depressed,  with  little  tenacity  of  purpose,  and  but  a 
feeble  wish  to  better  his  condition.  Sloth,  like  that  into  which 
the  negroes  of  the  Antilles  have  sunk,  cannot  be  generally 
charged  upon  the  American  coloured  man,  partly  perhaps  be¬ 
cause  the  climate  is  less  enervating  and  nature  less  bountiful. 
Although  not  so  steady  a  workman  as  is  the  white,  he  is  less 
troublesome  to  his  employers,  because  less  disposed  to  strike. 
It  is  by  his  toil  that  a  large  part  of  the  cotton,  rice,  and  sugar 
crop  of  the  South  is  now  raised.  But  any  one  who  knows  the 
laborious  ryot  or  coolie  of  the  East  Indies  is  struck  by  the 
difference  between  a  race  on  which  ages  of  patient  industry 
have  left  their  stamp  and  the  volatile  children  of  Africa. 

Among  the  modes  or  avenues  in  and  by  which  the  influences 
of  white  America  are  moulding  the  Negro,  five  deserve  to  be 
specially  noted,  those  of  the  schools,  of  the  churches,  of  literature, 
of  industry,  and  of  business  or  social  relations. 

Looking  merely  at  the  figures,  elementary  education  would  seem 
to  have  made  extraordinary  progress.  In  the  former  Slave  States 
there  were,  in  1907-8,  54.36  per  cent  of  the  coloured  population  of 
school  age  enrolled  on  the  books  of  some  school,  the  percentage 
of  white  pupils  to  the  white  population  of  school  age  in  the  same 
States  being  70.34,  and  the  percentage  of  enrolments  to  popula¬ 
tion  over  the  whole  United  States  69.32.1  In  these  States  the 
coloured  people  were  in  1910  33.1  per  cent  of  the  total  population, 
and  the  coloured  pupils  31.47  per  cent  of  the  total  school  enrol¬ 
ments.  A  smaller  percentage  of  them  than  of  white  children  is, 
therefore,  on  the  books  of  the  schools ;  but  when  it  is  remem¬ 
bered  that  in  1865  only  an  infinitesimally  small  percentage  were 
at  school  at  all,  and  that  in  many  States  it  was  a  penal  offence 
to  teach  a  negro  to  read,  the  progress  made  is  remarkable.  Be¬ 
tween  1877  and  1908,  while  the  white  pupils  in  the  common 
schools  of  the  South  increased  156  per  cent,  the  coloured  pupils 
increased  191  per  cent.  It  must  not,  however,  be  concluded 
from  these  figures  that  nearly  the  whole  of  the  coloured  popu¬ 
lation  are  growing  up  possessed  even  of  the  rudiments  of  edu¬ 
cation.  The  ratio  of  attendance  to  school  enrolment  was, 

1  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1908-9. 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  519 


indeed,  in  1908  almost  as  good  for  the  negroes  as  for  the  whites 
(62.18  against  66.13),  the  negroes,  both  parents  and  children, 
having  a  desire  for  instruction.  But  the  school-terms  are  so 
short  in  most  of  the  Southern  States  that  a  good  many  of 
whites  and  a  far  larger  number  of  coloured  children  receive  too 
little  teaching  to  enable  them  to  read  and  write  with  ease. 
Thus  out  of  the  negroes  in  the  old  Slave  States  over  ten  years 
of  age,  nearly  52  per  cent  were  in  1900  returned  as  illiterates. 
That  the  amount  of  higher  education  —  secondary,  collegiate,  or 
university  education  —  obtained  by  the  negroes  is  not  only  ab¬ 
solutely  small,  but  incomparably  smaller  than  that  obtained  by 
the  whites,  is  no  more  than  might  be  expected  from  the  fact 
that  they  constitute  the  poorest  part  of  the  population.  The 
total  number  of  institutions  of  this  description  was  in  1908 
as  follows  : 1  — 


Normal  and  Industrial  schools, 

Secondary  schools, 

Universities  and  colleges,2 
Schools  of  theology, 

Schools  of  law, 

Schools  of  medicine,  dentistry,  pharmacy, 


53, -with  17,711  pupils. 
35,  with  8,774  pupils. 
47,  with  18,859  pupils. 
14,  with  792  pupils. 

3,  with  93  pupils. 

3,  with  789  pupils. 


These  universities  are,  of  course,  on  a  comparatively  hum¬ 
ble  scale,  and  most  of  them  might  rather  be  called  secondary 
schools.  The  grants  made  by  the  State  governments  nearly  all 
go  to  elemental  education,  and  the  institutions  which  provide 
higher  education  for  the  negro  are  quite  unequal  to  the  demands 
made  upon  them.  Swarms  of  applicants  for  admission  have  to 
be  turned  away  from  the  already  overcrowded  existing  upper 
and  normal  schools  and  colleges  ;  and  thus  the  supply  of  qualified 
teachers  for  the  coloured  schools  is  greatly  below  the  needs  of  the 
case.  The  total  number  is  at  present  only  30,175,  with  1,665,781 
pupils  to  deal  with.  In  the  white  schools,  with  4,692,927  pupils, 
there  are  116,539  teachers,  a  proportion  (about  1  teacher  to  40 
pupils)  obviously  much  too  low,  and  too  low  even  if  we  allow  for 
the  difference  between  enrolment  and  attendance.  But  the  pro¬ 
portion  in  the  coloured  schools  is  lower  still  (1  to  55),  and  the 
teachers  themselves  are  less  instructed.  The  need  for  secondary 
and  normal  schools  is,  therefore,  still  urgent,  though  much  has 

1  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1908-9.  It  is  of  course  to  be 
remembered  that  negroes  go  rather  more  largely  than  formerly  to  professional 
schools  in  the  North. 

2  Including  preparatory  and  primary  departments  of  universities. 


520 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


been  and  is  being  done  by  Northern  benevolence  for  this  admir¬ 
able  purpose.1  There  is  something  pathetic  in  the  eagerness  of 
the  negroes,  parents,  young  people,  and  children,  to  obtain 
instruction.  They  seem  to  think  that  the  want  of  it  is  what 
keeps  them  below  the  whites,  just  as  in  the  riots  which  broke  out 
in  South  Carolina  during  Sherman’s  invasion,  the  negro  mob 
burnt  a  library  at  Columbia  because,  as  they  said,  it  was  from 
the  books  that  “the  white  folks  got  their  sense.”  And  they 
have  a  notion  (which,  to  be  sure,  is  not  confined  to  them)  that 
it  is  the  want  of  book-learning  which  condemns  the  vast  bulk 
of  their  race  to  live  by  manual  labor,  and  that,  therefore,  by 
acquiring  such  learning  they  may  themselves  rise  in  the  industrial 
scale. 

In  the  days  of  slavery,  religion  was  practically  the  only  civil¬ 
izing  influence  which  told  upon  the  plantation  hands.  But 
religion,  like  everything  else  that  enters  the  mind,  is  conditioned 
by  the  mental  state  of  the  recipient.  Among  the  negroes,  it 
took  a  highly  emotional  and  sensational  form,  in  which  there  was 
little  apprehension  of  doctrine  and  still  less  of  virtue,  while 
physical  excitement  constantly  passed  into  ecstasy,  hysterics, 
and  the  other  phenomena  which  accompany  what  are  called  in 
America  camp-meetings.  This  form  it  has  hitherto  generally 
retained.  The  evils  have  been  palpable,  but  the  good  has  been 
greater  than  the  evil ;  and  one  fears  to  conjecture  what  this  vast 
mass  of  Africans  might  have  been  had  no  such  influence  been 
at  work  to  soften  and  elevate  them,  and  to  create  a  sort  of  tie 
between  them  and  their  masters.  Christianity,  however,  has 
been  among  the  negroes  as  it  often  was  in  the  Dark  Ages  and  as  it 
is  in  some  countries  even  to-day,  widely  divorced  from  morality. 
The  negro  preachers,  the  natural  and  generally  the  only  leaders 
of  their  people,  are  (doubtless  with  noble  exceptions)  by  no  means 
a  model  class,  while  through  the  population  at  large  religious 
belief  and  even  religious  fervour  are  found  not  incompatible 
with  great  laxity  in  sexual  relations  and  a  proneness  to  petty 
thefts.  Fortunately,  here  also  there  is  evidence  of  improvement. 
The  younger  pastors  are  described  as  being  more  rarely  lazy  and 
licentious  than  were  those  of  the  older  generation  ;  their  teaching 

1  Among  the  great  benefactions  whose  income  is  applied  for  the  education 
of  the  coloured  people  special  mention  may  be  made  of  the  Peabody  Fund,  the 
John  F.  Slater  Fund,  and  the  Daniel  Hand  Fund,  all  of  which  seem  to  be  very 
wisely  administered.  I  find  the  total  annual  sum  given  by  the  North  to  nor¬ 
mal  and  collegiate  education  among  the  negroes  estimated  at  a  million  dollars. 


chap,  xci v  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  521 


appeals  less  to  passion  and  more  to  reason.  As  it  is  only  coloured 
preachers  who  reach  negro  congregations,  the  importance  of  such 
an  improvement  can  hardly  be  overestimated.  There  is,  of 
course,  an  enormous  difference  between  the  coloured  churches 
in  the  cities,  especially  those  of  the  Border  States,  where  one 
finds  a  comparatively  educated  clergy  and  laity,  with  ideas  of 
decorum  modelled  on  those  of  their  white  neighbors  and  the 
pure  negro  districts  further  south,1  in  some  of  which,  as  in  parts 
of  Louisiana,  not  merely  have  the  old  superstitions  been  retained, 
but  there  have  been  relapses  into  the  Obeah  rites  and  serpent 
worship  of  African  heathendom.  How  far  this  has  gone  no 
one  can  say.  There  are  parts  of  the  lower  Mississippi  valley 
as  little  explored,  so  far  as  the  mental  and  moral  condition  of  the 
masses  is  concerned,  as  are  the  banks  of  the  Congo  and  the  Benue. 

From  what  has  been  said  of  the  state  of  education,  it  will 
have  been  gathered  that  the  influence  of  books  is  confined  to 
extremely  few,  and  that  even  of  newspapers  to  a  small  fraction 
of  the  coloured  people.  Nevertheless,  the  significance  of  what¬ 
ever  forms  the  mind  of  that  small  fraction  must  not  be  under¬ 
estimated.  The  few  thousands  who  read  books  or  magazines, 
the  few  tens  of  thousands  who  see  a  daily  paper,  acquire  the 
ideas  and  beliefs  and  aspirations  of  the  normal  white  citizen, 
subject  of  course  to  the  inherent  differences  in  race  character 
already  referred  to.  They  are  in  a  sense  more  American  than 
the  recent  immigrants  from  Central  Europe  and  from  Italy, 
who  are  now  a  substantial  element  in  the  population  of  the 
Middle  and  Western  States.  Within  this  small  section  of  the 
coloured  people  are  the  natural  leaders  of  the  millions  who  have 
not  yet  attained  to  what  may  be  called  the  democratic  American 
consciousness.  And  the  number  of  those  upon  whom  books 
and  newspapers  play,  in  whom  democratic  ideas  stimulate  dis- 


1  This  is  noted  by  Mr.  Bruce  in  his  book,  The  Plantation  Negro  as  a  Freeman, 
which  presents  a  striking,  though  perhaps  too  gloomy  a  picture,  of  the  condition 
of  the  race. 

Dr.  Curry,  who  knew  the  South  thoroughly,  and  admirably  administered 
the  Slater  Fund,  says,  “  One  of  the  chief  drawbacks  to  civilization  in  the  negro 
race  is  the  exceeding  difficulty  of  giving  a  predominant  ethical  character  to 
his  religion.  In  the  Black  Belt,  religion  and  virtue  are  often  considered  as 
distinct  and  separable  things.  The  moral  element,  good  character,  is  eliminated 
from  the  essential  ingredients  of  Christianity,  and  good  citizenship,  womanli¬ 
ness,  honesty,  truth,  chastity,  cleanliness,  trustworthiness,  are  not  always  of 
the  essence  of  religious  obligation.  An  intelligent,  pious  courageous  ministry 
is  indispensable  to  any  hopeful  attempt  to  lift  up  the  negro  race.”  — Atlantic 
Monthly  for  June,  1892,  p.  732. 


522 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


content  with  the  present  inferiority  of  their  people,  is  steadily, 
and  in  some  districts,  rapidly  increasing.  The  efforts  of  those 
who  are  best  fitted  to  lead  have  been  hitherto  checked  by  the 
jealousy  which  the  mass  is  apt  to  feel  for  those  who  rise  to 
prominence ;  but  this  tendency  may  decline,  and  there  will  be 
no  reason  for  surprise  if  men  of  eloquence  and  ambition  are  one 
day  found  to  give  voice  to  the  sentiments  of  their  brethren  as 
Frederick  Douglass  did.1 

The  influence  of  industry  is  another  name  for  the  influence  of 
self-help.  As  a  slave,  the  negro  was  no  doubt  taught  to  give 
steady,  though  unintelligent,  labour ;  and  this  was  probably  a 
step  forward  from  his  condition  in  Africa.  But  labour  all  of  it 
performed  under  supervision,  and  none  of  it  followed  by  any 
advantage  to  the  labourer  except  relief  from  the  lash,  labour 
whose  aim  was  to  accomplish  not  the  best  possible  but  the  least 
that  would  suffice,  did  nothing  to  raise  the  character  or  to  train 
the  intelligence.  Every  day’s  work  that  the  negro  has  done 
since  he  became  a  freedman  has  helped  him.  Most  of  the  work  is 
rough  work,  whether  on  the  land  or  in  the  cities,  and  is  done  for 
low  wages.  But  the  number  of  those  who,  either  as  owners  or  as 
tenant  farmers,  raise  their  own  crops  for  the  market,  and  of 
those  who  are  finding  their  way  into  skilled  employments,  is  an 
always  increasing  number.  To  raise  crops  for  the  market  is  an 
education  in  thrift,  foresight,  and  business  aptitude,  as  well  as 
in  agriculture ;  to  follow  a  skilled  industry  is  to  train  the  intel¬ 
ligence  as  well  as  the  hand,  and  the  will  as  well  as  the  intel¬ 
ligence.  The  provision  for  the  instruction  of  the  young  negroes 
in  any  handicraft  is  still  quite  inadequate,  though  such  insti¬ 
tutions  at  Hampton  and  Tuskegee  have  set  admirable  exam¬ 
ples,2  and  the  need  of  means  for  imparting  it  is  even  more 
urgent  than  is  that  of  secondary  schools.  It  is  satisfactory  to 
know  that  the  necessity  is  beginning  to  be  recognized,  and 
some  effort  made  to  provide  industrial  training.  The  first  per¬ 
son  to  point  out  that  it  was  the  thing  most  needful,  was  the 
founder  of  Hampton,  one  of  the  noblest  characters  of  his  time, 
the  late  General  S.  C.  Armstrong. 

Against  the  industrial  progress  of  the  negro  there  must  be 

* 

1  I  remember  to  have  listened  to  a  striking  speech  by  a  negro  in  Richmond 
in  which  he  appealed  to  the  historic  glories  of  the  State  of  Virginia,  and  sought 
to  rouse  the  audience  by  reminding  them  that  they  too  were  Virginians. 

2  The  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education,  1908-9,  indicated  that  23,160 
pupils  were  receiving  industrial  training  in  schools  above  the  elementary  grades. 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  523 


set  two  depressing  phenomena.  One  is  the  increase  of  insanity, 
marked  since  emancipation,  and  probably  attributable  to  the 
increased  facilities  which  freedom  has  given  for  obtaining  liquor, 
and  to  the  stress  which  independence  and  education  have  imposed 
on  the  undeveloped  brain  of  a  backward  race.  The  other,  not 
unconnected  with  the  former,  is  the  large  amount  of  crime. 
Most  of  it  is  petty  crime,  chiefly  thefts  of  hogs  and  poultry,  but 
there  are  also  a  good  many  crimes  against  women.  Seventy 
per  cent  of  the  convicts  in  Southern  jails  are  negroes ; 1  and 
though  one  must  allow  for  the  fact  that  they  are  the  poorest  part 
of  the  population  and  that  the  law  is  probably  more  strictly 
enforced  against  them  than  against  the  whites,  this  is  a  propor¬ 
tion  double  that  of  their  numbers.2  Even  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  more  than  half  the  arrests  are  among  the  coloured 
people,  though  they  are  only  one-third  of  the  inhabitants. 

The  most  potent  agency  in  the  progress  of  the  humbler  and 
more  ignorant  sections  of  a  community  has  always  been  their 
intercourse  with  those  who  are  more  advanced.  In  the  United 
States  it  is  by  their  social  commixture  with  the  native  citizens 
that  European  immigrants  become  so  quickly  assimilated,  the 
British  in  two  or  three  years,  the  Germans  and  Scandinavians 
in  eight  or  ten.  But  the  pre-condition  of  such  commixture  is 
the  absence  of  race  repulsion  and  especially  the  possibility  of 
intermarriage.  In  the  case  of  the  American  negro,  the  race 
repulsion  exists,  and  fusion  by  intermarriage  is  deemed  impos¬ 
sible.  The  day  of  his  liberation  was  also  the  day  when  the 
whites  began  to  shun  intercourse  with  him,  and  when  opinion 
began  to  condemn,  not  merely  regular  marriage  with  a  person 
of  colour,  for  that  had  been  always  forbidden,  but  even  an 
illicit  union. 

To  understand  the  very  peculiar  phenomena  which  mark  the 
relations  of  the  two  races,  one  must  distinguish  between  the 
Northern  and  Southern  States. 

In  the  North  there  was  before  the  war  a  marked  aversion  to 


1  The  South  is  still  far  behind  the  North  in  matters  of  prison  management. 
Convicts,  and  sometimes  white  as  well  as  coloured  convicts,  are  in  many  States 
hired  out  to  private  employers  or  companies  for  rough  work,  and  very  harshly 
treated. 

2  Note,  however,  that  in  the  rest  of  the  Union  (North  East,  North  Central 
and  West),  the  proportion  of  prisoners  in  the  jails  is  much  higher  among  the 
foreign  born  than  in  the  population  at  large,  doubtless  because  they  are  the 
poorest  class. 


524 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  negro  and  a  complete  absence  of  social  intercourse  with 
him.  The  negroes  were,  of  course,  among  the  poorest  and  least 
educated  persons  in  the  community.  But  the  poorest  white 
looked  down  upon  them  just  as  much  as  the  richest ;  and  in 
many  States  they  enjoyed  no  political  rights.  The  sympathy 
felt  for  them  during  the  Civil  War,  the  evidence  of  courage 
and  capacity  for  discipline  they  gave  as  soldiers  in  the  Federal 
Army,  and  the  disposition  to  protect  them  which  the  Republi¬ 
can  party  showed  during  the  Reconstruction  period,  modi¬ 
fied  this  aversion  ;  and  in  the  North  they  are  not  subject  to  any 
/  legal  disabilities.  They  are  occasionally  admitted  to  some  inferior 
political  office,  or  even  to  a  seat  in  a  State  legislature.  The 
Women’s  Christian  Temperance  Union  receives  them  as  members, 
and  so  does  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  though  they  are 
grouped  in  distinct  “posts.”  People  sometimes  take  pleasure 
in  going  out  of  their  way  to  compliment  them.  A  coloured  stu¬ 
dent  was  once  chosen  by  his  companions  at  Harvard  University 
to  be  the  “class  orator”  of  the  year;  and  I  know  of  cases  in 
which  the  lawyers  of  a  city  have  signed  memorials  recom¬ 
mending  a  coloured  barrister  for  appointment  to  an  important 
Federal  office.  Nevertheless,  there  is  practically  no  social  inter¬ 
mixture  of  white  and  coloured  people.  Except  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  a  negro  never  sits  down  to  dinner  with  a  white  man, 
in  a  railway  refreshment-room.  You  never  encounter  him  at  a 
private  party.  He  is  not  received  in  a  hotel  of  the  better  sort, 
no  matter  how  rich  he  may  be.  He  will  probably  be  refused 
a  glass  of  soda  water  at  a  drug  store.  He  is  not  shaved  in  a  place 
frequented  by  white  men,  not  even  by  a  barber  of  his  own  colour. 
He  worships  in  a  church  of  his  own.  No  native  wrhite  woman 
would  dream  of  receiving  his  addresses.  Kindly  condescension  is 
the  best  he  can  look  for,  accompanied  by  equality  of  access  to  a 
business  or  profession.  Social  equality  is  utterly  out  of  his  reach, 
and  in  many  districts  he  has  not  even  equality  of  economic 
opportunity,  for  the  white  labourer  may  refuse  to  work  with 
him  and  his  colour  may  prove  a  bar  to  his  obtaining  employ¬ 
ment  except  of  the  lowest  kind. 

In  the  South,  on  the  other  hand,  the  whites  had  before  the 
war  no  sense  of  personal  repulsion  from  the  negro.  The  do¬ 
mestic  slave  was  in  the  closest  relation  with  his  master’s  family. 
Sometimes  he  wras  his  master’s  trusted  friend.  The  white  child 
grew  up  with  the  black  child  as  its  playmate.  The  legal  in- 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  525 


equality  was  so  immense  that  familiarity  was  not  felt  to  involve 
any  disturbance  of  the  attitude  of  command.  With  emancipa¬ 
tion  there  must  needs  come  a  change ;  but  the  change  would 
have  come  more  gently,  and  left  a  better  relation  subsisting, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  unhappy  turn  which  things  took  in  the 
Reconstruction  period  under  the  dominance  of  the  negro  vote. 
The  white  people  were  then  thoroughly  frightened.  They 
thought  that  the  aim  of  the  North  was  to  force  them  to  admit 
not  only  the  civic  but  the  social  equality  of  the  freedmen,  and 
they  resolved,  if  one  can  apply  the  language  of  deliberate  pur¬ 
pose  to  what  was  rather  an  unconscious  and  uncontrollable 
impulse,  to  maintain  the  social  inferiority  of  the  negro  as  well 
as  to  exclude  him  from  political  power.  They  declare  that 
they  know  him  better  and  like  him  better  than  the  Northern 
people  do.  That  there  is  not  among  the  educated  whites  of 
the  South  any  hostility  to  the  race  as  a  race  is  true  enough. 
The  sons  of  the  planters,  and  of  the  better  class  generally, 
have  kindly  recollections  of  their  former  slaves,  and  get  on  well 
with  their  negro  servants  and  workmen  ;  while  among  the  freed¬ 
men,  now  comparatively  few,  there  is  still  a  loyal  attachment 
to  the  children  of  their  former  masters.  The  poor  whites, 
however,  dislike  the  negroes,  resent  the  slightest  assumption 
of  equality  on  the  part  of  the  latter,1  and  show  their  hatred  by 
violence,  sometimes  even  by  ferocity,  when  any  disturbance 
arises  or  when  a  negro  fugitive  has  to  be  pursued.  Except 
so  far  as  it  is  involved  in  domestic  service,  the  servants  in  the 
South  being  nearly  all  negroes,  there  is  now  little  intercourse 
between  whites  and  blacks.  In  many  States  the  law  requires 
the  railroad  and  even  the  street-car  companies  to  provide 
separate  cars  for  the  latter,  though  there  are  cities,  such  as 
Baltimore  and  Washington,  where  the  same  cars  are  used  by 
both  races.  In  most  parts  of  the  South  a  person  of  colour 
cannot  enter  a  public  refreshment-room  used  by  the  whites 
except  as  the  servant  of  a  white ;  and  one  may  see  the  most 
respectable  and,  possibly,  even  educated  coloured  woman, 
perhaps  almost  white,  forced  into  the  coloured  car  among  rough 
negroes,  while  the  black  nurse  in  charge  of  a  white  child  is  ad¬ 
mitted  to  the  white  car.  The  two  races  are  everywhere  taught 
in  distinct  schools  and  colleges,  though  in  one  or  two  places 

1  A  Virginian  observed  to  me,  “Our  whites  don’t  molest  the  negroes  so  long 
as  the  negroes  don’t  presume  !” 


526 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


negroes  have  been  allowed  to  study  in  the  medical  or  law  classes. 
They  worship  in  different  churches.  Though  the  negroes  read 
the  ordinary  papers,  they  also  support  their  own  distinct  organs. 
They  have  distinct  Young  Men’s  Christian  Associations.  With 
some  exceptions  in  the  case  of  unskilled  trades,  they  are  not  ad¬ 
mitted  to  trade  unions.1  In  concert  halls  and  theatres,  if  the 
coloured  are  admitted  at  all,  it  is  to  an  inferior  part  of  the  cham¬ 
ber.  They  are,  however,  sometimes  called  to  serve  on  juries. 
Civil  justice  is  mostly  fairly  administered  as  between  the  races, 
but  not  criminal  justice.  In  some  parts  of  the  South  a  white 
man  would  run  little  more  risk  of  being  hanged  for  the  murder 
of  a  negro  than  a  Mussulman  in  Turkey  for  the  murder  of  a 
Christian. 

Under  so  complete  a  system  of  separation,  it  is  clear  that  the 
influence  of  social  intercourse  between  whites  and  blacks,  an 
influence  to  which  the  domestic  slaves  before  the  war  owed 
much,  now  counts  for  little.  But  the  question  of  the  attitude 
of  the  whites  has  another  side.  It  means  more  than  the  sus¬ 
pension  of  a  civilizing  agency.  Some  Southern  observers  say 
that  the  coloured  generation  which  has  grown  up  since  the  war, 
and  which  has  been  in  less  close  touch  with  the  white  people 
than  were  the  slaves  and  freedmen  of  the  last  generation,  is 
less  friendly  to  them.  It  has  lost  the  instinctive  sense  of 
subservience  and  dependence,  and  its  more  educated  mem¬ 
bers  feel  acutely  the  contrast  between  their  legal  equality  and 
their  inequality  in  every  other  respect.  The  lower  class 
are  also  often  unfriendly,  prone  to  suspicion  and  violence. 
In  this  situation  there  lie  possibilities  of  danger.  The 
strained  relations  of  the  races  appear  most  frequently  in  the 
lynchings  of  negroes.  It  is  extremely  hard  to  ascertain  the 
truth  of  the  reports  regarding  these  lawless  acts.  But  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  over  the  South  and,  to  a  smaller 
extent,  in  the  North  also,  negroes  accused  of  assassinating 
white  men,  or  of  outraging  white  women  or  children  are  fre¬ 
quently  seized  by  white  mobs  and  summarily  killed ;  that 
occasionally,  though  probably  not  often,  an  innocent  man 
perishes,  and  that  the  killing  is  sometimes  accompanied  by  cir¬ 
cumstances  of  revolting  cruelty.  Now  and  then  the  culprit 
is  burned  alive.  Often  his  body,  after  he  has  been  hanged,  is 

1  Their  unions  were  however  admitted  to  the  federation  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor. 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  527 


riddled  with  bullets,  a  piece  of  barbarism  akin  to  the  Eastern 
habit  of  mutilating  the  corpses  of  the  slain.  The  excuses  offered 
for  these  acts  are  that  white  women,  especially  in  sparsely 
inhabited  regions,  are  in  considerable  danger  from  the  lust  of 
brutal  negroes,  and  that  the  swift  apprehension  and  slaughter 
of  the  culprit  not  only  strikes  greater  dread  than  the  regular 
process  of  justice,  but  does  not  gratify  the  negro’s  enjoyment  of 
the  pomp  and  ceremony  of  a  formal  trial  before  a  judge.  It  is 
also  declared,  and  with  truth,  that  whites  also  are  lynched,  though 
not  so  frequently  and  in  a  less  atrocious  way,1  that  the  negroes 
themselves  occasionally  lynch  a  negro,  that  it  is  hard  for  the 
executive  authority,  with  no  force  except  the  militia  at  its  com¬ 
mand,  to  protect  prisoners  and  repress  disorder,  and  that  the 
lynchings  are  the  work  of  a  comparatively  small  and  rude  part 
of  the  white  population  ;  the  better  citizens  disapproving,  but 
being  unable  or  unwilling  to  interfere. 

Whatever  palliations  may  be  found  in  these  circumstances, 
—  and  it  is  quite  true  that  in  a  thinly  peopled  and  unpoliced 
country  white  women  do  stand  in  serious  risk,  —  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  practice  of  lynching  has  a  pernicious 
effect  on  the  whites  themselves,  accustoming  them  to  cruelty, 
and  fostering  a  spirit  of  lawlessness  which  tells  for  evil  on  every 
branch  of  government  and  public  life.  Were  the  negroes  less 
cowed  by  the  superior  strength  and  numbers  of  the  whites, 
reprisals,  now  rare,  would  be  more  frequent.  Yet  even  in  a  race 
with  so  little  vindictiveness  or  temper,  terrible  mischief  is  done. 
The  tendency  to  accept  the  leadership  of  the  whites,  and  to  seek 
progress  rather  by  industrial  and  educational  than  by  political 
efforts  has  been  damped,  and  the  establishment  of  good  feeling 
and  a  sense  of  public  security  retarded.  The  humble  negro  shuns 
contact  with  the  whites,  not  knowing  when  some  band  of  roughs 
may  mishandle  him  ;  and  sometimes  a  lynching  is  followed  by  a 
sudden  rush  of  coloured  emigration  from  the  State  or  district 
where  it  has  happened.2  The  educated  and  aspiring  negro 


1  There  was,  however,  an  instance  some  years  ago,  in  which  the  party  which 
was  hunting  for  a  white  murderer  announced  their  intention  of  burning  him. 
1  do  not  know  whether  he  was  caught.  I  have  even  read  in  the  newspapers  of 
a  case  in  which  a  crowd  allowed  two  women  to  flog  a  third  to  death,  but  this 
was  in  a  wild  mountain  region.  All  the  parties  were  whites. 

2  When  the  Territory  of  Oklahoma  was  opened  for  settlement,  negroes  flocked 
in  from  Missouri  and  Arkansas  hoping  to  obtain  better  security  for  themselves 
by  their  presence  in  considerable  numbers. 


528 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


resents  the  savage  spirit  shown  towards  his  colour,  though  he 
feels  his  helplessness  too  keenly  to  attempt  any  action  which 
could  check  it. 

This  social  repulsion  and  its  consequences  present  a  painful 
contrast  to  the  effect  of  the  four  previous  influences  we  have 
examined.  As  respects  their  intelligence,  their  character,  their 
habits  of  industry,  the  coloured  people  are  in  most  States  mak¬ 
ing  real  progress.  It  is  a  progress  very  unequal  as  regards  the 
different  regions  of  the  country,  and  perhaps  may  not  extend  to 
some  districts  of  the  so-called  Black  Belt,  which  stretches  from 
the  coast  of  South  Carolina  across  the  Gulf  States.  It  is  most 
evident  in  the  matter  of  education,  less  evident  as  respects 
religion  and  the  influence  of  literature.  Its  economic  results 
are  perceptible  in  the  accumulation  of  property  by  city  workmen, 
in  the  acquisition  of  small  farms  by  rural  cultivators,  in  the  slow, 
but  steady,  increase  in  the  number  of  coloured  people  in  the 
professions  of  medicine,  law,  and  literature.  Were  it  accom¬ 
panied  by  a  growth  of  good  feeling  between  whites  and  negroes, 
and  a  more  natural  and  friendly  intercourse  between  them  in 
business  and  in  social  matters,  the  horizon  would  be  bright,  and 
the  political  difficulties,  which  I  shall  presently  describe,  need 
not  cause  alarm.  This  intercourse  is,  however,  conspicuous^ 
absent.  The  progress  of  the  coloured  people  has  been  accom¬ 
panied  by  the  evolution  of  social  classes  within  their  own  body. 
Wealthy  and  educated  negroes,  such  as  one  may  now  find  in 
cities  like  Baltimore,  Louisville,  Richmond,  Atlanta,  and  New 
Orleans,  have  come  to  form  a  cultured  group,  who  are  looked  up 
to  by  the  poorer  class.1  But  these  cultured  groups  are  as  little 
in  contact  with  their  white  neighbours  as  are  the  humblest 
coloured  labourers,  perhaps  even  less  so.  No  prospect  is  open 
to  them,  whatever  wealth  or  culture  they  may  acquire,  of  find¬ 
ing  an  entrance  into  white  society,  and  they  are  made  to  feel  in  a 
thousand  ways  that  they  belong  to  a  caste  condemned  to  per¬ 
petual  inferiority.  Their  spokesmen  in  the  press  have  latterly 
so  fully  realized  the  position  as  to  declare  that  they  do  not  seek 
social  equality  with  the  whites,  that  they  are  quite  willing  to 

1  The  mulattoes  or  quadroons  are,  as  a  rule,  more  advanced  than  the  pure 
blacks,  and  are  alleged  to  avoid  intermarriage  with  the  latter.  Now  and  then, 
however,  a  pure  black  may  be  found  of  remarkable  intelligence.  Such  a  one, 
a  Louisiana  farmer,  who  read  and  talked  with  sense  and  judgment  about  the 
Greek  philosophers,  is  described  in  the  graphic  and  instructive  sketches  called 
Studies  in  the  South.  —  Atlantic  Monthly  for  February,  1882. 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO 


529 


build  up  a  separate  society  of  their  own,  and  seek  neither  inter¬ 
marriage  nor  social  intercourse,  but  that  what  they  do  ask  is 
equal  opportunity  in  business,  the  professions,  and  politics, 
equal  recognition  of  the  worth  of  their  manhood,  and  a  discon¬ 
tinuance  of  the  social  humiliations  they  are  now  compelled  to 
endure. 

From  this  attempt  to  sketch  the  phenomena  of  the  present, 
I  proceed  to  consider  the  future.  The  future  has  two  problems 
to  solve.  One  is  political ;  the  other  social.  How  is  the  determ¬ 
ination  of  the  whites  to  rule  to  be  reconciled  with  the  possession 
by  the  negroes  of  equal  rights  of  suffrage  ?  How  can  the  social 
severance  or  antagonism  of  the  two  races,  —  by  whichever  term 
we  are  to  describe  it,  —  the  haughty  assertion  of  superiority 
by  the  whites  and  the  suppressed  resentment  of  the  more  ad¬ 
vanced  among  the  coloured  people,  be  prevented  from  ripening 
into  a  settled  distrust  and  hostility  which  may  affect  the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  the  South  for  centuries  to  come  ? 

The  methods  whereby  the  negroes  have  been  prevented  from 
exercising  the  rights  of  suffrage  vested  in  them  by  law  have 
been  described  in  the  last  preceding  chapter.  These  means 
become  less  violent  as  the  negroes  more  and  more  acquiesced 
in  their  exclusion ;  but  whether  violent  or  pacific,  they  were 
almost  uniformly  successful.  In  the  so-called  Border  States, 
the  whites  have  been  in  so  great  a  majority  that  they  do  not 
care  to  interfere  with  the  coloured  vote,  except  now  and  then 
by  the  use  of  money.  Through  the  rest  of  the  South  the  negro 
came  to  realize  that  he  would  not  be  permitted  to  exercise 
any  influence  on  the  government ;  and  his  interest  in  coming 
to  the  polls  declined  accordingly.  The  main  cause  of  this 
resolve  of  the  whites  to  keep  power  entirely  in  their  own  hands 
is  the  alarm  they  feel  at  the  possibility  of  negro  domination. 
A  stranger,  whether  from  the  North  or  from  Europe,  thinks  this 
alarm  groundless.  He  perceives  that  the  whites  have  not  only 
the  habit  of  command,  but  also  nearly  all  the  property,  the 
intelligence,  and  the  force  of  character  which  exist  in  the 
country.  He  reminds  his  Southern  hosts  that  the  balance  even 
of  numbers  is  inclining  more  and  more  in  their  favour ;  and 
that  the  probability  of  Northern  intervention  on  behalf  of  the 
excluded  negro  voter  has  become,  since  the  failure  of  the  Federal 
Elections  Bill  of  1890,  extremely  slight,  while  the  other  con¬ 
ditions  of  1867  can  never  recur.  On  this  point,  however,  the 


530 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


Southern  man  is  immovable.  To  him  it  is  a  simple  question  of 
self-preservation.  “We  like  the  negro,”  said  a  leader  among 
them  to  me  some  years  ago ;  “we  know  he  must  stay ;  we  de¬ 
sire  to  treat  him  well.  But  if  he  votes,  we  must  vote  him,  or 
outvote  him.” 

The  results  of  the  policy  followed  were  unfortunate.  The 
negroes,  naturally  docile  and  disposed  to  follow  the  lead  of  their 
white  employer  or  neighbour,  felt  themselves  suspected,  and 
lived  in  a  terror  of  being  stripped  of  the  civic  rights  which  they 
were  not  suffered  to  exercise,  like  the  terror  which  for  a  time 
possessed  them  of  being  thrown  back  into  slavery.  So  far  as 
they  voted  at  all  they  mostly  clung  together,  and  voted  solid, 
intimidating  or  boycotting  any  one  of  their  number  who  was 
supposed  to  be  a  “ bolter.”  The  whites,  accustomed  to  justify 
their  use  of  force  or  fraud  by  the  plea  of  necessity,  be¬ 
came  callous  to  electoral  malpractices.  The  level  of  purity 
and  honesty  in  political  methods,  once  comparatively  high, 
declined ;  and  the  average  Southern  conscience  grew  to  be  no 
more  sensitive  than  is  that  of  professional  politicians  in  North¬ 
ern  cities.  Nor  was  the  mischief  confined  to  elections.  The 
existence  of  this  alarm  has,  by  making  the  South  regard  the 
negro  as  the  capital  question  in  national  as  well  as  State 
politics,  warped  the  natural  growth  of  political  opinion  and 
political  parties  upon  all  those  other  current  questions  which 
engage  the  mind  of  the  people,  and  has  to  that  extent  retarded 
their  reabsorption  into  the  general  political  life  of  the  Republic. 

These  evils  were  generally  recognized.  Out  of  the  various 
remedies  that  were  proposed  for  their  cure,  three  deserve  to 
be  specially  noted. 

The  first  was  (as  proposed  in  the  bill  of  1890)  to  give  protec¬ 
tion  to  the  coloured  voter  by  the  action  of  Federal  officers 
backed  by  Federal  troops.  This  could,  of  course,  be  done 
under  the  Constitution  at  Federal  elections  only,  and  would 
not  cover  the  equally  important  State  and  local  elections.  It 
would,  moreover  (as  the  discussions  of  1890  showed),  provoke 
great  exasperation  at  the  South,  and  might  lead  to  breaches 
of  the  peace,  from  which  the  negroes  would  be  the  chief  suf¬ 
ferers.  The  whole  South  would  resist  it,  and  no  small  part  of 
the  Northern  people  would  dislike  it. 

A  second  and  opposite  remedy  was  to  repeal  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  leave  each  State 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  531 


free  to  exclude  negroes  from  the  suffrage.  This  plan,  although 
sometimes  put  forward  by  men  of-  ability,  was  even  more  im¬ 
practicable  than  the  preceding  one.  A  majority  of  three- 
fourths  of  the  States  could  not  possibly  be  secured  for  the 
repeal  of  a  provision  which  the  Northern  people  regard  as 
sealing  one  of  the  main  results  of  the  Civil  War. 

The  third  suggested  scheme  was  to  limit  the  suffrage  by 
some  educational  or  even  some  pecuniary  qualification  —  al¬ 
though  American  sentiment  dislikes  a  property  qualification, 
calculated  to  exclude  many  or  most  of  the  negroes,  not  as  ne¬ 
groes,  but  because  they  were  ignorant  or  poor.  Such  a  scheme, 
though  proposed  by  Gen.  Wade  Hampton  in  South  Carolina  as 
far  back  as  1867,  was  not  tried  until  1890,  when  Mississippi, 
by  her  Constitution  of  that  year,1  provided  that  a  person 
applying  to  be  registered  as  a  voter  “  shall  be  able  to  read 
any  section  of  the  Constitution,  or  be  able  to  understand  the 
same  when  read  to  him,  or  to  give  a  reasonable  interpretation 
thereof.” 

The  advantages  of  such  a  method  are  obvious,  and  have 
suggested  its  adoption  in  a  British  colony  where  the  presence 
of  a  large  coloured  population  raised  a  problem  not  dis¬ 
similar  to  that  we  have  been  examining.2  Recognizing  the 
need  of  knowledge  and  intelligence  for  the  due  exercise  of  po¬ 
litical  power,  it  excludes  a  large  mass  of  confessedly  incom¬ 
petent  persons,  while  leaving  the  door  open  for  those  negroes 
whose  instructed  capacity  brings  them  up  to  the  level  of  the 
bulk  of  the  whites,  and  who,  in  some  places,  may  be  now  from 
one-fifth  to  one-fourth  of  the  whole  negro  population.  Thus 
it  may  operate,  not  only  as  an  improvement  in  the  electoral 
body,  but  as  an  incentive  to  educational  progress. 

The  obstacles  to  the  adoption  of  the  plan  were,  however, 
serious.  One  was  that  in  disfranchising  their  negroes  for 
want  of  education,  most  Southern  States  would  have  also  to 
disfranchise  that  part  of  their  white  population,  which  was 


1  There  was  one  negro  member  in  the  Convention  that  enacted  this  Consti¬ 
tution,  which  was  never  (be  it  noted)  submitted  to  the  popular  vote. 

2  In  Cape  Colony  the  Franchise  and  Ballot  Act  of  1892  raises  the  (previ¬ 
ously  very  low)  property  qualification  for  the  suffrage,  and  provides  (§  6) 
that  no  person  shall  be  registered  as  an  elector  “  unless  he  is  able  to  sign  his 
name  and  write  his  address  and  occupation.”  These  provisions  disqualify 
the  great  bulk  of  the  native  coloured  people,  few  of  whom  have,  as  may  be 
supposed,  any  interest  in  politics. 


532 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


below  any  educational  standard  high  enough  to  exclude  tho 
mass  of  negroes.  The  percentage  of  illiterates  to  the  whole 
population  over  ten  years  of  age  was  in  1890  in  the  South¬ 
eastern  States  14.5  and  in  the  South-western  15.  To  expect 
these  voters  (about  1,412,000)  to  disfranchise  themselves  for 
the  sake  of  excluding  negroes  was  to  expect  too  much.  The 
other  was  that  every  limitation  of  the  suffrage  might  diminish  pro 
tanto  (Amendment  XIV.)  a  State’s  representation  in  Federal 
elections,  thereby  weakening  its  influence  in  Federal  affairs 
and  mortifying  its  self-esteem.  The  State  of  Mississippi,  while 
facing,  as  it  safely  might,  this  possibility,  evaded  the  former  diffi¬ 
culty  by  the  ingenious  loophole  under  which  the  registering 
officials  may  admit  whites  who,  though  illiterate,  are  able  to  give 
a  “reasonable  interpretation”  of  any  section  of  the  State  Con¬ 
stitution.  Such  whites  have,  one  is  told,  been  able  to  satisfy 
the  officials  far  more  generally  than  have  the  negroes.  And  if 
this  particular  section  happens  to  be  put  to  them,  their  common 
sense  will  find  its  interpretation  obvious.  Other  States  have 
since  1890  tried  other  methods,  which  are  mentioned  in  the 
following  chapter. 

Even  graver  than  the  political  difficulties  which  have  been 
described  is  the  social  problem  raised  by  the  coexistence  on  the 
/  same  soil,  under  the  same  free  government,  of  two  races  so 
widely  differing  that  they  do  not  intermingle.  Social  disparity 
or  social  oppression  cuts  deeper  than  any  political  severance; 
and  time,  so  far  from  curing  the  mischief,  seems  during  the 
last  thirty  or  forty  years  to  have  aggravated  it.  Politics  leave 
untouched  large  parts  of  the  field  of  human  life,  even  in  the 
United  States ;  and  the  political  inferiority  of  the  coloured 
race,  since  it  is  the  result  of  their  retarded  intellectual  develop¬ 
ment,  seems  in  accord  with  nature.  Social  inferiority,  which 
is  felt  at  every  moment,  and  which  reduces  or  destroys  the 
sense  of  human  brotherhood,  is  a  more  serious  matter. 

This  problem  is,  moreover,  a  new  one  in  history,  for  the 
relations  of  the  ruling  and  subject  races  of  Europe  and  Asia 
supply  no  parallel  to  it.  Whoever  examines  the  records  of  the 
past  will  find  that  the  continued  juxtaposition  of  two  races 
has  always  been  followed  either  by  the  disappearance  of  the 
weaker  or  by  the  intermixture  of  the  two.  Where  race  antag¬ 
onisms  still  remain,  as  in  parts  of  Eastern  Europe,  and  on  a  far 
larger  scale  in  Asia,  one  may  expect  a  similar  solution  to  be 


chap,  xci v  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  533 


ultimately  reached.  In  Transylvania,  for  instance,  Saxons, 
Magyars,  and  Roumans  stand  apart  from  one  another,  all  three, 
but  especially  the  two  latter,  mutually  suspicious  and  politically 
hostile.  So  further  east  one  finds  strong  religious  antagonisms 
(not  without  serious  attendant  evils),  such  as  those  of  Sunnis, 
Shiahs,  and  Christians  in  Western  Asia,  or  of  Hindus  and 
Mussulmans  in  India,  antagonisms,  however,  which  only  par¬ 
tially  coincide  with  race  differences,  and  have  thrown  the 
latter  quite  into  the  shade.  In  all  such  cases,  however,  though 
one  race  or  religion  may  be  for  the  moment  dominant,  there 
is  no  necessary  or  permanent  distinction  between  them ;  and 
there  is,  if  the  religious  difficulty  can  be  overcome,  a  possi¬ 
bility  of  intermarriage.  Other  cases  may  be  suggested  where  a 
fusion  is  improbable,  as  between-  the  British  and  the  natives  in 
India,  or  the  colonists  and  the  natives  in  New  Zealand.  But  the 
European  rulers  of  India  are  a  mere  handful  in  comparison  with 
the  natives,  nor  do  they  settle  in  India  so  as  to  form  a  part  of 
its  permanent  population  ;  while  as  to  New  Zealand,  the  Maoris, 
hitherto  a  diminishing  body,  though  now  just  maintaining  their 
numbers,  live  apart  on  their  own  lands,  and  form  a  community 
likely  to  continue  distinct.  In  Western  South  America  the 
Spanish  settlers  have,  in  some  regions,  very  largely  mingled  their 
blood  with  that  of  the  native  Indians,  and  may  ultimately  become 
as  much  blent  with  the  latter  as  has’  befallen  in  Mexico.  The 
peculiar  feature  of  the  race  problem  as  it  presents  itself  in  the 
United  States  is,  that  the  negroes  are  in  many  districts  one- 
third  or  even  one-half  of  the  population,  are  forced  to  live  in 
the  closest  local  contiguity  with  the  whites,  and  are  for  the 
purposes  of  industry  indispensable  to  the  latter,  yet  are  so 
sharply  cut  off  from  the  whites  by  colour  and  all  that  colour 
means,  that  not  merely  a  mingling  of  blood,  but  any  social  ap¬ 
proximation,  is  regarded  with  horror,  and  perpetual  severance 
is  deemed  a  law  of  nature. 

From  such  a  position  what  issue?  One  hears  little  said  in 
America  of  any  possible  issue,  partly  because  the  nation  is 
tired  of  the  whole  subject,  which  has,  in  one  form  or  another, 
vexed  it  ever  since  the  early  days  of  last  century,  partly  be¬ 
cause  every  plan  that  has  been  suggested  is  open  to  patent 
objections.  Several,  however,  may  deserve  to  be  mentioned. 

Even  long  before  the  war,  and  often  since,  it  has  been  pro¬ 
posed  that  the  negro.es  should  be  retransported  to  Africa.  The 


534 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


petty  and  stagnant  Republic  of  Liberia  owes  its  origin  to  the 
idea  that  it  might  furnish  a  home  for  Afro-American  freedmen, 
and  a  centre  whence  they  might  be  dispersed  in  larger  and 
larger  numbers  through  their  ancient  home.  But  in  1910  the 
more  or  less  civilized  population  of  Liberia  of  American  origin 
was  only  some  18,000,  the  million  of  other  inhabitants  being 
„  aborigines,  and  the  badly  administered  State  was  unable  to  pay 
its  way. 

There  are  two  fatal  objections  to  the  plan  of  exporting  the 
Southern  negroes  to  Africa.  One  is  that  they  will  not  go  ;  the 
other  that  the  whites  cannot  afford  to  let  them  go.  There  is 
nothing  to  attract  them  in  the  prospect  of  being  uprooted  from 
their  homes  in  a  country  where  the  comforts  of  civilization 
are  attainable  by  industry,  and  thrown  upon  a  new  shore, 
already  occupied  by  savages  of  whose  very  languages,  except 
in  the  few  spots  where  English  is  spoken,  they  are  ignorant.1 
The  Southern  whites,  so  far  from  encouraging,  would  resist 
their  departure ;  for  it  would  mean  the  loss  of  the  labour  by 
which  more  than  half  the  crops  of  the  South  are  raised,  and 
a  great  part  of  her  mining  and  iron-working  industries  carried 
on.  Much  of  the  country  might,  for  a  time  at  least,  remain 
untilled  and  useless  were  the  negro  to  disappear ;  for  of  the 
introduction  of  coolie  labour  from  India  there  can  be  no  talk 
in  a  nation  which  has  so  strictly  forbidden  the  entrance  of 
Chinese.  The  negro,  in  short,  is  essential  to  the  material  pros¬ 
perity  of  the  South,  and  his  departure  would  mean  ruin  to  it. 
Even  now,  the  Atlantic  States  do  what  they  can  to  prevent 
their  coloured  labourers  from  leaving  them  to  go  west.2 

Apart  from  these  obstacles,  the  transference  of  many  mill¬ 
ions  of  people  from  one  continent  to  another  is  beyond  the 
horizon  of  the  possible.  Their  annual  increase  exceeds  200,000, 
quite  as  large  a  number  as  could  be,  in  a  single  year,  conveyed 
to  and  provided  for  in  Africa.  How  many  emigrant  ships,  and 
at  what  cost,  would  be  needed  even  for  this,  not  to  speak  of 
the  far  larger  expenses  needed  to  keep  them  from  starving 
till  they  had  begun  to  scatter  themselves  through  the  interior 
of  Africa  !  To  proceed  by  transporting  even  200,000  a  year, 

1  A  variation  of  this  suggestion  has  been  that  while  the  pure  blacks  should 
be  exported  to  Africa,  the  (usually  more  advanced)  mulattoes  and  quadroons 
might  go  to  reclaim  the  Antilles.  See  An  Appeal  to  Pharaoh;  New  York,  1S90. 

2  Some  States  punish  with  fines  or  imprisonment  any  one  entering  the  State 
for  the  purpose  of  endeavouring  to  draw  the  negroes  to  States  further  west. 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  535 


would  be  to  try  to  empty  a  running  stream  by  a  ladle.  The 
notion  of  such  a  solution  has  been  abandoned  by  all  sensible 
men  in  America,  though  here  and  there  a  belated  voice  repeats 

it. 

Easier  seems  the  alternative  plan  of  setting  apart  for  the 
coloured  people  certain  districts  of  the  country,  such  as,  for 
instance,  the  southern  part  of  the  Atlantic  coast  region  and 
the  lowlands  of  the  Gulf,  and  moving  them  into  these  dis¬ 
tricts  from  the  rest  of  the  country,  as  Oliver  Cromwell  drove 
the  wild  Irish  into  Connaught.  But  neither  does  this  solution 
find  any  favour  in  America.  No  State  would  consent  to  see 
even  a  part  of  its  territory  cut  off  and  allotted  to  the  negroes, 
to  be  by  them  administered  in  their  own  way.  The  rest  of  the 
country  would  hardly  admit  a  purely  black  State  to  be  repre¬ 
sented  in  Congress  and  to  vote  in  Presidential  elections  on 
equal  terms.  And  in  many  parts  of  the  South,  which  are 
better  suited  for  whites  than  for  negroes,  and  in  which,  there¬ 
fore,  the  white  population  is  now  much  larger,  the  leading  in¬ 
dustries  would  suffer  severely  from  the  removal  of  negro  labour. 
Northern  Alabama,  for  instance,  is  in  point  of  climate  a  region 
well  fitted  for  whites.  But  the  iron  works  there  employ  great 
numbers  of  negroes  who  are  found  efficient,  and  whose  place 
might  not  be  easily  filled.  Virginia  is,  in  the  main,  a  white 
State.  But  not  only  the  growing  of  tobacco,  but  also  its  prep¬ 
aration  for  the  market,  is  a  negro  industry;  and  it  would  be 
no  simple  matter  to  find  white  work-people  to  do  it  equally 
well  and  cheaply.  This  scheme,  therefore,  may  also  be  dis¬ 
missed  as  outside  the  range  of  practical  politics. 

There  remains  the  suggestion  that  the  method  by  which  race 
antagonisms  have  been  so  often  removed  in  the  past  in  the 
Old  World,  and  to  some  extent  (as,  for  instance,  in  Mexico)  in 
the  New  World  also,  may  eventually  be  applied  in  the  United 
States ;  that  is  to  say,  that  the  two  races  may  be  blent  by  in¬ 
termarriage  into  one.  To  some  Europeans,  and  to  a  very  few 
old  survivors  of  the  Abolitionist  party  in  the  North,  this  solution 
appears  possible  and  even  natural.  To  all  Southern  sentiment 
it  is  shocking.  I  have  never  met  a  Southern  man,  whether 
born  there  or  an  incomer  from  the  North,  who  would  even  dis¬ 
cuss  the  possibility  of  such  a  general  commixture  of  whites  and 
blacks  as  Brazil  has  begun  to  show  or  as  exists  in  some 
Mussulman  countries.  In  no  Southern  State  can  such  a 


536 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


marriage  be  legally  contracted ;  and  what  is  more  remarkable, 
in  every  Southern  State  such  unions  are  excessively  rare. 
Even  at  the  North,  where  the  aversion  to  negro  blood  is 
now  less  strong,  “  miscegenation,”  as  they  call  it,  is  deemed 
such  a  disgrace  to  the  white  who  contracts  it  that  one  seldom 
hears  of  its  occurrence.  Enlightened  Southern  men,  who  have 
themselves  no  dislike  to  the  black  race,  justify  this  horror  of 
intermarriage  by  arguing  that  no  benefit  which  might  thereby 
accrue  to  the  negroes  could  balance  the  evil  which  would  befall 
the  rest  of  the  community.  The  interests  of  the  nation  and  of 
humanity  itself  would,  in  their  view,  suffer  by  such  a  permanent 
debasement  of  the  Anglo-American  race  as  would  follow.  Our 
English  blood  is  suffering  enough  already,  they  say,  from  the 
intrusion  of  inferior  stock  from  Continental  Europe ;  and  we 
should  be  brought  down  to  the  level  of  San  Domingo  were  we 
to  have  an  infusion  from  Africa  added.  This  is  the  argument 
to  which  reason  appeals.  That  enormous  majority  which  does 
not  reason  is  swayed  by  a  feeling  so  strong  and  universal  that 
there  seems  no  chance  of  its  abating  within  any  assignable 
time.  Revolutions  in  sentiment  are,  no  doubt,  conceivable,  but 
they  are  more  rare  than  revolutions  in  politics. 

We  arrive,  therefore,  at  three  conclusions. 

I.  The  Negro  will  stay  in  North  America. 

II.  He  will  stay  locally  intermixed  with  the  white  population. 

III.  He  will  stay  socially  distinct,  as  an  alien  element,  unab¬ 
sorbed  and  unabsorbable. 

His  position  may,  however,  change  from  what  it  is  now. 

He  may  more  and  more  draw  southwards  into  the  lower  and 
hotter  regions  along  the  coasts  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  Whether  in  the  more  northerly  States,  such  as  Mary¬ 
land  and  Missouri,  he  will  decrease,  may  be  doubtful.  But 
it  is  certainly  in  those  southerly  regions  that  his  chief  future 
increase  may  be  expected.  In  other  words,  he  will  be  a  relatively 
smaller,  and  probably  much  smaller,  element  than  at  present 
in  the  whole  population  north  of  latitude  36°,  and  a  relatively 
larger  one  south  of  latitude  33°,  and  east  of  longitude  94°  W. 

This  change  would  have  both  its  good  and  its  evil  side.  It  may 
involve  less  frequent  occasions  for  collision  between  the  two 
races,  and  may  dispose  the  negroes,  where  they  are  compara¬ 
tively  few,  to  acquiesce  less  reluctantly  in  white  predominance. 
But  it  will  afford  scantier  opportunities  for  the  gradual  elevation 


chap,  xciv  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO 


537 


of  the  race  in  the  districts  where  they  are  most  numerous. 
Contact  with  the  whites  is  the  chief  condition  for  the  progress 
of  the  negro.  Where  he  is  isolated,  or  where  he  greatly  out¬ 
numbers  the  whites,  his  advance  will  be  retarded,  although 
nothing  has  yet  occurred  to  justify  the  fear  that  he  will,  even 
along  the  Gulf  coast,  or  in  the  sea  islands  of  Carolina,  sink  to 
the  level  of  the  Haytian. 

The  Negro  may,  indeed,  in  time  he  doubtless  will,  though 
more  rapidly  in  some  regions  than  in  others,  continue  to  ad¬ 
vance  in  education,  intelligence,  and  wealth,  as  well  as  in 
habits  of  thrift  and  application.  Such  progress  may  seem  an 
unmixed  good.  Yet  it  can  hardly  fail  to  be  accompanied  in 
that  small  minority  who  advance  most  quickly,  by  a  grow¬ 
ing  discontent  with  the  social  disabilities  imposed  upon  the 
race.  It  will  give  them  greater  capacity  for  organization, 
possibly  greater  tenacity  and  courage,  than  they  now  possess ; 
and  these  very  things  might,  by  alarming  the  whites,  tend  to 
widen  the  chasm  between  the  races.  Whether  the  coloured 
people  will  be  any  better  able  to  give  effect  to  any  resentment 
they  may  feel,  is  doubtful,  so  great  is  the  disparity  in  strength. 
But  they  might  be  more  embittered,  and  this  embitterment,  re¬ 
acting  upon  white  sentiment,  might  retard  the  working  of  those 
healing  influences  which  the  progress  of  civilization  generally 
brings  in  its  train.  Already  one  hears  the  younger  whites  of  the 
South  talk  of  the  growing  “uppishness”  and  impertinence  of  the 
negro,  as  things  to  be  resented  and  punished. 

That  sense  of  haughty  superiority  which  other  nations  note  in 
the  English  has  in  their  Indian  dominions  done  much  to  destroy 
the  happy  effects  of  the  enormous  social  and  economic  improve¬ 
ments  which  the  rule  of  Britain  has  effected.  A  young  indigo 
planter,  or  a  lieutenant  only  just  released  from  school  at  home, 
will  treat  with  wanton  insolence  or  contumely  natives  -of  the 
highest  caste,  perhaps  of  dignified  social  position  and  ancient 
lineage ;  and  though  Government  punishes  these  offences  in  the 
rare  cases  when  they  are  brought  to  its  knowledge,  the  sentiment 
of  Anglo-Indian  society  scarcely  condemns  them.  Thus  the  very 
classes  whom  rank  and  education  might  have  been  expected  to 
render  loyal  to  British  authority  are  alienated.  When  similar 
tendencies  appear  in  the  Anglo-American  of  the  South,  the 
Englishman,  who  knows  how  not  a  few  of  his  own  countrymen 
behave  to  the  ancient  and  cultivated  races  of  the  East  whom  they 


538 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


have  conquered,  feel  that  he  is  not  entitled  to  sit  in  judg¬ 
ment. 

I  do  not  suggest  that  there  is  any  present  political  danger 
to  the  Republic,  or  even  to  any  particular  Southern  State,  from 
the  phenomena  here  described.  But  the  evil  of  these  things  is  to 
be  measured  not  merely  by  any  such  menace  to  political  stability 
as  they  may  involve,  but  also  by  the  diminution  of  happiness 
which  they  cause,  by  the  passions  hurtful  to  moral  progress  they 
perpetuate,  by  the  spirit  of  lawlessness  they  evoke,  by  the  con¬ 
tempt  for  the  rights  of  man  as  man  which  they  engender.  In  a 
world  already  so  full  of  strife  and  sorrow  it  is  grievous  to  see 
added  to  the  other  fountains  of  bitterness  a  scorn  of  the  strong  for 
the  weak,  and  a  dread  by  the  weak  of  the  strong,  grounded  on  no 
antagonism  of  interests,  for  each  needs  the  other,  bu  t  solely  on  a 
difference  in  race  and  colour. 

Be  these  evils  what  they  may — and  serious  as  they  seem  to 
an  observer  from  without,  they  are  in  most  parts  of  the  South 
not  keenly  felt  in  daily  life  —  legislation  and  administration 
can  do  comparatively  little  to  remove  them.  It  is,  indeed,  to 
be  wished  that  lynching  should  be  sternly  repressed,  —  some  of 
the  Southern  State  governors  are  doing  what  they  can  for  that 
purpose,  —  and  that  the  State  statutes  or  local  regulations 
enforcing  separation  of  blacks  from  whites  in  travelling  or  in 
places  of  public  resort  should  be  at  least  modified,  for  they 
press  hardly  on  the  educated  negroes.  But  the  real  change  to 
which  the  friends  of  the  South  and  of  the  negro  look  forward  is 
a  change  in  the  feelings  of  the  white  people,  and  especially  of 
the  ruder  and  less  educated  part  of  them.  The  political  troubles 
I  have  described  have  been  tending  to  pass  away  under  altered 
political  conditions.  For  the  social  difficulty,  rooted  deep  in  the 
characters  of  the  two  races,  none  but  moral  remedies  have  any 
promise  of  potency,  and  the  working  of  moral  remedies,  sure  as 
we  believe  it  to  be,  is  always  slow.  Neither  will  compulsive  meas¬ 
ures  quicken  that  working.  In  the  Ignited  States,  above  all  other 
countries,  one  must  place  one’s  hopes  on  what  physicians  call  the 
healing  power  of  Nature,  and  trust  that  the  forces  which  make 
not  only  for  equality,  but  also  for  peace  and  good-will  among 
men,  will  in  due  time  reduce  these  evils,  as  they  have  reduced 
many  others.  There  is  no  ground  for  despondency  to  any  one 
who  remembers  how  hopeless  the  extinction  of  slavery  seemed 
in  1820  or  even  in  1850  and  who  marks  the  progress  which  the 


chap,  xcvi  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  NEGRO  539 


negroes  have  made  since  their  sudden  liberation.  Still  less  is 
there  reason  for  impatience,  for  questions  like  this  have  in  some 
countries  of  the  Old  World  required  ages  for  their  solution. 
The  problem  which  confronts  the  South  is  one  of  the  great 
secular  problems  of  the  world,  presented  here  under  a  form  of 
peculiar  difficulty .  And  as  the  present  differences  between  the 
African  and  the  European  are  the  product  of  thousands  of 
years,  during  which  one  race  was  advancing  in  the  temperate, 
and  the  other  remaining  stationary  in  the  torrid  zone,  so  cen¬ 
turies  may  pass  before  their  relations  as  neighbours  and  fellow- 
citizens  have  been  duly  adjusted. 


CHAPTER  XCV 


FURTHER  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM 

The  position  of  the  negro  race  in  the  United  States  is  so 
peculiar  and  raises  so  many  questions  of  the  gravest  social  and 
economic  kind  that  although  the  last  preceding  chapter  has  been 
revised  and  adapted  to  the  changes  that  have  occurred  since  it 
was  first  written,  it  seems  proper  to  devote  some  additional 
pages  to  a  consideration  of  those  aspects  of  the  subject  which 
strike  the  observer  of  to-day.1 

The  changes  of  the  last  seventeen  years  have  not  affected 
the  main  features  of  the  situation.  The  larger  any  problem  is 
and  the  more  deeply  rooted  in  the  past  are  the  factors  which 
determine  it,  the  more  slowly  do  those  main  features  alter. 
There  has,  however,  been  not  only  an  ampler  but  also  a  more 
temperate  discussion  of  the  whole  matter  during  the  last  decade 
than  there  ever  was  before.  This  discussion  has  been  turned 
into  new  channels  by  the  material  development  of  the  South, 
and  has  revealed  in  new  lights  the  spirit  that  now  pervades  the 
Southern  people. 

The  recovery  of  the  South  from  the  abyss  of  ruin  into  which 
the  Civil  War  had  thrown  large  sections  of  it,  and  especially 
Virginia,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  began  a  little  before 
1880  and  has  proceeded  with  growing  speed.  The  assessed 
valuation  of  taxable  property  in  the  former  Slave  States  was 
in  1900  just  what  it  had  been  in  1860,  so  long  was  the 
time  needed  to  repair  the  losses  of  the  long  struggle.  That 
recovery  is  now  visible  in  all  directions,  in  the  bringing  of  new 
lands  under  cultivation,  in  the  opening  of  mines,  in  the  creation 
of  iron  and  steel  works,  in  the  extension  of  cotton  and  other 
factories,  in  the  rising  value  of  real  estate,  and  the  parallel  in- 

1  Among  recent  books  to  which  reference  may  be  made  upon  the  topics  dealt 
with  in  this  chapter  are  Mr.  Ray  S.  Baker’s,  Following  the  Color  Linear.  Stone’s 
American  Race  Problem,  Mr.  E.  G.  Murphy’s  Present  South  and  Basis  of  As¬ 
cendancy,  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington’s  Story  of  the  Negro,  and  Professor  Albert 
Hart’s  The  Southern  South.  See  also  the  U.S.  Census  Bulletin,  No.  8. 

540 


chap  xcv.  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  541 


crease  of  the  revenues  of  States  and  cities,  in  the  foundation  of 
agricultural  and  technical  schools,  and  the  expenditure  of  larger 
and  larger  sums  upon  public  instruction,  in  the  building  of  new 
railroads  and  the  consolidation  of  many  small  lines  into  a  few 
great  systems  which  give  a  quicker  and  better  service.  The 
growth  of  population  has  not  been  so  marked  as  in  the  Northern 
and  Western  States,  but  that  is  largely  because  very  few  immi¬ 
grants  from  the  Old  World  have  hitherto  come  to  the  South,  ex¬ 
cept  into  Texas.  For  some  time  past  the  backward  people  who 
dwell  in  the  Alleghany  highlands  have  begun  to  move  downwards 
into  the  manufacturing  and  mining  regions.  And  latterly  a 
movement  has  begun,  evident,  though  not  yet  large,  of  native 
Americans  migrating  from  those  parts  of  the  North  and  West 
in  which  good  farming  land  has  become  scarcer  and  dearer. 
The  stream  which  ran  to  the  West  for  so  many  years  is  now 
no  longer  able  to  spread  itself  out  there,  and  tending  to  flow 
Southward.  Thus  the  increase  of  population  is  in  the  South 
of  a  wholesome  kind,  and  it  promises  to  continue. 

A  result  of  this  progress  is  to  be  seen  in  the  cheerful  and  hopeful 
spirit  now  visible.  Men  feel  that  they  have  turned  the  corner, 
and  expect  an  expanding  prosperity.  Legislatures  are  more 
willing  to  spend  money  on  education ;  and  legislation  is  more 
enlightened,  though  in  some  States  it  still  lags  behind  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  the  North.  This  brighter  view  of  things  has  affected 
the  Southern  view  of  the  negro .  Between  1870  and  1900  his 
presence  was  to  many  persons  a  sort  of  nightmare.  All  sorts 
of  absurd  dangers  were  predicted  ;  all  sorts  of  absurd  expedients 
for  getting  rid  of  him  propounded.  A  calmer  and  saner  view 
now  prevails.  The  evils  of  the  Reconstruction  period  are  not 
forgotten,  but  as  no  one  thinks  they  will  ever  recur,  men  can 
discuss  the  situation  quietly  and  reasonably,  feeling  that  as  the 
negro  cannot  be  eliminated,  the  whites  must  learn  to  live  with 
him  and  turn  his  presence  to  the  best  account. 

Whatever  cause  the  whites  may  have  had  for  alarm  twenty 
or  thirty  years  ago,  when  the  negroes  were  supposed  to  be  increas¬ 
ing  faster  than  the  whites,  has  now  vanished.  They  show  in 
each  census  a  smaller  percentage  not  only  of  the  whole  population 
of  the  Union,  but  even  of  the  former  Slave  States.  In  1900  the 
percentage  of  negroes  to  the  whole  population  of  the  United 
States  was  11.6  ;  in  1880  it  was  13.1. 

This  is  attributable  partly  to  a  slightly  declining  birth  rate, 


542 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


but  more  to  the  still  high  rate  of  negro  mortality.  Infants  are 
carelessly  or  ignorantly  treated,  and  much  havoc  is  wrought 
by  diseases  which,  like  tuberculosis,  are  the  result  of  bad  sani¬ 
tary  conditions. 

The  old  controversy  as  to  the  capacity  of  the  negro  for  prog¬ 
ress  still  rages.  But  about  the  fact  that  he  has  progressed  there 
can  be  no  dispute.  What  are  the  figures?  When  emancipated 
in  1862-1865  the  ex-slaves  had  no  property  at  all.  In  1900  they 
were  cultivating  as  owners  or  tenants  746,717  farms.  They 
owned  in  the  twelve  Southern  States  173,352  farms  ;  and  their 
aggregate  property  was  estimated  as  being  in  1910  between 
$400,000,000  and  $500,000,000  (£80,000,000  to  £100,000,000). 
Their  churches  are  stated  to  own  property  to  the  value  of 
$56,000,000,  raised  almost  entirely  by  themselves. 

So  late  as  1900  there  were  only  two  negro  banks  in  the  United 
States  ;  in  1909  there  were  believed  to  be  fifty.1 

They  have  entered  all  the  professions.  In  1900  there  were 
more  than  22,000  negro  teachers  in  schools  and  colleges,  more 
than  15,000  ministers  of  religion,  more  than  1700  physicians 
and  surgeons,  more  than  700  lawyers.  The  numbers  are  doubt¬ 
less  now  much  larger.  About  two  hundred  negro  newspapers 
are  now  published,  besides  weekly  and  monthly  magazines. 
Many  negroes  are  filling  official  posts  with  credit,  and  not 
a  few  have  earned  the  respect  and  confidence  of  their  white 
neighbours. 

Their  progress  in  education  has  been  no  less  remarkable. 
At  the  date  of  emancipation  probably  less  than  10  per  cent  of 
the  freedmen  could  read  and  write.  In  1870  the  percentage  of 
illiterate  negro  adult  males  was  83.5.  In  1900  it  had  fallen  to 
47.4.  This  is  naturally  by  no  means  so  great  a  reduction  as 
among  the  Southern  whites,  among  whom  the  illiterates  had 
sunk  in  1900  to  11.6  per  cent.  But  it  represents  an  immense 
advance,  when  the  conditions  of  a  backward  country  and  a 
very  poor  population  are  considered.2  The  negroes  have  a  re¬ 
markable  desire  for  instruction,  and  their  churches  have  since 

1  The  Story  of  the  Negro ,  Vol.  II,  p.  204.  It  may  be  added  that  the  indus¬ 
trial  progress  would  doubtless  have  been  still  greater  but  for  the  prevalence  of 
tuberculosis  and  other  preventible  diseases  which  depress  the  efficiency  of  the 
race. 

2  Nowhere  in  the  South  is  school  attendance  compulsory,  and  the  provision 
of  schools  for  negro  children  is  still  inadequate  in  most  parts  of  the  country. 
There  is  an  urgent  need  for  more  and  better  educated  teachers. 


jhap  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  543 


1880  contributed  $10,000,000  to  give  to  their  schools  aid  over 
and  above  the  support  from  public  funds.  The  attendance  at 
the  universities  and  colleges  and  technical  schools  has  continued 
to  grow  steadily.1 

That  this  progress  should  have  been  very  unequal  in  different 
parts  of  the  country,  and  that  it  should  leave  sections  of  the 
population  still  far  behind,  is  no  more  than  was  to  be  expected. 
That  natural  differentiation  of  the  stronger  from  the  weaker, 
of  the  brighter  from  the  duller,  which  goes  on  in  every  com¬ 
munity  began  among  the  negroes  as  soon  as  the  extinction  of 
slavery  started  the  normal  social  processes  by  which  communi¬ 
ties  develop.  The  kidnapped  unfortunates  who  were  brought 
from  Africa  in  slave  ships  had  belonged  to  different  negro  tribes 
in  different  stages  of  civilization,  and  to  different  ranks  and 
classes  in  the  same  tribe,  for  few  if  any  of  these  tribes  were  in 
that  lowest  kind  of  savagery  which  knows  no  ranks  at  all.  The 
hold  of  the  slaveship  jumbled  them  all  together,  and  the  planta¬ 
tion  life  of  toil,  enforced  by  the  whip,  pressed  them  all  down  to 
the  same  level,  though  the  few  who  obtained  freedom  soon 
showed  an  aptitude  to  rise.  As  soon  as  that  pressure  was  re¬ 
moved,  natural  inequalities  of  capacity  began  to  have  their 
legitimate  effect  in  raising  some  faster  than  others.  Fortunate 
accidents  of  environment,  the  help  of  friendly  free  negroes, 
the  benevolent  encouragement  of  a  white  ex-master  or  neigh¬ 
bour,  the  accident  of  admission  to  a  school,  heightened  the  action 
of  the  advantages  which  those  who  were  born  more  capable 
possessed  ;  until  now,  after  nearly  fifty  years  of  freedom,  social 
classes  have  begun  to  form,  and  the  gap  between  the  best  edu¬ 
cated  negroes  practising  a  profession  or  conducting  a  large  busi¬ 
ness  and  the  ignorant  field  labourer,  has  become  a  wide  one. 
Inequalities  have  reappeared,  although  those  which  we  find 
among  the  American  negroes  to-day  are  different  from  those 
that  existed  between  their  African  ancestors  before  the  heavy 
roller  of  servitude  had  passed  over  the  captives. 

Though  a  large  part  of  the  coloured  population  is  still  ignorant 
and  backward,  especially  in  the  hottest  parts  of  the  Gulf  States 
and  along  the  coasts  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  the  general 
advance  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  townsfolk.  On  the  con¬ 
trary,  one  is  often  told  that  the  least  desirable  negroes  are  the 

1  The  imperfection  of  the  statistics,  owing  to  the  neglect  of  some  institutions  to 
♦upply  statements,  "makes  it  impossible  to  give  complete  figures  on  this  subject. 


544 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


lower  class  who  live  in  the  cities,  while  the  most  solid  and  indus¬ 
trious  are  the  small  farm  owners  and  the  artisans  in  the  villages. 
There  has  certainly  been  a  real  and  general  progress  among 
these  better  classes.  It  is  visible  in  the  better  houses  they  in¬ 
habit,  in  the  better  method  of  cultivation  some  of  them  employ, 
in  the  figures  that  record  the  savings  they  place  in  the  banks. 
Nor  should  the  instances  be  forgotten  m  which  the  Negro  has 
shown  his  capacity  to  do  things  for  himself  in  a  practical  way. 
At  Calhoun  in  Alabama  tber  were  lately  nearly  one  hundred 
who  had  bought  or  were  buying  farms,  having  saved  $80,000  for 
the  purpose.  The  purely  negro  town  of  Mound  Bayou  in  the 
Mississippi  delta,  with  a  population  of  2000,  is  well  governed, 
orderly,  and  prosperous,  and  there  is  a  co-operative  organiza¬ 
tion  called  the  Farmers’  Improvement  Society  in  Texas,  whose 
members  have  helped  one  another  forward  in  many  ways  till 
they  came  to  own  71,000  acres  of  land  and  were  able  to  erect 
an  agricultural  college  to  give  farm  training  to  their  children. 
There  are  many  associations  among  the  negroes,  both  co-opera¬ 
tive  and  charitable,  and  by  them  much  good  has  been  effected. 
Though  there  are  some  whites,  politicians  and  others,  who, 
taking  their  notion  of  the  coloured  people  from  the  illiterate 
plantation  labourers  and  the  shiftless  criminal  loafers  of  the 
cities,  deny  that  the  negro  has  advanced,  and  though  there  are 
others  who  think  that  he  is  advancing  more  than  is  compat¬ 
ible  with  white  ascendancy,  still  the  majority  of  the  educated 
white  people  in  the  South  see,  recognise,  and  gladly  recognise, 
that  the  standard  of  industry,  thrift,  and  education  is  rising 
and  that  it  is  for  the  benefit  of  the  South  as  a  whole  hardly 
less  than  for  the  negroes  that  it  should  rise.  Steacty  and  efficient 
labour  is  one  of  the  most  urgent  needs  of  the  country.  The 
more  the  negro  advances,  the  more  he  acquires  ;  the  larger 
become  his  wants,  so  much  the  better  is  his  labour ;  the  more 
industrious  and  educated  he  is,  the  less  prone  is  he  to  vagrancy 
and  to  crime.  It  is  among  the  ruder  and  more  ignorant  sort 
of  white  people  that  nearly  all  of  the  opposition  to  the  educa¬ 
tion  of  the  coloured  is  to  be  found. 

But  all  the  Southern  whites,  however  they  may  otherwise 
differ,  agree  in  desiring  to  eliminate  the  Negro  as  a  factor  in 
politics.  In  1890,  Mississippi  led  the  way  in  this  direction  by 
her  new  Constitution.  Six  other  States  have  followed  in  her 
steps,  viz.,  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina,  Alabama,  Virginia, 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  545 


Louisiana,  and  Georgia.  In  the  new  constitutional  provisions 
of  these  States,  intended  to  exclude  the  bulk  of  the  negroes, 
there  is  not  a  word  regarding  “race,  colour,  or  previous  con¬ 
dition  of  servitude,”  as  a  ground  of  discrimination,  so  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution  is  not 
directly  infringed.  The  aim  in  view,  an  aim  frankly  avowed 
and  justified,  has  been  attained  by  provisions  requiring  the 
person  who  applies  to  be  registered  as  a  voter  to  have  paid  his 
taxes  and  to  prove  his  possession  of  an  educational  or  property 
qualification.  Such  tests  (low  as  they  were  fixed),  while  ex¬ 
cluding  the  bulk  of  the  negroes,  would  exclude  a  good  many 
whites  also,  so  it  became  necessary  to  open  some  other  door 
through  which  whites  with  neither  education  nor  property 
might  enter.  This  was  done  in  North  Carolina  and  Louisiana 
by  the  so-called  “  grandfather  clause  ”  which  admitted  any  one 
whose  father  or  grandfather  had  been  a  voter  before  1867,  while 
several  other  States  granted  registration  to  war  veterans  or 
their  descendants.1  Things  were  so  arranged  that  by  one  door 
or  another  nearly  all  the  whites  could  find  their  way  in,  while 
the  control  of  registration  by  white  officials  made  it  easy  to 
exclude  negroes  whose  claim  was  at  all  doubtful,  or  whom  it 
was  desired  to  keep  out.  In  Alabama  it  was  estimated  that 
only  5  per  cent  of  the  negroes  would  under  her  new  Constitu¬ 
tion  keep  the  suffrage,  and  in  Louisiana  the  number  was  re¬ 
duced  from  130,000  to  5300.  In  the  remaining  four  of  the 
States  that  seceded,  viz.,  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  Florida,  and 
Texas,  no  constitutional  change  has  been  deemed  needful.  In 
them  the  negroes  are  a  smaller  part  of  the  population,  and 
have  not  been  in  practice  a  voting  force.  Any  attempt 


1  In  1910  Oklahoma  amended  her  Constitution  by  inserting  the  following 
provision:  “No  person  shall  be  registered  as  an  elector  or  vote  in  any  election, 
unless  he  be  able  to  read  and  write  any  section  of  the  Constitution  of  the  State, 
but  no  person  who  was  on  January  1st,  1866,  or  at  any  time  prior  thereto,  en¬ 
titled  to  vote  under  any  form  of  government  or  who  at  that  time  resided  in 
some  foreign  nation,  and  no  lineal  descendant  of  such  person,  shall  be  denied 
the  right  to  vote  because  of  his  inability  so  to  read  and  write  sections  of  such 
Constitution.” 

The  enactment  of  such  a  provision  in  Oklahoma,  which  was  not  a  State  till 
1907,  and  in  which  there  were  never  any  slaves  except  a  few  belonging  to  the 
Red  Indians  who  were  its  only  inhabitants  till  long  after  :he  Civil  War,  is  the 
more  remarkable  because  the  negroes  are  a  small  minority  of  the  population. 

It  has  been  alleged,  with  what  truth  I  know  not,  that  irregularities  occurred 
in  the  taking  of  the  popular  vote  on  this  question  ;  and  the  result  seemed  to 
excite  surprise. 


546 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


on  their  part  to  assert  themselves  would  be  promptly 
checked. 

The  broad  result  of  these  measures  has  been  to  reduce  the 
number  of  coloured  electors  on  the  register  in  the  States  aforesaid 
to  an  average  roughly  conjectured  at  not  more  than  10  per  cent 
of  the  total  number  of  adult  males.  It  is  larger  in  some  States 
and  in  some  districts  of  each  State  than  in  other  States  and  dis¬ 
tricts,  and  no  one  seems  to  know  exactly  how  large  it  is  in  any 
given  area.  Of  those  who  might  get  their  names  on  the  register 
very  many  do  not  care  to  do  so  —  where,  for  instance,  a  poll  tax 
is  required,  they  omit  to  pay  it.  And  of  those  comparatively 
few  negroes  who  are  on  the  register,  many  do  not  in  fact  vote, 
partly  from  heedlessness,  partly  because  they  know  that  in  Fed¬ 
eral  elections,  and  to  a  large  extent  in  State  elections  also,  their 
votes  would  make  no  difference,  except  in  the  rare  case  of  a 
division  in  the  dominant  Democratic  party.  That  party  is  so 
strong  in  nearly  all  the  Southern  States  1  that  the  voting  or 
abstention  of  the  coloured  voters,  now  everywhere  so  unimpor¬ 
tant,  could  seldom  affect  the  result  of  an  election. 

Under  these  conditions  the  negroes  have  ceased  to  take  much 
interest  in  politics.  They  are  generally  reckoned  as  belonging 
to  the  Republican  party,  but  the  organization  of  that  party  is 
kept  up  not  so  much  in  the  hope  of  carrying  elections  as  for  the 
sake  of  securing  representation  in  the  National  Convention  of 
the  party  and  establishing  a  claim  to  some  Federal  offices,  objects 
which  may  be  legitimate  in  themselves,  but  from  the  attainment 
of  which  the  ordinary  negro  has  nothing  to  gain.  He  is  accord¬ 
ingly  supposed  to  have  lost  such  interest  in  politics  as  he  once 
evinced,  and  to  accept  without  complaints  that  civic  passivity 
to  which  his  race  has  been  reduced. 

With  this  result  the  whites  are  doubly,  nay,  trebly,  satisfied. 
They  are  relieved  from  any  fear  of  negro  dominance.  They 
declare  that  the  negro  is  growing  to  be  more  industrious, 
orderly,  and  generally  useful  now  when  he  has  dropped  all 
thoughts  of  politics,  and  they  add  that  friendly  relations 
between  the  races  have  become  easier,  because,  as  the  negro  is 
no  longer  challenging  equality,  they  are  less  called  upon  to 
proclaim  superiority. 

It  is  easy  to  call  these  disfranchising  provisions  evasions  of  the 

1  This  is  less  true  of  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  North  Carolina 
than  of  the  States  further  south. 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  547 


Fifteenth  Amendment  which  was  intended  by  its  framers  to 
secure  the  vote  to  the  negroes  on  the  same  terms  as  the  whites. 
But  the  state  of  things  in  the  period  between  1873  and  the 
adoption  of  these  new  constitutions,  a  period  during  which,  first 
by  violence  and  afterwards  by  various  tricks  and  devices,  the 
negroes  were  over  almost  the  whole  South  practically  deprived 
of  their  legal  voting  power,  was  worse  than  is  the  present  legal 
exclusion  of  the  great  majority  of  them.  It  was  demoralizing  to 
the  whites  ; 1  it  exacerbated  feeling  between  the  races  ;  and  as 
the  negroes  were  gaining  nothing  in  those  years  by  their  nominal 
right  to  the  suffrage,  they  have  lost  little  by  its  curtailment. 
This  is  so  generally  understood  by  the  people  of  the  North  that 
few  have  protested  against  the  disfranchisement,  and  no  attempt 
has  been  made  to  restore  the  boon  which  the  nation  was  'in 
1870  supposed  to  be  bestowing. 

Among  the  leaders  of  the  negroes  themselves  there  is  a  differ¬ 
ence  of  view  and  policy  on  the  matter.  Some,  bitterly  resenting 
the  disfranchising  provisions,  try  to  keep  up  an  opposition  to 
them,  although  they  see  little  or  no  prospect  of  getting  them 
repealed.  Others  think  it  better  to  accept  facts  which  they  are 
powerless  to  alter,  consoling  themselves  by  the  reflection  that 
provisions  which  make  the  suffrage  depend  on  education  and 
property  tend  to  stimulate  the  negro  to  raise  himself  to  the  tests 
prescribed  for  active  citizenship.  The  bulk  of  the  coloured 
people  who  live  on  the  plantations  take  no  interest  in  the  matter. 
Among  the  more  educated,  the  authority  of  Dr.  Booker  Wash¬ 
ington  has  gone  some  way  to  commend  the  policy  of  preferring 
industrial  progress  to  political  agitation ;  not  to  add  that  it  is 
hard  to  see  what  agitation  could  accomplish.  It  would  not 
rouse  the  Republican  party  at  the  North,  for  since  1890  they 
have  concluded  that  it  is  better  to  leave  the  South  alone,  while 
so  far  as  State  legislation  is  concerned,  it  might  actually 
darken  the  prospects  of  the  negro  by  exciting  more  alarm 

1  Thoughtful  men  among  the  whites  felt  this.  Mr.  J.  A.  Hamilton,  in  his 
pamphlet  Negro  Suffrage  and  Congressional  Representation,  quotes  among 
other  deliverances  to  this  effect  the  following  words  of  Mr.  Clarence  Poe  of 
North  Carolina:  “There  is  nothing  more  uncontrollable  than  lawlessness. 
Sow  the  wind  and  reap  the  whirlwind.  Wink  at  your  election  officer’s  thiev¬ 
ery  in  times  of  stress  and  peril  and  next  you  may  have  election  thievery  to  aid 
in  plundering  schemes  or  to  save  the  rings  and  cliques  to  which  the  election 
officer  belongs.  Give  rein  to  mob  violence  at  a  time  when  you  think  such 
action  justifiable,  and  you  will  find  your  reward  in  a  popular  contempt  for  the 
restraint  of  law.” 


548 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


and  hostility  in  the  breasts  of  the  less  kindly  among  the 
whites.1 

Although  the  coloured  people  are  not  directly  a  factor  in 
Southern  politics,  because  few  of  them  are  allowed  to  vote, 
their  presence  has  had  indirect  effects.  The  qualifications  for 
the  suffrage  introduced  to  disfranchise  them  have,  in  some 
States,  incidentally  disfranchised  a  few  of  the  poorer  and  more 
ignorant  whites.  For  the  purposes  of  the  apportionment  of 
representation  among  the  States,  all  the  negroes,  the  disfran¬ 
chised  included,  are  reckoned,  and  thus  contribute  to  make 
representation  larger  than  it  would  otherwise  be  in  the  very 
States  which  have  by  their  constitutions  cut  down  the  num¬ 
ber  of  coloured  voters.2  The  resentment  which  is  felt  by  those 
negroes  who  live  in  the  North  at  the  action  of  the  Southern 
Democrats  has  ensured  their  sturdy  support  of  the  Republican 
party  in  States  like  Indiana,  Ohio,  and  New  York,  where  they 
constitute  an  appreciable  vote.  The  disquiet  which  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  black  man  causes  in  the  South  holds  the  vast  bulk 
of  the  Southern  whites  together  in  the  Democratic  party,  and 
has  so  far  frustrated  the  efforts  frequently  made  to  build  up  a 
solid  party  of  Southern  white  Republicans.  Thus  some  one 
has  observed,  with  the  exaggeration  deemed  needed  to  enforce 
a  neglected  truth,  that  the  Negro,  powerless  as  he  is,  still 
dominates  the  South,  for  his  presence  is  never  forgotten,  and 
makes  many  things  different  from  what  they  would  otherwise  be. 

No  person  of  colour  has  for  a  long  time  past  sat  in  Congress, 


1  It  is  not,  however,  to  be  supposed  that  any  negro  leaders  undervalue  the  suf¬ 
frage  or  have  expressed  an  approval  of  the  enactments  which  withhold  it  from  the 
great  mass  of  their  race.  Speaking  of  the  aim  of  the  Tuskegee  Agricultural  Insti¬ 
tute,  Dr.  Booker  Washington  writes,  “We  did  not  seek  to  give  our  people  the 
idea  that  political  rights  were  not  valuable  or  necessary,  but  rather  to  impress 
upon  them  that  economic  efficiency  was  the  foundation  for  every  kind  of  success  ” 
( The  Story  of  the  Negro ,  Vol.  II,  p.  292).  “It  ought  to  be  clearly  recognized 
that  in  a  republican  form  of  government  if  any  group  of  people  is  left  perma¬ 
nently  without  the  franchise,  it  is  placed  at  a  serious  disadvantage.  I  do  not 
object  to  restrictions  being  placed  on  the  use  of  the  ballot,  but  if  any  portion  of 
the  population  is  prevented  from  taking  part  in  the  government  by  reason  of 
these  restrictions,  they  should  have  held  out  before  them  the  incentive  of  secur¬ 
ing  the  ballot  in  proportion  as  they  grow  in  property-holding,  intelligence,  and 
character”  (Vol.  II,  p.  370). 

2  It  has  been  sometimes  proposed  by  Northern  politicians  to  exclude  these 
disfranchised  negroes  from  the  computation  in  the  manner  contemplated  by  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  but  this  has  not  been 
done.  There  would  be  vehement  opposition,  and  any  political  gain  would  not 
be  worth  the  trouble. 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  549 

v 

nor  in  the  legislature  of  any  Southern  State,  though  now  and 
then  one  may  find  his  way  into  a  Northern  state  legislature. 
A  few  hold  small  county  offices  in  the  South,  and  a  few  have 
been  appointed  by  Presidents  to  Federal  posts,  such  as  collec¬ 
tors  of  ports  or  postmasters,  in  the  South.1 

The  difficulty  of  correctly  describing  the  social  relations  of 
blacks  and  whites  in  the  South  is  due  not  only  to  the  very 
different  accounts  which  different  observers,  often  prejudiced, 
have  given,  but  also  to  the  great  diversities  between  the 
various  parts  of  the  population  and  various  sections  of  a 
wide  country,  stretching  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Rio  Grande. 
But  some  salient  facts  may  be  stated  as  almost  universally  true. 

The  absolute  social  separation  of  the  two  races  continues 
everywhere  just  as  described  in  the  last  preceding  chapter. 
Rarely  does  any  person  of  colour  sit  down  to  meat  in  a  white 
house,  or  is  in  any  other  way  recognized  as  an  equal.  The 
Southern  whites  conceive  absolute  separation  to  be  essential  in 
order,  as  many  of  them  say,  to  assert  and  emphasize  inequality, 
and,  as  all  of  them  say,  to  utterly  bar  intermarriage.  To  the 
question  whether  so  stringent  an  enforcement  is  necessary,  the 
invariable  reply  is  that  nothing  less  would  suffice  to  avert  the 
fatal  danger  of  an  intermixture  of  blood.  How  much  illicit 
intermixture  goes  *  on  cannot  be  determined,  but  the  number  of 
light-coloured  negroes  shows  how  large  it  must  have  been.  It 
has  by  no  means  ceased. 

In  all  States,  though  happily  not  in  all  parts  of  any  State, 
there  is  friction  between  the  races.  In  the  North  it  exists 
chiefly  between  members  of  the  labouring  class.  White  work¬ 
ing  men  and  their  labour  unions  generally  refuse  to  work  with 
coloured  men,  and  the  entrance  to  employment  is  so  largely 
closed  to  them  that  one  may  say  that  the  large  majority  of  the 
Northern  negroes  are  confined  to  unskilled  or  unsettled  avoca¬ 
tions.  In  the  Southern  States  the  friction  is  perhaps  less 
marked,  and  is  least  when  one  element,  whether  black  or 
white,  is  in  a  large  majority,  less  also  in  the  rural  districts 
than  in  the  cities,  wrhere  the  negro  vrork-people  are  supposed  to 
be  less  submissive,  where  the  proportion  of  bad  characters 
among  them  is  largest,  and  where  the  white  working  men  are 
most  rude  and  suspicious,  the  jealousy  of  labour  competition 

1  A  good  many  are  employed  in  the  Federal  departments  at  Washington 
some  of  these  having  entered  by  competition. 


550 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


being  added  to  the  jealousy  of  colour.1  It  is  in  these  cities 
that  race  quarrels  and  race  riots  such  as  those  which  unhap¬ 
pily  occurred  in  Wilmington,  N.C.,  in  1898,  and  in  Atlanta,  in 
1906,  are  most  to  be  feared.  In  1910,  a  prize  fight  which  took 
place  in  Nevada  between  a  white  man  and  a  negro  in  which 
the  latter  prevailed  produced  outbreaks  of  race  enmity  all  over 
the  country  (including  New  York  City).  In  the  conflicts  and 
riots  at  least  one  white  man  and  nine  or  ten  (by  some  accounts 
many  more)  negroes  were  lulled. 

The  extreme  form  of  race  friction  is  seen  in  lynching,  a  prac¬ 
tice  not  confined  to  the  South,  though  more  common  there  than 
in  the  West,  and  more  frequently  attended  by  circumstances  of 
horror.  As  some  lynchings  are  not  reported,  and  some  are 
falsely  reported,  it  is  hard  to  determine  the  number  that 
happen,  but  apparently  they  are  becoming  less  frequent,2  and 
they  are  more  and  more  condemned  by  the  opinion  of  the 
best  citizens. 

Deplorable  as  the  practice  is,  and  seriously  as  it  aggravates 
race  friction,  because  every  instance,  even  if  it  seems  excusable 
under  the  particular  circumstances,  is  apt  to  be  followed  by 
a  crop  of  minor  outrages,  still  one  must  not  ascribe  it  solely  to 
racial  hatred,  for  whites  also  are  lynched,  though  less  frequently. 
It  is  largely  the  outcome  of  a  defective  administration  of  criminal 
justice.  Homicide  often,  in  some  regions  usually,  goes  unpun¬ 
ished,  because  courts  are  weak  or  partial,  juries  fail  to  convict, 
even  in  clear  cases,  while  the  extreme  technicalities  of 
procedure,  coupled  with  the  timidity  of  State  judges,  permit 
legal  points  to  be  taken  by  which  trials  are  protracted,  cases 
are  appealed  on  trivial  grounds,  and  the  carrying  out  of 
sentences  is  in  one  way  or  another  delayed  until  somehow 
or  other  the  criminal  escapes  altogether.  This  distrust  of 
the  regular  organs  and  regular  processes  of  law  is  the  most 


1  Serious  trouble  arose  in  Georgia  in  1909—10  over  the  attempt  of  a  railway 
company  to  promote  negro  firemen  to  be  locomotive  engineers.  Nevertheless 
some  labour  unions  have  coloured  members,  and  where  this  is  not  so,  there  may 
be  a  coloured  union  generally  acting  in  conjunction  with  the  white  one. 

2  Professor  Cutler,  who  has  carefully  examined  the  subject,  gives  the  total 
number  of  persons  lynched  in  the  United  States  from  1882  to  1903  at  3337,  of 
whom  1997  were  killed  in  the  Southern,  363  in  the  Western,  and  105  in  the 
Eastern  States.  The  largest  number  in  any  one  year  was  235  in  1892.  Rather 
more  than  one-third  of  the  persons  lynched  were  whites.  In  1903  the  number 
(for  the  whole  United  States)  is  given  as  86,  in  1907  as  63,  only  2  of  these  in  the 
North.  All  figures  bearing  on  the  matter  must,  however,  be  taken  with  reserve. 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  551 


fertile  parent  of  these  constant  resorts  to  violent  and  illegal 
methods  of  punishment.1 

The  racial  antagonism  which  breaks  out  in  lynching  has 
produced  in  many  parts  of  the  South  an  atmosphere  of  suspicion 
and  disquiet  on  the  part  of  the  whites,  of  suspicion  and  terror 
on  the  part  of  the  negroes.  This  is  less  noticeable  in  those 
agricultural  districts  which  are  almost  entirely  black,  than  in 
the  towns.  Yet  it  has  borne  its  part  in  producing  an  inflow  of 
negroes  from  rural  districts  to  the  larger  cities  as  well  as  from 
the  South  generally  toward  the  North.  In  many  places 
planters,  even  those  who  treat  their  work-people  kindly,  com¬ 
plain  of  the  difficulty  of  getting  negro  labour,  though  it  is 
almost  the  only  labour  that  can  be  hired  for  field  work.  Wages 
have  been  tending  to  rise,  but  it  is  said  that  with  the  more  back¬ 
ward  negroes  the  result  is  not  always  good,  for  they  work  less 
regularly  when  they  can  earn  as  much  by  fewer  days  of  toil. 

This  has  excited  so  restless  and  migratory  a  spirit  that  several 
Southern  States  have  passed  laws  intended  to  keep  the  negro 
on  the  soil  by  throwing  difficulties  in  the  way  of  his  going  out  of 
the  State,  while  bills  have  been  introduced  to  exclude  him  from 
mechanical  trades  in  order  that  he  may  stick  to  farm  labour. 
Sometimes,  like  the  ryot  of  India,  he  falls  into  the  toils  of  the 
usurious  money  lender  ;  and  in  all  his  disputes,  legal  or  extra 
legal,  with  the  whites,  the  chances  are  against  him.  It  is  also 
alleged  that  when  he  works  on  the  system  of  receiving  part  of 
the  produce  of  the  farm,  he  is  sometimes  cozened  out  of  his 
proper  share  by  his  landlord,  or,  if  he  works  for  wages,  is  held  in 
a  sort  of  servitude  through  the  debts  he  is  forced  to  incur  for 
the  articles  supplied  to  him  by  the  employer.  This  peonage 
(as  it  is  called)  is  facilitated  by  law  and  in  some  places  has 
grown  to  be  a  system  which,  where  employers  and  creditors 
are  harsh  in  enforcing  their  claims,  makes  the  negro  more  un¬ 
restful  and  drives  him  away  from  the  plantations  to  the  cities 
or  even  into  the  North.  Yet  he  is  often  no  better  off  at  the 
North,  where  the  white  labourers  may  refuse  to  work  with  him, 
and  where  he  has  no  more  chance  than  in  the  South  of  receiv¬ 
ing,  except  in  very  exceptional  cases,  any  sort  of  social  recog- 

1  Upon  this  subject,  see  p.  14  of  the  Address  of  Mr.  Taft  (since  President)  to 
the  Pennsylvania  State  Bar  Association  delivered  in  190G;  and  also  a  paper  by 
Professor  J.  W.  Garner  entitled  Crime  and  Judicial  Inefficiency  (Annals  of  Amer. 
Acad,  of  Polit.  Science,  1907). 


552 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


nition  from  any  class  of  whites,  while  in  the  cities  everywhere 
he  is  met  by  the  competition  of  the  generally  more  diligent 
and  more  intelligent  whites.  So  the  negro  is  after  all  better 
off  in  the  South  and  on  the  land  than  anywhere  else ;  and  in 
the  South,  where  the  need  for  labourers  is  great  and  he  is  not 
generally  discriminated  against  in  business  matters,  a  wider 
door  is  open  to  him  both  in  town  and  in  country. 

At  the  bottom  of  all  the  labour  question  there  stands  the  fact 
that,  as  compared  with  the  white  man,  whether  he  be  a  native 
or  an  Italian  or  Polish  immigrant,  the  average  negro  is  an  in¬ 
efficient  worker.  He  cannot  be  depended  to  come  regularly 
to  his  work,  and  he  does  less  in  a  given  time.  He  plies  his  shovel 
with  less  vigour  than  an  Irishman,  and  he  is  not  so  steady  as  a 
Chinaman.  He  has  a  still  unchecked  liking  for  vagrancy,  and 
the  negro  vagrant  is  prone  to  crime ;  these  after  all  are  the  faults 
that  depress  him  in  the  struggle  for  life.  All  that  can  be  said 
is  that  they  are  the  natural  result  of  the  previous  conditions, 
that  he  is  less  lazy  in  the  United  States  than  in  the  West  Indies, 
and  that  he  is  improving  steadily  if  slowly,  —  improving  in  the 
way  which  is  surest,  viz.  by  his  own  exertions  and  by  the  example 
of  a  few  of  the  best  among  his  own  race.  A  solid  ground  of 
hope  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  evils  described  will  naturally 
diminish  as  he  grows  more  efficient,  and  that  with  the  extension 
of  agricultural  and  manual  instruction,  his  labour  will  doubtless 
become  more  efficient. 

Broadly  speaking,  there  are  two  tendencies  at  work  among 
the  Southern  whites,  which  correspond  to  the  two  classes  of 
which  Southern  society  consists. 

The  lower  and  more  ignorant  whites,  including  both  the 
descendants  of  those  who  before  the  War  were  called  “mean 
whites/’  and  those  who  have  come  down  out  of  the  mountains 
where  the  people  had  remained  comparatively  rude,  dislike  the 
negroes,  desiring  to  thrust  them  down  and  to  keep  them  down, 
and,  so  far  as  they  legally  can,  to  deny  them  civil  rights  as  well 
as  social  opportunities.  With  this  class,  the  jealousy  of  labour 
competition  has  reinforced  the  repulsion  of  colour  sentiment. 
From  this  class  come  not  only  the  lynchings  but  the  petty  out¬ 
rages  practised  on  the  weaker  race  ;  and  it  is  in  order  to  capture 
the  votes  of  this  class,  which  is  unwilling  to  pay  for  negro  educa¬ 
tion  and  will  sometimes  boycott  a  white  woman  who  devotes 
herself  to  teaching  the  negroes,  that  anti-negro  harangues  are 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  553 


delivered  and  anti-negro  bills  are  introduced  by  politicians 
of  the  less  worthy  type.  The  enmity  is  more  collective  than 
personal,  for  even  where  prejudice  and  jealousy  are  strongest, 
there  are  often  friendly  relations  between  individual  white  men 
of  this  class  and  their  negro  neighbours,  and  although  men  of  the 
kind  described  are  not  generally  amenable  to  humanitarian 
appeals,  yet  those  democratic  doctrines  which  are  engrained  in 
the  American  mind  have  a  certain  power  even  over  them,  re¬ 
straining  impulses  toward  tyranny  which  might  in  other  coun¬ 
tries  be  irresistible.  They  might  wish  that  the  negro  was  not 
a  citizen  at  all,  but  as  he  is  a  citizen  even  when  not  a  voter, 
his  citizenship  cannot  be  ignored. 

The  cultivated  and  progressive  white  people  of  the  South, 
including  most,  though  not  quite  all,  of  the  leading  business 
men  and  professional  men,  and  many  of  the  large  landowners, 
cherish  more  kindly  feelings.  There  are  of  course  optimists  and 
pessimists  among  them.  Some,  noting  the  progress  which  the 
negro  has  already  made,  expect  much  from  the  effects  of  educa¬ 
tion  and  sympathetic  help.  Others,  struck  by  the  inferior  quality 
of  most  negro  labour,  think  he  will  not  in  any  assignable  time 
be  equal  to  the  white  as  a  skilled  or  reliable  workman.  But  all 
agree  in  recognizing  that  as  he  is  there  and  his  labour  is  indis¬ 
pensable  they  must  make  the  best  of  the.  position  by  giving  him 
instruction,  especially  of  an  industrial  kind,  and  by  helping  him 
to  rise.  Accordingly  they  advocate  more  liberal  grants  for  negro 
schools,  and  do  their  best  to  secure  practical  equality  of  civil  rights 
and  an  administration  of  the  law  honestly  impartial  as  between 
the  races.  They  dislike  lynching  just  as  much  as  people  in  the 
North  do.  After  the  lamentable  outbreak  at  Atlanta  in  Sep¬ 
tember,  1906,  the  best  white  citizens  formed  a  committee  for  the 
protection  of  the  negroes,  and  this  developed  into  the  Atlanta 
Civic  League,  under  the  influence  of  which  conditions  showed 
a  marked  improvement.  The  same  wish  to  secure  protection 
for  the  negro  has  been  conspicuous  among  the  most  energetic 
and  thoughtful  white  men  in  other  cities. 

As  this  opposition  of  two  classes  and  two  tendencies  in  the  South 
is  the  key  to  the  present  position,  so  the  best  prospect  for  the 
future  lies  in  the  increase  of  the  more  enlightened  class  and  the 
growing  strength  of  the  more  friendly  sentiment  they  represent. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  upon  some  things  all  Southern 
whites  are  agreed.  They  all  dread  intermarriage.  They  all  deem 


554 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  y 


absolute  social  separation  as  necessary  to  prevent  mixture  of 
blood.  They  all  wish  to  keep  strong  drink  away  from  the  negro,1 
and  most  of  them  are  willing  even  to  forego,  for  that  purpose, 
facilities  for  getting  it  themselves.  They  all  desire  to  prevent 
the  negro  vote  from  being  a  factor  in  politics,  though  some 
would  concede  the  suffrage  to  the  few  who  have  education  and 
property.  And  they  would  all  alike  resent  the  slightest  inter¬ 
ference  by  the  National  Government  in  any  matter  which  con¬ 
cerns  their  State  legislation,  political  or  social,  upon  questions 
affecting  the  coloured  race. 

When  one  comes  to  speak  of  the  views  and  attitude  of  the 
negroes  themselves,  it  is  necessary  to  premise  that  only  a  small 
percentage  have  any  views  at  all.  Even  among  those  who  can 
read  and  write,  the  number  with  sufficient  knowledge  or  intelli¬ 
gence  to  comprehend  the  whole  situation  is  small.  The  average 
negro  is  a  naturally  thoughtless,  light-hearted,  kindly,  easy-going 
being,  whose  interests  in  life  are  of  the  most  elementary  order, 
and  whose  vision  is  limited  to  the  few  miles  around  his  house. 
When  he  had  a  vote,  he  used  it,  unless  influenced  by  a  white 
employer  or  patron,  at  the  bidding  of  a  local  leader  of  his  own 
race,  probably  a  preacher.  In  those  cities  where  it  is  worth  buy¬ 
ing,  he  is  said  to  be  ready  to  sell  it.  In  some  places,  and  espe¬ 
cially  where  outrages  have  recently  occurred,  he  lives  in  terror  of 
violence  from  the  ruder  whites.  But  he  has  no  racial  enmity 
to  the  whites,  and  on  the  contrary  is  naturally  deferential  and 
submissive,  responding  quickly  to  any  kindness  shown  to  him, 
dangerous  only  when  he  is  one  of  a  mob,  and  trebly  dangerous 
when  the  mob  is  drunk. 

Among  the  small  class  of  educated  and  reflective  negroes 
one  may  distinguish  two  tendencies.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  to  the  opposite  views  of  those  who  counsel  acquies¬ 
cence  in,  and  of  those  who  would  agitate  against,  the  restriction 
of  the  suffrage  to  a  small  section  of  their  race.  The  divergence  of 
views,  however,  goes  further.  There  are  those  led  by  Dr.  Booker 
Washington,  who  see  no  use  in  resisting  patent  facts,  and  there¬ 
fore  hold  that  all  the  negro  can  at  present  do,  and  the  most 
effective  thing  that,  with  a  view  to  the  future,  he  could  in  any 
case  do,  is  to  raise  himself  in  intelligence,  knowledge,  industry, 
thrift,  whatever  else  makes  for  self-help  and  self-respect.  When 

1  See  upon  this  subject  an  article  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  White  of  Atlanta  in  the 
South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  April,  1908. 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  555 


he  has  gained  these  things,  when  he  is  felt  to  be  a  valuable  part 
of  the  community,  his  colour  will  not  exclude  him  from  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  advancement  which  business  presents,  nor  from  the 
suffrage,  nor  from  a  share  in  public  office.  Complaints  of  in¬ 
justice,  well  grounded  as  many  of  them  may  be,  will  profit  little, 
and  may  even  rouse  further  antagonism,  but  industrial  capac¬ 
ity  and  the  possession  of  property  are  sure  to  tell. 

Others  there  are,  such  as  Professor  Du  Bois,1  who  find  it  hard 
to  practise  this  patience ;  and  some  are  beginning  to  organize 
themselves  in  a  more  aggressive  spirit  for  common  help  and 
protection.  The  only  political  power  they  can  exert  is  through 
the  votes  of  the  negroes  in  some  Northern  States,  and  it  has  not 
yet  been  shown  that  these  will  follow  any  leaders  of  the  type 
described.  They  can,  however,  both  in  North  and  South,  act 
together  for  trade  purposes,  can  patronize  stores  kept  by  mem¬ 
bers  of  their  race,  and  in  other  ways  render  material  aid  and 
make  their  presence  felt. 

One  thing  is  now  common  to  both  these  sections  of  the  educated 
men  of  colour,  —  a  growing  sense  of  race  solidarity  and  a  percep¬ 
tion  that  instead  of  seeking  favours  from  the  whites  or  trying  to 
cling  to  their  skirts,  the  negro  must  go  his  own  way,  make  his 
own  society,  try  to  stand  on  his  own  feet,  in  the  confidence  that 
the  more  he  succeeds  in  doing  this,  the  more  respected  will  he 
be.  This  race-consciousness  finds  expression  in  various  organi¬ 
zations  which  have  been  formed  among  the  negroes  for  helping 
themselves,  as  well  as  in  appeals,  not  always,  however,  responded 
to,  to  give  their  patronage  by  preference  to  members  of  the  race 
in  business  relations  and  in  professional  work. 

This  feeling  of  Race  Consciousness  has  in  most  places 
included,  and  now  more  and  more  includes,  the  people  of 
mixed  blood,  about  whom  a  word  may  be  said.  Whereas  in 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  countries  persons  who  are  not  evi¬ 
dently  black  are  reckoned  as  white,  in  the  United  States  any 
trace  of  African  blood  marks  a  man  as  a  negro  and  subjects 
him  to  the  disabilities  attaching  to  the  race.  In  Latin  America 
whoever  is  not  black  is  white  :  in  Teutonic  America  whoever 
is  not  white  is  black.  The  number  of  this  mixed  population, 
though  it  cannot  be  exactly  ascertained,  is  estimated  at  not 
quite  one-third  of  the  total  coloured  population,  that  is,  about 

1  His  book,  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk,  presents  in  a  striking  manner  the  hard¬ 
ship  of  the  coloured  man’s  lot. 


556 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


three  millions.  The  proportion  is  largest  in  the  Northern  and 
Middle  States,  smallest  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  the 
Gulf  States.  While  in  some  far  Southern  districts  it  does  not 
reach  one-fifth,  there  are  parts  of  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Virginia, 
and  Maryland  where  it  is  two-fifths.  All  these  persons,  even 
if  there  be  only  an  eighth  or  a  sixteenth  of  negro  blood,  and 
there  be  nothing  in  face  or  accent  to  indicate  their  origin,  are 
held  to  belong  to  the  negro  race.1  To  what  extent  children 
continue  to  be  born  from  parents  of  different  races  no  one 
knows.  In  eleven  Northern  and  Western  States,  as  well  as  in 
all  the  Southern  and  in  Arizona,  intermarriage  is  illegal,  and  in 
some  States  a  punishable  offence,  but  illicit  connections  are  said 
to  be  still  frequent,  though  some  State  laws  have  tried  to  re¬ 
press  this  practice  also  by  penalties.  One-eighth  is  in  some 
States  taken  as  the  infusion  which  makes  a  man  legally  a  negro  ; 
but  less  than  that  would  affect  him  socially.  There  is  much 
controversy,  and  so  far  no  scientific  certainty  because  no  ade¬ 
quate  data,  regarding  the  physiological  effect  of  race  mixture. 
The  common  view  holds  the  mixed  race  to  be  superior  in  intel¬ 
ligence  but  rather  inferior  in  physical  stamina  to  the  pure  black. 
It  dwells  on  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  negroes  who  have  risen 
to  distinction  have  been  mulattoes.  But  there  are  men  of 
large  experience  who  think  differently.2  In  some  cities,  espe¬ 
cially  in  the  North,  mulattoes  and  quadroons  are  said  to  have 
formerly  looked  down  on  the  pure  blacks,  and  sought  to  create 
an  exclusive  society  of  their  own.  But  that  racial  conscious¬ 
ness  to  which  I  have  already  referred  has  been  drawing  all 
sections  of  the  African  race  together,  disposing  the  lighter  col¬ 
oured,  since  they  can  get  no  nearer  to  the  whites,  to  identify 
themselves  with  the  mass  of  those  who  belong  to  their  own 
stock. 

Among  these  light-coloured  people,  it  is  on  those  who,  know¬ 
ing  their  white  relatives  by  sight,  and  forced  to  feel  that  per¬ 
sons  by  nature  their  cousins  —  perhaps  even  their  brothers  or 
sisters  —  are  placed  above  them  on  a  level  to  which  they  cannot 
climb,  that  the  sense  of  social  inequality  presses  most  cruelly. 
But  it  presses  on  every  educated  negro.  He  may  have  studied 

1  The  laws  of  some  States  treat  a  man  with  at  least  one-eighth  of  negro  blood 
as  a  negro;  others  speak  merely  of  “  visible  admixture.” 

2  The  authorities  of  Hampton  Institute  report  that  their  pure  black  pupils 
pass  just  as  high  in  the  examinations  as  do  the  mulattoes.  If  the  latter  are 
frequently  quicker,  the  former  are  more  persevering. 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  557 


at  a  Northern  university,  may  have  associated  there  in  a  friendly 
if  not  intimate  way  with  white  students,  may  have  passed  his 
examinations  with  equal  credit.1  In  face  and  figure  he  may 
be  scarcely  distinguishable  from  them.  But  in  after  life  an 
impassable  barrier  will  stand  between  him  and  them.  That 
under  such  conditions  there  should  be  bitterness  can  excite  no 
surprise.  The  wonder  rather  is  that  not  more  bitterness  finds 
expression ;  and  this  may  be  ascribed  partly  to  the  simple 
faith  and  religious  resignation  which  lie  .deep  in  the  negro 
character,  partly  also  to  the  fact  that  the  coloured  people 
have  from  childhood  grown  up  accustomed  to  it,  so  that  the 
contrast  becomes  keenly  painful  only  to  a  few.  It  is  fortunate 
that  the  African  race  is  not  naturally  sullen  or  vindictive,  and 
that  its  gaiety  of  temper  finds  many  alleviations  for  the  trials 
of  life. 

Whoever,  revisiting  a  country  after  a  long  interval,  seeks  to 
form  a  sound  judgment  on  the  changes  that  are  passing,  does 
well  to  check  the  statistical  facts  by  his  personal  impressions 
and  his  personal  impressions  by  the  statistical  facts.  As  regards 
the  position  of  the  negroes,  the  facts  that  can  be  expressed  in  fig¬ 
ures  are  generally  encouraging.  They  must  be  growing  more 
industrious,  because  they  own  far  more  land,  and  their  total 
property  has  increased  much  faster  than  their  numbers.  Their 
sanitary  condition  is  still  in  many  places  deplorable,  but  the 
efforts  which  are  being  made  to  reduce  disease,  and  particularly 
tuberculosis,  offer  a  prospect  of  improvement.  Educationally 
too  there  is  visible  progress,  not  merely  in  the  reduction  of 
illiteracy,  but  in  the  increased  proportion  who  receive  industrial 
training  and  in  the  number  who  enter  occupations  requiring  a 
cultivated  intelligence.  The  statistics  of  crime  are  still  regret¬ 
tably  high,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  poorest  part 
of  a  population  is  always  that  from  which  by  far  the  largest 
proportion  of  offenders  comes,  and  offences  committed  by 
negroes  are  in  some  parts  of  the  country  more  constantly  and 
severely  dealt  with  than  those  committed  by  whites.  Lynchings 
are  less  frequent.  The  prohibition  of  the  use  of  intoxicating 
drinks,  which  has  now  been  enacted  in  nearly  every  State  of  the 

1  At  one  large  and  flourishing  State  University  of  the  North,  seeing  some  ten 
or  fifteen  coloured  students  graduate,  I  was  told  that  they  were  treated  with  due 
courtesy  by  their  fellow-students  and  in  no  way  discriminated  against,  but  it 
was  added  that  if  there  had  been  in  the  University  hundreds  instead  of  tens  of 
them,  things  would  have  been  different. 


558 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


South,  will,  if  strictly  carried  out,  do  much  to  diminish  both  the 
volume  of  negro  crime  and  the  risks  of  violent  white  revenge. 

When  one  turns  from  the  tangible  facts  to  the  less  tangible  im¬ 
pressions  which  the  traveller  receives,  the  strongest  among  these 
is  the  sense  of  a  revival  of  life  and  energy  among  the  whites 
over  nearly  all  the  South.  The  spirit  of  this  generation  is  a 
different  spirit  from  that  of  the  generation  which  fought,  and 
largely  perished,  in  the  Civil  War ;  but  it  retains  some  measure 
of  the  dignity  and  largeness  of  view  which  adorned  the  old  South¬ 
ern  aristocracy.  And  although  sectionalism  is  passing  away,  the 
Southern  men  of  to-day  have  along  with  their  pride  in  the  Union 
a  special  pride  in  their  own  land,  and  a  Southern  patriotism  of 
their  own,  like  the  Scottish  patriotism  which  Scotsmen  superadd 
to  the  allegiance  they  owe  to  the  United  Kingdom.  This  love 
of  the  South  is  an  inspiring  motive.  It  not  merely  spurs  men  to 
the  development  of  the  material  resources  of  a  region  whose 
wealth  in  such  resources  is  scarcely  even  yet  appreciated,  but 
it  makes  them  strive  to  build  up  a  community  with  high 
standards  in  public  and  private  life,  and  with  an  intellectual 
culture  abreast  of  that  of  the  older  Northern  States.  There 
have  been  many  evidences  (notably  in  the  progress  of  the  tem¬ 
perance  movement  and  of  the  Laymen’s  Missionary  Move¬ 
ment)  of  the  strength  of  moral  and  religious  sentiment  in  the 
South.  Such  an  enlargement  of  view  and  sense  of  what  befits 
a  great  people  naturally  disposes  the  best  citizens  to  a  more 
generous  and  sympathetic  treatment  of  the  Negro  and  a  wiser 
handling  of  the  negro  question  as  a  whole  than  was  possible 
in  the  days  immediately  following  the  Reconstruction  period. 
Thus  one  finds  among  the  most  thoughtful  Southern  men, 
the  men  whose  moral  leadership  is  recognized,  a  more  hopeful 
and  cheerful  spirit  than  formerly,  a  spirit  which  sees  that  justice 
and  tenderness  toward  the  weak  and  backward  race  will  make 
for  the  good  of  the  stronger  race  also. 

Nor  is  this  more  friendly  attitude  visible  only  among  the  lead¬ 
ers  of  thought.  Although  the  mass  of  the  poorer  and  more  igno¬ 
rant  whites  remain  suspicious  and  unfriendly,  the  visitor  discerns 
all  through  the  educated  class  in  the  South  a  greater  disposition 
to  be  indulgent  to  the  negroes,  to  protect  and  to  help  them  in 
their  difficult  upward  path.  This  is  most  visible  where  there 
is  evident  activity  and  prosperity,  —  one  is  struck  by  it  in  North 
Carolina,  for  instance.  Nor  is  the  reason  hard  to  find,  for  when 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  559 


people  feel  themselves  advancing,  their  hearts  expand,  and  when 
they  are  busy  they  cease  to  brood  gloomily  over  a  problem 
which  has  been  for  many  years  a  sort  of  obsession  in  many  parts 
of  the  country.  They  feel  with  Senator  John  Sharp  Williams 
of  Mississippi  when  he  said,  “  In  the  face  of  this  great  problem 
it  would  be  well  that  wise  men  think  more,  that  good  men 
pray  more,  and  that  all  men  talk  less  and  curse  less.’7  So 
lately  spoke  another  eminent  Southerner,  “Not  another  word 
about  the  negro  problem.  Get  to  work.7 7 

Thus  if  we  compare  1870  with  1890  and  1890  with  1910,  there 
are  grounds  for  hope.  But  if  we  regard  the  actual  state  of  things, 
and  note  how  slowly  changes  for  the  better  have  been  moving, 
we  shall  realize  how  much  remains  to  be  done.  As  the  pessimist, 
fixing  his  eye  only  on  existing  evils,  fails  to  allow  for  the  forces 
which  are  tending  to  lessen  them,  so  the  optimist,  who  sees  these 
forces  at  work,  is  always  in  danger  of  expecting  them  to  work 
too  quickly.  In  such  a  case  as  this,  where  the  scale  is  enormous 
because  in  the  South  more  than  nine  millions  of  black  men  are 
scattered  over  nearly  a  million  of  square  miles,  and  where  the 
real  improvement  to  be  effected,  that  from  which  all  the  rest 
must  spring,  is  an  improvement  in  the  character  and  habits 
which  a  race  has  formed  during  thousands  of  years,  progress 
must  needs  be  slow. 

It  was  observed  in  the  last  preceding  chapter  that  forecasts 
are  unusually  difficult  in  a  case  to  the  phenomena  of  which  no 
parallel  can  be  found.  All  prediction  must  rest  on  an  observa¬ 
tion  of  similar  facts  observed  before  elsewhere  and  on  the  his¬ 
torical  development  those  facts  have  taken.  Now,  though  there 
have  been  endless  instances  in  history  of  the  contact  of  advanced 
and  backward  races,  none  of  these  instances  present  phenomena 
sufficiently  resembling  those  of  the  South  to  enable  us  to  con¬ 
jecture  the  future  from  the  past. 

The  case  most  nearly  resembling  that  of  the  Southern  States 
is  to  be  found  in  South  Africa  at  the  present  day.  There  we  see 
a  large  population  of  black  people,  the  settled  part  of  whom 
enjoy  private  civil  rights  equal  to  those  of  the  whites,  while  in 
one  part  of  the  country  (Cape  Colony)  a  small  number,  who 
have  attained  a  certain  standard  of  education  and  property, 
enjoy  political  rights  also.  There,  as  in  the  South,  we  note  a 
complete  social  separation  between  the  races,  with  no  prospect 
of  any  fusion  between  them,  and  a  tendency  also  on  the  part  of 


560 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  ruder  section  of  the  whites  to  dislike  the  blacks  and  treat 
them  scornfully.  The  outlook  in  South  Africa  is  in  so  far 
darker  than  it  is  in  the  Southern  States  that  the  Kafir  population 
immensely  outnumbers  the  whites,  and,  though  the  bulk  of  it 
still  remains  in  a  tribal  condition,  far  behind  the  American 
negroes  in  point  of  education,  it  is  naturally  of  a  more  vigor¬ 
ous  character  and  more  martial  spirit  than  are  most  of  the 
latter.  However,  the  native  problem  in  South  Africa  is  still  so 
far  from  being  solved  that  one  can  only  begin  to  conjecture 
the  forms  it  is  likely  to  take  when  the  Kafirs  become  more  civil¬ 
ized.  It  is  in  an  earlier  phase  than  the  American  problem,  and 
does  not  help  us  toward  a  solution  of  the  latter. 

That  latter  was  never  more  tersely  and  forcibly  stated  than 
by  the  late  Air.  Henry  W.  Grady  of  Atlanta  when  he  said : 1 

“The  problem  of  the  South  is  to  carry  on  within  her  body 
politic  two  separate  races,  equal  in  civil  and  political  rights, 
and  nearly  equal  in  numbers.  She  must  carry  these  races  in 
peace,  for  discord  means  ruin.  She  must  carry  them  sepa¬ 
rately,  for  assimilation  means  debasement.  She  must  carry 
them  in  equal  justice,  for  to  this  she  is  pledged  in  honour  and 
in  gratitude.  She  must  carry  them  even  unto  the  end,  for  in 
human  probability  she  will  never  be  quit  of  either.” 

All  that  whoever  wishes  to  forecast  the  future  of  the  Southern 
negroes  can  do  is  to  study  the  forces  actually  at  work  in  the 
South  and  try  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  power  they  will  respec¬ 
tively  exert  hereafter.  Those  forces  are  curiously  intertwined, 
and  while  some  promise  to  work  for  the  bettering  of  existing 
conditions,  others  may  work  for  their  worsening.  Many  of  the 
wiser  minds  in  the  South  think  that  their  combined  effect  will 
on  the  whole  be  for  good.  Some,  however,  think  otherwise. 
The  best  way  of  stating  the  case  is  to  present  each  view  sepa¬ 
rately,  and  the  more  hopeful  view  may  come  first.  I  give  it  in 
the  five  paragraphs  that  follow. 

The  growing  material  prosperity  of  the  South,  a  prosperity 
likely  to  increase  still  further,  will  make  the  labour  of  the  negro 
more  and  more  needed,  and  will  therefore  make  the  Southern 
whites  feel  more  and  more  anxious  to  retain  him,  to  encourage 
him,  to  improve  the  quality  of  his  work. 

The  Negro  will  share  in  this  prosperity ;  and  as  his  material 

1  These  words  of  a  brilliant  Southerner,  too  soon  lost  to  his  country,  are 
quoted  from  Professor  Hart’s  Southern  South,  p.  151. 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  561 


condition  improves,  as  he  is  better  housed  and  clothed  and 
acquires  a  taste  for  the  comforts  of  life,  he  will  be  more  indus¬ 
trious  and  more  efficient.  Thus  will  he  become  more  self- 
respecting  ;  and  therewith  also  more  respected.  In  becoming 
more  educated,  and  especially  better  trained  for  industrial 
pursuits,  the  negro  will  not  only  be  able  to  hold  his  own  in  handi¬ 
crafts,  even  in  those  which  at  present  he  seems  in  danger  of 
losing,  but  will  generally  begin  to  awaken  to  the  duties  and  re¬ 
sponsibilities  of  citizenship.  As  he  will  be  more  eager  to  qualify 
himself  for  the  suffrage,  by  reaching  the  prescribed  standard  of 
knowledge  and  property,  so  there  will  be  less  objection  to  his 
enjoying  the  suffrage  when  it  is  perceived  that  he  has  grown 
fitter  for  it. 

As  more  and  more  among  the  coloured  people  rise  to  the  level 
which  the  more  advanced  have  now  reached,  and  as  they  form 
higher  aims  in  life  than  physical  enjoyment  and  amusement, 
they  will  gain  more  self-control  and  steadiness  of  purpose. 
Crime  will  tend  to  diminish,  and  the  occasions  for  friction  be¬ 
tween  the  races  will  be  fewer. 

As  negro  society  becomes  more  settled,  and  more  of  the  more 
ambitious  and  capable  men  rise  to  positions  of  influence  in  the 
occupations  of  merchants  and  bankers,  lawyers  and  physicians, 
the  educated  African  will  feel  less  discontented  and  less  resent- 
ful  at  his  social  isolation  from  the  whites,  because  he  will  have 
a  better  society  of  his  own.  To  stand  well  in  that  society  will 
be  a  legitimate  subject  for  pride.  His  nascent  race-conscious¬ 
ness  will  then  take  the  direction  not  of  antagonism  to  the  whites, 
but  of  showing  what  the  African  can  do  when  he  has  got  his 
chance,  and  the  current  that  might  have  been  dangerous  in  one 
channel  will  be  harmless  and  fertilizing  in  another. 

The  growing  agricultural  and  industrial  progress  of  the*  whole 
South,  accompanied  by  a  scarcely  less  marked  educational  prog¬ 
ress,  will  reduce  both  the  enmity  and  the  suspicion  which  now 
fill  the  breasts  of  so  many  of  the  ruder  and  more  ignorant  Southern 
whites.  Men  are  more  kindly  when  they  are  more  comfortable. 
When  they  come  to  be  occupied  with  pushing  themselves  forward 
in  the  world  as  are  native  Americans  in  the  North,  they  will 
not  let  the  presence  of  the  Negro  darken  their  sky  and  embitter 
their  feelings  as  he  has  done  for  the  last  forty  years.  The 
memories  of  the  Reconstruction  period  will  in  time  pass  away. 
People  will  see  the  present  as  it  is  and  not  in  the  light  of  a  dis- 

2  o 


562 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  y 


mal  past.  The  best  part  of  the  South  has  already  recovered  its 
old  life  and  spring ;  and  as  this  renovation  spreads  among  the 
hitherto  backward  classes,  they  too  will  come  to  see  the  African 
and  the  difficulties  his  presence  causes  with  a  calmer  and  less  un¬ 
friendly  eye,  and  wall  recognize  that  harshness  or  scorn  toward 
a  weaker  race  tells  harmfully  on  the  stronger  itself,  as  every  one 
now  recognizes  that  slavery  hurt  the  character  of  the  slave¬ 
holder  more  than  it  did  that  of  the  slave. 

Against  these  sanguine  anticipations  let  us  set  a  pessimist’s 
view  of  the  probabilities,  though  Southern  pessimism  finds  its 
grounds  less  in  philosophic  or  historical  reasonings  than  in  an 
instinctive  race  antagonism  which  is  quite  compatible  with 
kindliness  to  the  individual  negro.  These  also  must  be  stated, 
and  as  far  as  possible  in  the  words  of  the  men  who  hold  them. 

If  the  negro  shares  in  the  prosperity  of  the  South,  if  he  grows 
richer  and  enters  the  professions  more  largely,  he  will  become 
more  “uppish,”  will  be  quicker  to  claim  social  equality  and  more 
resentful  of  its  denial.  What  the  whites  deem  his  insolence  will 
provoke  the  reprisals  from  them.  This  will  increase  the  tension 
between  the  two  colours.  And  as  the  upper  section  of  the 
negroes  find  that  all  their  advance  in  knowledge  and  material 
well-being  brings  them  socially  no  nearer  to  the  whites,  their 
feelings  will  grow  more  bitter  and  the  relations  of  the  races 
more  strained. 

So  too,  assuming  that  race-consciousness  grows  among  the 
coloured  people,  may  it  not  lead  them  to  organize  themselves  in 
a  way  calculated  to  alarm  and  provoke  the  whites  ?  The  desire 
of  the  bulk  of  the  whites  to  “keep  down”  the  negro  and  make 
him  “know  his  place,”  maybe  unchristian.  But  it  exists,  and 
any  display  of  increasing  strength  on  the  part  of  the  weaker  race 
will  aggravate  it. 

This  tendency  may  show  itself  especially  where  the  suffrage 
is  concerned.  If  the  negroes  so  advance  in  property  and  in  the 
capacity  to  pass  the  education  tests  now  prescribed  as  to  make 
them  constitute,  in  some  States,  or  counties,  or  cities,  one-half  or 
even  one-thirci  or  one-fourth  of  the  voters,  the  old  alarms 
regarding  their  political  influence  will  recur,  possibly  with  in¬ 
creased  force,  because  they  will  be  more  intelligent  and  better 
organized  than  they  were  before  1890,  when  electoral  rights 
began  to  be  withdrawn.  If  such  a  largely  increased  body  of 
coloured  voters  should  possess  the  franchise,  the  politics  of  the 


chap,  xcv  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  563 


South  will  be  disturbed  and  warped  by  the  presence  of  a  body 
likely  to  vote  all  together  as  a  race  irrespective  of  the  ordinary 
political  issues,  and  bartering  their  votes  (not  necessarily  for 
money)  to  one  party  or  the  other  as  temporary  advantage  sug¬ 
gests.  Probably  an  effort  would  under  such  circumstances  be 
made  to  devise  new  methods  for  excluding  at  least  the  bulk  of  the 
coloured  men ;  but  such  methods  would  seem  more  objection¬ 
able  and  would  excite  more  resistance  when  applied  to  educated 
persons  than  they  have  done  as  applied  in  recent  years  to  the 
ignorant  multitude  which  has  little  or  no  property. 

The  difficulties  attendant  on  competition  in  the  labour  market 
which  have  already  caused  trouble  in  a  few  places  or  trades  are 
likely  to  be  aggravated  as  a  larger  number  of  negroes  enter  the 
more  skilled  employments.  Though  white  workmen  are  deemed 
more  efficient,  the  difference  in  efficiency  is  less  than  the  differ¬ 
ence  in  the  wages  paid  to  the  negroes,  who  at  present  accept  much 
less  than  whites  will.  Irritation  may  follow  similar  to  that  which 
arose  when  Chinese  content  with  lower  wages  competed  with 
Americans  in  California  and  with  Australians  in  Victoria  and 
New  South  Wales.  In  those  countries  the  Chinese  were  at  last 
excluded.  But  the  African  cannot  be  prevented  from  seeking  to 
improve  his  position  merely  because  his  competition  will  dis¬ 
please  the  white. 

Already  it  is  a  thing  without  precedent  in  the  world’s  annals 
that  two  races  enjoying  equal  civil  and  to  some  extent  equal 
political  rights  should  live  side  by  side  in  close  juxtaposition 
yet  never  intermingling,  one  of  them  stronger  than  the  other 
and  under  constant  temptation  to  abuse  its  strength.  The  more 
completely  the  weaker  race  absorbs  the  civilization  of  the 
stronger  race  and  rises  to  its  level,  the  more  extraordinary  will 
the  situation  become.  Can  anything  but  trouble  be  expected  ? 

Though  it  is  right  to  let  the  pessimist’s  case  be  fully  stated, 
and  though  his  gloomy  prognostications  cannot  be  dismissed  as 
visionary,  for  there  may  be  an  element  of  future  conflict  in  the 
strengthening  of  African  race  consciousness,  still  the  more  hope¬ 
ful  of  these  two  views  of  the  situation  will  commend  itself  to 
one  who  compares  the  present  with  the  past  and  who  notes  that 
the  best  men  in  the  South,  the  men  whose  intimate  knowledge 
and  freedom  from  prejudice  gives  weight  to  their  judgment, 
incline  to  the  hopeful  side.  The  matter  may  be  summed  up  by 
these  final  observations. 


564 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


The  white  population  increases  faster  than  the  negro  not  only 
over  the  whole  Union,  but  in  the  South.  The  negro  therefore 
is  not  a  political  Danger. 

The  Negro  is  needed  as  a  labourer,  and  the  more  he  advances, 
the  more  useful  is  his  labour  to  a  country  which  urgently  needs 
labour.  To  treat  the  negro  fairly  and  help  him  to  progress  is 
therefore  the  Interest  of  the  whites. 

The  question  whether  the  races  can  live  peaceably  together 
is  at  bottom  a  moral  question,  a  question  of  good  feeling,  of 
humanity,  of  the  application  of  the  principles  of  the  Gospel. 
Race  antagonism  is  no  doubt  a  strong  sentiment.  Many  a  time 
it  has  shown  its  formidable  power.  Yet  it  may  decline  under 
the  influence  of  reason  and  good  feeling.  In  1810  slavery 
existed  over  nearly  the  whole  of  the  American  continent  and  its 
islands.  Those  whom  it  shocked  were  few,  and  still  fewer 
contemplated  its  abolition.  Even  so  late  as  1860  it  was  defended 
on  principle  and  defended  out  of  the  Bible.  When  the  senti¬ 
ment  of  a  common  humanity  has  so  grown  and  improved  within 
a  century  as  to  destroy  slavery  everywhere,  may  it  not  be  that 
a  like  sentiment  will  soften  the  bitterness  of  race  friction  also  ? 
It  is  at  any  rate  in  that  direction  that  the  stream  of  change 
is  running. 


CHAPTER  XCVI 


FOREIGN  POLICY  AND  TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION 

So  far  I  have  had  to  say  nothing,  and  now  I  need  say  but 
little,  of  a  subject  which  would  have  been  constantly  obtrud¬ 
ing  itself  had  we  been  dealing  with  any  country  in  Europe. 
To  every  country  in  Europe  foreign  relations  are  a  matter  of 
primary  importance.  The  six  Great  Powers  of  that  continent 
all  think  it  necessary  to  protect  themselves  against  one  an¬ 
other  by  armies,  fleets,  and  alliances.  Great  Britain,  seeking 
no  extension  of  territory  and  comparatively  safe  from  attack 
at  home,  has  many  colonies  and  one  vast  dependency  to  pro¬ 
tect,  and  is  drawn  by  them,  far  more  than  by  her  European 
position,  into  the  tangled  web  of  Old  World  diplomacy.  To 
all  these  Powers,  and  not  less  to  the  minor  ones,  the  friendly 
or  hostile  attitude  of  the  others  is  matter  of  vital  consequence. 
Not  only,  therefore,  must  immense  sums  be  spent  on  warlike 
preparations,  but  a  great  establishment  of  officials  must  be 
maintained  and  no  small  part  of  the  attention  of  the  Adminis¬ 
tration  and  the  legislature  be  given  to  the  conduct  of  the  inter¬ 
national  relations  of  the  State.  These  relations,  moreover, 
constantly  affect  the  internal  politics  of  the  country ;  they 
sometimes  cause  the  triumph  or  the  defeat  of  a  party ;  they 
influence  financial  policy;  they  make  or  mar  the  careers  of 
statesmen. 

In  the  United  States,  nothing  of  the  kind.  From  the  Mexi¬ 
can  war  of  1845,  down  to  the  Spanish  war  of  1898,  external 
relations  very  rarely,  and  then  only  to  a  slight  extent,  affected 
internal  political  strife.  As  they  did  not  occupy  the  public 
mind  they  did  not  lie  within  the  sphere  of  party  platforms  or 
party  action.  We  have  hitherto  found  no  occasion  to  refer  to 
them  save,  in  describing  the  functions  of  the  Senate ;  and  I 
mention  them  now  as  the  traveller  did  the  snakes  in  Iceland, 
only  to  note  their  absence,  and  to  indicate  some  of  the  results 
ascribable  thereto. 


585 


566 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


Though  the  chief  and  obvious  cause  of  this  striking  contrast 
between  the  great  Western  Republic  and  the  Powers  of  Europe 
is  to  be  found  in  her  geographical  position  on  a  continent  where, 
since  she  bought  out  France  and  Spain,  she  has  had  only  two 
neighbours,  one  comparatively  weak  on  the  south  and  one  natu¬ 
rally  friendly  on  the  north,  much  must  also  be  set  down  to  the 
temper  and  convictions  of  the  people.  They  are,  and  have 
usually  been,  pacific  in  their  views,  for  the  unjustifiable,  because 
needless,  war  with  Mexico  was  the  work  of  the  slave-holding 
oligarchy  and  opposed  to  the  general  sentiment  of  the  people. 
They  have  no  lust  of  conquest,  possessing  already  as  much  land 
as  they  want.  They  have  always  been  extremely  jealous  of  a 
standing  army,  the  necessary  support  of  ambitious  foreign 
policies.  They  have  been  so  much  absorbed  by  and  interested 
in  the  development  of  their  material  resources  as  to  care  very 
little  for  what  goes  on  in  other  countries.  As  there  is  no  mili¬ 
tary  class,  so  also  there  is  no  class  which  feels  itself  called  on 
to  be  concerned  with  foreign  affairs,  and  least  of  all  is  such  a 
class  to  be  found  among  the  politicians.  Even  leading  states¬ 
men  are  often  strangely  ignorant  of  European  diplomacy,  much 
more  the  average  senator  or  congressman.  And  into  the  mind 
of  the  whole  people  there  has  sunk  deep  the  idea  that  all  such 
matters  belong  to  the  bad  order  of  the  Old  World  ;  and  that 
the  true  way  for  the  model  Republic  to  influence  that  world  is 
to  avoid  its  errors,  and  set  an  example  of  pacific  industrialism. 

This  view  of  the  facts  may  appear  strange  to  those  who  re¬ 
member  that  the  area  of  the  United  States  proper,  which  in  1783 
was  about  one  million  square  miles,  is  now  something  over  three 
and  a  half  millions.1  All  this  added  territory,  however,  except 
the  cessions  made  by  Mexico  in  1847,  came  peaceably  by  way 
of  purchase  or  (in  the  case  of  Texas)  voluntary  union ;  and  all 
(with  the  possible  exception  of  Alaska)  consists  of  regions 
which  naturally  cohere  with  the  original  Republic,  and  ought 
to  be  united  with  it.  The  limits  of  what  may  be  called  natural 
expansion  have  now  (subject  to  what  will  be  said  presently) 
been  reached ;  and  the  desire  for  annexation  is  no  stronger 
than  at  any  preceding  epoch,  while  the  interest  in  foreign  rela¬ 
tions  generally  has  not  increased.  For  a  time  a  sort  of  friendship 
was  professed  for  Russia,  more  for  the  sake  of  teasing  England 
than  from  any  real  sympathy  with  a  despotic  monarchy  very 

1  As  to  the  new  transmarine  dominions,  see  next  chapter. 


CHAP.  XCVI 


TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION 


567 


alien  to  the  American  spirit.  But  at  present  absolute  neutrality 
and  impartiality  as  regards  the  Old  World  is  observed ;  and  a 
remarkable  proof  of  the  desire  to  abstain  from  engagements 
affecting  it  was  given,  when  the  United  States  Government 
declined  to  ratify  the  International  Act  of  the  Berlin  Conference 
of  1885  regulating  the  Congo  Free  State,  although  its  minister 
at  Berlin  had  taken  part  in  the  deliberations  of  the  Conference 
by  which  that  Act  was  prepared.  And  it  was  after  much  delay 
and  some  hesitation  that  they  ratified  (in  1892)  even  the  Brussels 
International  Slave  Trade  Act.1 

Such  abstinence  from  Old  World  affairs  is  the  complement  to 
that  declaration  of  a  purpose  to  prevent  any  European  power 
from  attempting  to  obtain  a  controlling  influence  in  New  World 
affairs  which  was  made  by  President  Monroe  in  his  Message  of 
1823.  The  assertion  is  less  needed  now  than  it  was  in  Monroe’s 
day,  because  the  United  States  have  grown  so  immensely  in 
strength  that  no  European  power  can  constitute  a  danger  to 
them.  It  would  no  doubt  lead  the  Government  to  consider 
international  questions  arising  even  in  South  America  as  much 
more  within  the  scope  of  their  influence  than  any,  not  directly 
affecting  their  own  citizens,  which  might  arise  in  the  Old  World, 
but  the  occasions  for  applying  such  a  principle  are  compara¬ 
tively  few,  and  are  not  likely  to  involve  serious  difficulties  with 
any  European  power. 

The  notion  that  the  United  States  ought  to  include  at  least 
all  the  English-  and  French-speaking  communities  of  North 
America  is  an  old  one.  Repeated  efforts  were  made  before  and 
during  the  War  of  Independence  to  induce  Canada,  Nova  Scotia, 
and  even  the  Bermuda  Islands  to  join  the  revolted  colonies. 
For  many  years  afterwards  the  view  continued  to  be  expressed 
that  no  durable  peace  with  Great  Britain  could  exist  so  long 
as  she  retained  possessions  on  the  North  American  continent. 
When  by  degrees  that  belief  died  away,  the  eyes  of  ambitious 
statesmen  turned  to  the  South.  The  slave-holding  party 
sought  to  acquire  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  hoping  to  turn  them 
into  slave  States ;  and  President  Polk  even  tried  to  buy  Cuba 
from  Spain.  After  the  abolition  of  slavery,  attempts  were 
made  under  President  Johnson  in  1867  to  acquire  .St.  Thomas 
and  St.  John’s  from  Denmark,  and  by  President  Grant  (1869- 

1  In  1906  the  U.  S.  Government  signed,  though  with  some  reservations,  the 
general  act  of  the  Algeciras  Conference  for  regulating  the  affairs  of  Morocco. 


568 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  \ 


73)  to  acquire  San  Domingo,  —  an  independent  republic,  —  but 
the  Senate  frustrated  both.  Apart  from  these  incidents,  the 
United  States  showed  no  desire  to  extend  its  territories,  save  by 
the  purchase  of  Alaska  from  the  Mexican  war  down  to  1898. 

The  results  of  the  general  indifference  to  foreign  politics  are  in 
so  far  unfortunate  that  they  have  often  induced  carelessness  in 
the  choice  of  persons  to  represent  the  United  States  at  European 
Courts,  the  Ambassador  to  Great  Britain  being  usually  the  only 
one  who  has  really  important  negotiations  to  conduct,  and 
cause  very  inadequate  appropriations  to  be  voted  for  the  sup¬ 
port  of  such  envoys.  In  other  respects  her  detachment  has  been 
for  the  United  States  an  unspeakable  blessing.  A  very  small 
army  sufficed,  and  it  was  employed  chiefly  in  the  Far  West  for 
the  repression  of  Indian  troubles.  In  1890  the  army  consisted  of 
about  25,000  privates  and  a  little  over  2000  officers.  The  officers, 
admirably  trained  at  West  Point,  the  famous  military  academy 
which  has  maintained  its  high  character  and  its  absolute  freedom 
from  political  affiliations  since  its  first  foundation,  have  been 
largely  occupied  in  scientific  or  engineering  work.  Only  a  small 
navy  seemed  to  be  required,  —  a  fortunate  circumstance,  because 
the  navy  yards  have  sometimes  given  rise  to  administrative 
scandals,  scandals,  however,  which  have  in  no  way  affected 
the  naval  officers  but  only  the  civilian  politicians  who  have  had 
a  hand  in  shipbuilding  and  the  provision  of  armaments  and  stores. 
The  cry  sometimes  raised  for  a  large  increase  in  the  United  States 
fleet  used  to  surprise  European  observers ;  for  the  power  of  the 
United  States  to  protect  her  citizens  abroad  is  not  to  be  measured 
by  the  number  of  vessels  or  guns  she  possesses,  but  by  the  fact 
that  there  is  no  power  in  the  world  which  will  not  lose  far  more 
than  it  can  possibly  gain  by  quarrelling  with  a  nation  which 
could,  in  case  of  war,  so  vast  are  its  resources,  not  only  create  an 
armoured  fleet  but  speedily  equip  swift  vessels  to  attack  the 
commerce  of  its  antagonist.  The  possession  of  powerful  arma¬ 
ments  is  apt  to  inspire  a  wish  to  use  them.  For  many  years 
no  cloud  rose  on  the  external  horizon,  and  one  may  indeed  say 
that  the  likelihood  of  a  war  between  the  United  States  and  any  of 
the  great  naval  powers  has  appeared  too  slight  to  be  worth 
considering. 

The  freedom  of  the  country  from  militarism  of  spirit  and 
policy  here  described  conduced  not  only  to  the  slightness  of  a 
branch  of  expenditure  which  European  States  find  almost  in- 


CHAP.  XCVI 


TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION 


569 


supportable,  but  also  to  the  exemption  of  this  Republic  from  a 
source  of  danger  which  other  republics  have  found  so  serious, 
—  the  ambition  of  successful  generals,  and  the  interference  of 
the  army  in  political  strifes.  Strong  and  deep-rooted  as  are  the 
constitutional  traditions  of  the  United  States,  there  have  been 
moments,  even  in  her  history,  when  the  existence  of  a  great 
standing  army  might  have  menaced  or  led  to  civil  war.  Pa¬ 
triotism  has  not  suffered,  as  Europeans  sometimes  fancy  it  must 
suffer,  by  long-continued  peace.  Manliness  of  spirit  has  not 
suffered  because  so  few  embrace  the  profession  of  arms ;  and 
the  internal  politics  of  the  country,  already  complicated  enough, 
are  relieved  from  those  further  complications  which  the  intru¬ 
sion  of  issues  of  foreign  policy  bring  with  them.  It  need  hardly 
be  added  that  those  issues  are  the  very  issues  which  a  democ¬ 
racy,  even  so  intelligent  a  democracy  as  that  of  the  United 
States,  is  least  fitted  to  comprehend,  and  which  its  organs  of 
government  are  least  fitted  to  handle  with  promptitude  and 
success.  Fortunately,  the  one  principle  to  which  the  people 
have  learnt  to  cling  in  foreign  policy  is,  that  the  less  they  have 
of  it  the  better ;  and  though  aspiring  politicians  sometimes  try 
to  play  upon  national  pride  by  using  arrogant  language  to  other 
powers,  or  by  suggesting  schemes  of  annexation,  such  language 
is  generally  reprobated,  and  such  schemes  are  usually  rejected. 

To  state  this  tendency  of  national  opinion  does  not,  however, 
dispose  of  the  question  of  territorial  expansion ;  for  nations  are 
sometimes  forced  to  increase  their  dominions  by  causes  outside 
their  own  desires  or  volitions.  The  possibilities  that  lie  before 
America  of  such  expansion  deserve  a  brief  discussion. 

Occupying  the  whole  width  of  their  continent  from  ocean  to 
ocean,  the  Americans  have  neighbours  only  on  the  north  and  on 
the  south.  It  is  only  in  these  directions  that  they  could  extend 
themselves  by  land ;  and  extension  on  land  is,  if  not  easier,  yet 
more  tempting  than  by  sea.  On  the  north  they  touch  the  great 
Canadian  Confederation  with  its  nine  provinces,  also  extend¬ 
ing  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  bound  together  by 
transcontinental  railways.  Its  population  is  rapidly  increas¬ 
ing,  especially  in  the  North-West,  and  although  legally  sub¬ 
ject  to  the  British  Crown  and  legislature,  it  is  admittedly  mis¬ 
tress  of  its  own  destinies.  It  was  at  one  time  deemed  a  matter 
of  course  that  the  United  States  would  seek  to  annex  Canada, 
peaceably  if  possible,  but  if  not,  then  by  force  of  arms.  Even 


570  . 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


so  late  as  1864,  Englishmen  were  constantly  told  that  the  first 
result  of  the  triumph  of  the  Federal  armies  in  the  War  of  Seces¬ 
sion  would  be  to  launch  a  host  flushed  with  victory  against  the 
Canadian  Dominion,  because  when  the  passion  for  war  has 
been  once  roused  in  a  nation,  it  clamours  for  fresh  conquests. 
Many  were  the  arguments  from  history  by  which  it  was  sought 
to  convince  Britain  that  for  her  own  safety  she  ought  to  accede 
to  the  wily  suggestions  which  Louis  Napoleon  addressed  to  her, 
deliver  the  Slave  States  from  defeat  and  herself  from  a  formid¬ 
able  rival.  Since  those  days  Canada  has  become  a  far  more 
tempting  prize,  for  part  of  her  north-western  territories  between 
Lake  Superior  and  the  Rocky  Mountians,  then  believed  to  be 
condemned  to  sterility  by  their  climate,  has  proved  to  be  one 
of  the  richest  wheat-growing  districts  on  the  continent.  The 
power  of  the  United  States  is  now  far  greater  than  in  1865, 
nor  would  it  be  easy  for  Britain  and  Canada  effectively  to  defend 
a  frontier  so  long  and  so  naturally  weak  as  is  that  which  sepa¬ 
rates  the  Dominion  from  its  neighbours  on  the  south.  Yet  to¬ 
day  the  possibility  of  absorbing  Canada  is  seldom  mentioned 
in  the  United  States.  Were  it  ever  to  come  about,  it  would 
come  about  at  the  wish  and  by  the  act  of  the  Canadians  them¬ 
selves,  not  as  the  result  of  any  external  force. 

There  are  several  reasons  for  this.  One  is  the  growing  friend¬ 
liness  of  the  Americans  to  Britain.  Considering  how  much 
commoner  than  love  is  hatred,  or  at  least  jealousy,  between 
nations,  considering  the  proverbial  bitterness  of  family  quarrels, 
and  considering  how  intense  was  the  hatred  felt  in  the  United 
States  towards  England  in  the  earlier  part  of  last  century,1  re¬ 
kindled  by  the  unhappy  war  of  1812,  kept  alive  by  the  sensitive¬ 
ness  of  the  one  people  and  the  arrogance  of  the  other,  imprinted 
afresh  on  new  generations  in  America  by  silly  school-books  and 
Fourth  of  July  harangues,  inflamed  anew  by  the  language  of  a 
section  of  English  society  during  the  Civil  War,  it  is  one  of 
the  remarkable  events  of  our  time  that  a  cordial  feeling  should 
now  exist  between  the  two  chief  branches  of  the  English  race. 
The  settlement  of  the  Alabama  claims  has  contributed  to  it. 
The  democratization  of  Britain  and  the  growth  of  literature  and 


1  Tocqueville,  for  instance,  says  (vol.  ii.  ch.  10)  :  “On  ne  sauriat  voir  de 
haine  plus  envenimee  que  celle  qui  existe  entre  les  Americans  des  Etats  Unis 
et  les  Anglais.”  And  very  old  men  will  tell  you  in  America  that  their  recollec¬ 
tions  are  to  the  same  effect. 


CHAP.  XCVI 


TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION 


571 


science  in  America  have  contributed  to  it.  The  greater  respect 
which  Europeans  have  come  to  show  to  America  has  contrib¬ 
uted  to  it.  The  occasional  appearance  of  illustrious  men  who, 
like  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks  and  Mr.  J.  R.  Lowell,  become  dear  to 
both  countries,  has  counted  for  something.  But  the  ocean 
steamers  have  done  perhaps  most  of  all,  because  they  have 
enabled  the  two  peoples  to  know  one  another.  Such  unfriendly 
language  towards  Britain  as  still  appears  in  the  American  press 
has  been  chiefly  due  to  the  wish  to  gratify  a  (now  small)  section 
of  the  Irish  population,  and  will  probably  vanish  when  the 
secular  hostility  of  Ireland  and  England  has  passed  away. 
The  old  motives  for  an  attack  upon  Canada  have  therefore 
vanished.  But  there  is  reason  to  think  that  even  if  Canada 
were  separated  from  the  British  Empire,  the  Americans  would 
not  be  eager  to  bring  her  into  the  Union.  They  would  not 
try  to  do  so  by  force,  because  that  would  be  contrary  to  their 
doctrines  and  habits.  They  have  a  well-grounded  aversion, 
strengthened  by  their  experience  of  the  difficulties  of  ruling 
the  South  after  1865,  to  the  incorporation  or  control  of  any 
community  not  anxious  to  be  one  with  them  and  thoroughly  in 
harmony  with  their  own  body.  Although  they  might  rej oice  over 
so  great  an  extension  of  territory  and  resources,  they  are  well 
satisfied  with  the  present  size  and  progress  of  their  own  country 
which  as  some  remark,  is  at  least  big  enough  for  one  Congress. 

As  respects  Canada  herself,  her  material  growth  might  possibly 
be  quickened  by  union,  and  had  the  plan  of  a  commercial  league 
or  customs  union  formerly  discussed  been  carried  out,  it  might 
have  tended  towards  a  political  union  :  but,  the  temper  and 
feelings  of  her  people,  and  the  growth  of  a  vigorous  national 
sentiment  among  them,  have  not  been  making  for  their  union 
with  the  far  larger  mass  of  the  United  States,  which  they 
regarded  with  a  jealousy  that  has  declined  only  as  they  felt 
themselves  to  be  rising  to  the  stature  of  a  nation  holding  an 
assured  and  respected  place  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  Their 
life,  and  that  not  as  respects  politics  only,  may  seem  less  intense 
than  the  life  of  their  neighbours  to  the  South.  But  it  is  free  from 
some  of  the  blemishes  which  affect  the  latter.  Municipal  govern¬ 
ments  are  more  pure.  Party  organizations  have  not  fallen  under 
the  control  of  bosses.  Public  order  has  been  less  disturbed  ;  and 
criminal  justice  is  more  effectively  administered. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  considering  what  are  the  interests 


572 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART 


in  the  matter  of  Great  Britain  and  her  other  colonies,  nor  the 
prospects  of  the  schemes  suggested  for  a  closer  practical  union 
between  the  mother  country  and  her  swiftly  advancing  progeny. 
As  regards  the  ultimate  interests  of  the  two  peoples  most 
directly  concerned,  it  may  be  suggested  that  it  is  more  to  the 
advantage,  both  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  Canadians, 
that  they  should  continue  to  develop  independent  types  of 
political  life  and  intellectual  progress.  Each  may,  in  working 
out  its  own  institutions,  have  something  to  teach  the  other. 
There  is  already  too  little  variety  on  the  American  continent. 

Fifteen  hundred  miles  south  of  British  Columbia  the  United 
States  abuts  upon  Mexico.  The  position  of  Mexico  offers  a 
striking  contrast  to  that  of  Canada.  The  people  are  utterly 
unlike  those  of  the  United  States ;  they  are  Roman  Catholics, 
more  than  half  Indian  in  blood  and  preserving  many  Indian 
superstitions,  easy  going,  uncultured,  making  little  advance  in 
self-government,  whether  local  or  national,  increasing  but  slowly 
in  numbers,1  making  very  slender  contributions  to  literature  or 
science.  They  have  done  little  to  develop  either  the  mineral 
or  agricultural  wealth  of  their  superb  territory,  much  of  which, 
in  fact  all  the  interior  plateau,  enjoys  a  climate  more  favour¬ 
able  to  physical  exertion  than  that  of  the  southernmost  States 
of  the  Union.  The  export  and  import  trade  of  the  ports  on 
the  Gulf  and  the  Pacific  is  in  the  hands  of  German  and 
English  houses  :  the  mines  of  the  north  are  worked  by  Ameri¬ 
cans,  who  come  across  from  Texas  and  Arizona  in  greater  and 
greater  numbers.  Two  railways  cross  Northern  Mexico  from 
United  States  to  the  Pacific  and  others  traverse  the  great 
plateau  from  the  Rio  Grande  as  far  as  the  city  of  Mexico.  In 
the  northernmost  States  of  the  Mexican  federation  the  Ameri¬ 
can  interests  are  already  large,  for  much  of  the  capital  is  theirs, 
their  language  spreads,  their  pervasive  energy  is  everywhere 
felt.  As  the  mines  of  Colorado  and  Arizona  become  less  and 
less  attractive,  the  stream  of  immigration  may  more  and  more 
set  out  of  the  United  States  across  the  border.  It  has  been 
feared  that  if  American  citizens  should  be  killed,  or  their  property 
attacked,  the  United  States  Government  would  be  invoked,  and 
should  the  government  of  Mexico  ever  relapse  into  that  weakness 

1  The  population  of  Mexico  is  11,600,000,  of  whom  not  more  than  20  per 
cent  are  stated  to  be  pure  whites,  43  per  cent  of  mixed  race,  and  at  least  37 
per  cent  Indians. 


CHAP.  XCVI 


TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION 


573 


out  of  which  Presidents  Juarez  and  Diaz  raised  it,  a  difficult 
position  might  arise.  American  settlers,  if  their  numbers  grow, 
might  in  such  a  case  be  tempted  to  establish  order  for  them¬ 
selves,  and  perhaps  at  last  some  sort  of  government.  In  fact, 
the  process  by  which  Texas  was  severed  from  Mexico  and  brought 
into  the  Union  might  conceivably  be  repeated  in  a  more  peace¬ 
ful  way  by  the  steady  infiltration  of  an  American  population. 
Traveller  after  traveller  used  to  repeat  that  it  was  all  but  im¬ 
possible  for  a  comparatively  weak  State,  full  of  natural  wealth 
which  her  people  do  not  use,  not  to  crumble  under  the  impact 
of  a  stronger  and  more  enterprising  race.  It  was  argued  that  all 
experience  pointed  to  the  detachment  of  province  after  province 
from  Mexico  and  its  absorption  into  the  American  Union  ;  and 
that  when  the  process  had  once  begun  it  would  not  stop  till, 
in  a  time  to  be  measured  rather  by  decades  than  by  centuries, 
the  petty  republics  of  Central  America  had  been  also  swallowed 
up  and  the  predominant  influence,  if  not  the  territorial  frontier, 
of  the  United  States  advanced  to  the  isthmus  of  Panama. 

If  the  United  States  were  a  monarchy  like  Russia,  this 
might  well  happen,  happen  not  so  much  from  any  deliberate 
purpose  of  aggression  as  by  the  irresistible  tendency  of  facts, 
a  tendency  similar  to  that  which  led  Rome  to  conquer  the 
East,  England  to  conquer  India,  Russia  to  conquer  North-west¬ 
ern  Asia.  But  the  Americans  are  most  unwilling  that  it  should 
happen,  and  will  do  all  they  can  to  prevent  it.  They  have  none 
of  that  earth  hunger  which  burns  in  the  great  nations  of  Europe, 
having  already  dominions  which  are  still. far  from  fully  peo¬ 
pled.  They  are  proud  of  the  capacity  of  their  present  pop¬ 
ulation  for  self-government.  Their  administrative  system  is 
singularly  unfitted  for  the  rule  of  dependencies,  because  it  has 
no  proper  machinery  for  controlling  provincial  governors ;  so 
that  when  it  found  regions  which  were  hardly  fit  to  be  estab¬ 
lished  as  States,  it  gave  them  a  practically  all  but  complete 
self-government  as  Territories.  Administrative  posts  set  up  in 
a  dependent  country  might  be  jobbed,  and  the  dependent  coun¬ 
try  itself  maladministerecl.  Hence  the  only  form  annexation 
can  with  advantage  take  is  the  admission  of  the  annexed  district 
as  a  self-governing  State  or  Territory,  the  difference  between  the 
two  being  that  in  the  latter  the  inhabitants,  though  they  are 
usually  permitted  to  administer  their  domestic  affairs,  have  no 
vote  in  Federal  elections.  If  Chihuahua  and  Sonora  were  like 


574 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


Dakota,  the  temptation  to  annex  these  provinces  and  turn  them 
into  States  or  Territories  would  be  strong.  But  the  Indo-Span- 
iards  of  Mexico  have  not  as  yet  shown  much  fitness  for  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  political  power.  They  would  be  not  only  an  inferior 
and  diverse  element  in  the  Union,  but  an  element  likely,  if  ad¬ 
mitted  to  Federal  suffrage,  to  injure  Federal  politics,  to  demor¬ 
alize  the  officials  who  might  be  sent  among  them,  and  to  supply 
a  fertile  soil  for  all  kinds  of  roguery  and  rascality,  which,  so  far 
as  they  lay  within  the  sphere  of  State  action,  the  Federal  Govern¬ 
ment  could  not  interfere,  with,  and  which  in  Federal  affairs  would 
damage  Congress  and  bring  another  swarm  of  jobs  and  jobbers 
to  Washington. 

One  still  finds  in  the  United  States,  and  of  course  especially  in 
Arizona,  New  Mexico,  and  Texas,  some  people  who  declare  that 
Mexico  will  be  swallowed,  first  the  northern  provinces,  and  the 
whole  in  time.  It  is  “ manifest  destinv,”  and  the  land  and 
mining-claim  speculators  of  these  border  lands  would  be  glad  to 
help  Destiny.  But  the  general  feeling  of  the  nation  is  strongly 
against  a  forward  policy,  nor  has  either  party  any  such  interest 
in  promoting  it  as  the  Southern  slave-holders  had  long  ago  in 
bringing  in  Texas.  It  is  therefore  not  a  question  of  practical 
politics.  Yet  it  is  a  problem  which  already  deserves  considera¬ 
tion,  for  it  might  in  the  future  become  a  practical  one.  Mexico 
has  gained  greatly  in  stability  and  made  rapid  progress  in  the 
development  of  her  immense  natural  resources  under  the  strong 
and  enlightened  rule  of  President  Porfirio  Diaz.  Should  that 
progress  and  that  stability  continue  the  problem  need  not  arise. 
But  if  things  were  to  relapse,  it  might.  The  clearest  judgment 
and  the  firmest  will  of  a  nation  cannot  always  resist  the  drift  of 
events  and  the  working  of  natural  causes. 

I  have  already  observed  that  the  United  States  Government 
formerly  desired  and  seemed  likely  to  acquire  some  of  the 
West  India  islands.  The  South  had  a  strong  motive  for  adding 
to  the  Union  regions  in  which  slavery  prevailed,  and  which 
would  have  been  admitted  as  Slave  States.  That  motive  has 
long  since  vanished  :  and  so  far  as  the  South  has  now  an  interest 
in  these  isles  it  is  that  they  should  remain  outside  the  line  of 
American  custom-houses,  so  that  their  products  may  not  compete 
free  of  duty  with  those  which  the  South  raises.  All  the  objec¬ 
tions  which  apply  to  the  incorporation  of  Northern  Mexico 
apply  with  greater  force  to  the  incorporation  of  islands  far  less 


CHAP.  XCVI 


TERRITORIAL  EXTENSION 


575 


fit  for  colonization  by  the  Anglo-American  race  than  are  the 
Mexican  table-lands.  Till  the  acquisition  of  Puerto  Rico  in 
1898-9  one  islet  only,  Navassa,  between  Jamaica  and  San 
Domingo,  belonged  to  the  United  States.1 

One  spot  there  had  long  been,  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
North  American  continent,  in  which  the  Americans  had,  ever 
since  1843  (when  there  was  for  a  time  a  risk  of  its  being  occupied 
by  England),  declared  that  they  felt  directly  interested.  This 
is  the  island  group  of  Hawaii,  which  lies  2000  miles  to  the  south¬ 
west  of  San  Francisco.  Great  as  this  distance  is,  the  Americans 
conceived  that  the  position  of  these  isles  over  against  their  own 
Western  coast  would  be  so  threatening  to  their  commerce  in 
a  war  between  the  United  States  and  any  naval  power,  that 
they  could  not  suffer  the  islands  to  be  occupied  by,  or  even  to  fall 
under  the  influence  of,  any  European  nation.  No  European 
nation  had  of  late  years  betrayed  any  design  of  acquiring  such 
an  influence,  while  Great  Britain  and  France  had  expressly 
renounced  it.  However,  the  United  States  Government,  wishful 
to  provide  against  emergencies,  was  considering  the  purchase 
of  land  for  a  naval  station  at  Pearl  River  in  Oahu,  the  best 
harbour  in  the  group  there,  when  the  events  of  1898  led  to 
their  annexing  the  whole  of  it.2 

The  fate  of  Western  South  America  belongs  to  a  still  more 
distant  future ;  but  it  can  hardly  remain  unconnected  with 
what  is  already  by  far  the  greatest  power  in  the  Western  hemi¬ 
sphere.  When  capital,  which  is  accumulating  in  the  United  States 
with  extraordinary  rapidity,  is  no  longer  able  to  find  highly 
profitable  employment  in  the  development  of  Western  North 
America,  it  will  tend  to  seek  other  fields.  When  population  has 
filled  up  the  present  territory  of  the  United  States,  enterprising 
spirits  will  overflow  into  undeveloped  regions.  The  nearest  of 
these  is  Western  South  America,  the  elevated  plateaux  of  which 
are  habitable  by  Northern  races.  It  may  be  conjectured  that  the 
relations  of  the  vast  territories  in  Colombia,  Ecuador,  Peru,  and 
Bolivia,3  for  which  the  Spaniards  have  done  so  little,  and  which 
can  hardly  remain  for  ever  neglected,  will  one  day  become  far 
closer  with  the  United  States  than  with  any  European  power. 


1  As  to  Puerto  Rico,  see  next  chapter.  2  See  next  chapter. 

3  These  four  countries  have  a  total  area  of  about  1,580,000  square  miles, 
with  a  settled  population  not  exceeding  9,000,000,  besides  an  unascertained 
number  of  uncivilized  Indians. 


CHAPTER  XCVII 


THE  NEW  TRANSMARINE  DOMINIONS 

The  last  preceding  chapter,  written  in  1894,  has  been  allowed 
to  stand  because  it  describes  what  was  then  the  character  of  the 
foreign  policy  of  the  United  States  and  the  attitude  of  the  nation 
towards  other  Powers. 

Much  has  happened  since  then,  —  much  which  nobody  ex¬ 
pected,  —  and  in  order  to  present  a  view  of  the  facts  as  they 
stand  in  1910,  some  important  events  that  have  befallen  in  and 
since  1898  must  be  briefly  set  forth  but  without  the  comments 
which  might  be  proper  if  the  events  were  more  remote.1 

For  many  years  before  1898  the  disturbed  condition  of  the 
island  of  Cuba,  where  risings  against  the  Spanish  government 
occurred  from  time  to  time,  had  engaged  the  attention  of  the 
American  public.  Suggestions  were  often  made,  but  always 
rejected,  that  the  United  States  should,  as  the  nearest  neighbour, 
interfere  to  set  things  right.  At  last  an  insurrection  which, 
sometimes  smouldering  and  sometimes  blazing  out,  had  con¬ 
tinued  for  many  months,  the  Spanish  troops  being  apparently 
unable  to  stamp  it  out,  aroused  public  sentiment  and  led  the 
United  States  government  into  a  correspondence  with  Spain 
which  ended  in  a  war  between  the  two  nations.  Hostilities 
began  on  April  21,  1898,  and  were  virtually  over  in  the  July 
following. 

During  the  campaign  the  United  States  forces  had  occupied 
the  islands  of  Cuba  and  Puerto  Rico,  while  the  fleet  had  destroyed 
that  of  Spain  in  an  engagement  in  the  bay  of  Manila,  and  had 
occupied  that  town.  Though  neither  the  government  nor  the 
people  of  the  United  States  had  in  April,  1898,  the  slightest  idea 
of  acquiring  any  of  the  dominions  of  Spain,  a  sentiment  sprang  up 
against  abandoning  a  conquest  that  had  been  almost  accidentally 

1 A  comprehensive  and  thoughtful  treatment  of  the  political  problems  presented 
in  the  foreign  relations  of  the  United  States  may  be  found  in  a  book  by  Mr. 
A.  R.  Coolidge,  entitled  The  United  States  as  a  World  Power ,  published  in  1908. 

576 


chap,  xcvii  THE  NEW  TRANSMARINE  DOMINIONS 


577 


achieved,  and  in  particular  against  losing  a  port  which  would  be 
serviceable  as  a  naval  station,  so  the  Administration,  obeying 
this  sentiment,  stipulated  in  the  treaty  of  peace  (signed  in  April, 
1899),  for  the  cession  of  the  Philippine  Islands.  For  this  a  sum 
of  $20,000,000  was  paid  by  the  United  States  to  Spain,  which  at 
the  same  time  ceded  the  island  of  Guam  in  the  Pacific  Ocean 
and  also  the  island  of  Puerto  Rico,  with  a  population  of  about 
a  million.  Moreover,  at  the  very  outbreak  of  the  war  the 
United  States,  by  a  joint  resolution  of  both  houses  of  Congress, 
annexed  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  in  which  a  sort  of  republic  had 
been  set  up  by  the  American  residents,  who  had  five  years  before 
overthrown  the  native  monarchy,  then  in  the  incompetent  hands 
of  Queen  Liliuokalani.  The  self-constituted  authorities  of  this 
republic  had  forthwith  asked  the  United  States  government  for 
annexation;  and  this,  though  it  had  been  previously  refused  by 
President  Cleveland,  was  in  1898  accorded  with  general  ap¬ 
proval,  partly  because  the  war  with  Spain  had  evoked  a  wish 
to  have  a  naval  station  in  the  central  part  of  the  Pacific,  partly 
because  there  had  been  a  large  influx  of  Japanese  labourers  into 
the  isles,  and  the  Americans  feared  that  if  they  did  not  take  the 
islands,  Japan  would. 

Thus  in  1899  the  United  States  found  itself  suddenly  and  un¬ 
expectedly  in  the  possession  of  three  considerable  pieces  of  trans¬ 
marine  tropical  territory,  inhabited  by  races  diverse  in  blood, 
speech,  and  customs  from  its  own  people  and  from  one  another. 
A  fourth  bit  of  territory,  extremely  small,  but  serviceable  from 
the  excellent  harbour  it  contains,  is  the  island  of  Tutuila  in  the 
Samoan  group.  As  far  back  as  1872  the  United  States  had 
acquired  a  sort  of  interest  in  it ;  and  this,  by  a  treaty  with 
Britain  and  Germany,  was  turned  into  sovereignty  in  1899. 
Still  later  a  fifth  acquisition,  small  in  extent  but  great  in  value, 
was  made  by  the  cession  to  the  United  States  of  a  strip  of  land 
five  miles  wide  on  each  side  of  the  line  to  be  followed  by  the 
inter-oceanic  ship  Canal  from  the  Atlantic  at  Colon  to  the  Pacific 
at  Panama.  This  grant,  which  under  a  right  of  administration 
practically  amounts  to  sovereignty,  was  obtained  from  the  little 
republic  of  Panama  immediately  after  it  had  revolted  and 
severed  itself  from  the  much  larger  republic  of  Colombia. 

Each  of  these  five  acquisitions  has  been  dealt  with  in  a  separate 
and  distinct  way.  Hawaii  has  been  erected  into  a  Territory  with 
a  governor  and  legislature  of  two  houses,  much  as  if  it  were  on 


578 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  continent  of  North  America.  As  its  population  of  Ameri¬ 
can  ancl  British  stock  is  very  small,  the  bulk  of  the  inhabitants 
being  Japanese  and  Chinese,  with  nearly  30,000  Hawaiian  abo¬ 
rigines  and  almost  as  many  Portuguese,  there  is  no  present 
likelihood  of  its  being  turned  into  a  State  of  the  Union.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  is,  however,  in  full  force  in 
Hawaii,  as  in  other  Territories,  and  it  is  for  tariff  purposes  a 
part  of  the  United  States. 

The  island  of  Puerto  Rico  has  received  a  sort  of  colonial  or¬ 
ganization,  with  a  legislature,  the  lower  branch  of  which  is  elected 
on  a  limited  suffrage,  while  the  upper  is  composed  of  a  few  offi¬ 
cials  and  other  persons  appointed  by  the  Federal  government. 
The  inhabitants,  though  they  did  not  object  to  annexation,  and 
have  gained  by  it  in  material  prosperity,  are  not  quite  satisfied 
with  these  arrangements,  desiring  a  fuller  autonomy,  or  even 
to  be  admitted  as  a  State  of  the  Union.  Considering,  however, 
that  they  speak  Spanish  only,  and  contain  a  negro  element 
amounting  to  nearly  one-third  of  the  whole  population,  in  which 
only  seventeen  per  cent  can  read  and  write,  these  wishes  may 
have  to  wait  some  time  for  fulfilment.  The  people  are  orderly, 
and  education  has  begun  to  make  rapid  progress. 

Guam  and  Tutuila  are  nothing  more  than  naval  coaling  sta¬ 
tions.  But  the  Philippine  group,  with  their  area  of  128,000 
square  miles  and  their  population  of  nearly  eight  millions,  much 
of  it  uncivilized  or  semi-civilized,  while  the  rest  consists  of  Malays 
who  have  received  with  a  slight  admixture  of  Spanish  blood  a 
Spanish  Roman  Catholic  type  of  civilization,  presents  adminis¬ 
trative  problems  of  no  small  difficulty.  Although  there  was  in 
the  islands  much  disaffection  with  Spanish  rule,  and  an  insur¬ 
rection  had  broken  out  shortly  before  the  American  fleet  appeared 
on  the  scene,  there  was  no  sort  of  wish  to  be  transferred  to  the 
United  States,  and  when  the  islanders  found  themselves  ceded 
by  their  late  masters,  the  insurgents  quickly  turned  their  arms 
against  those  whom  they  had  at  first  regarded  as  deliverers. 
Resistance  was  stamped  out  after  a  guerrilla  warfare  of  three 
years,  and  in  the  large  island  of  Mindanao,  as  well  as  in  Luzon, 
a  regular  administration  has  been  created,  but  local  troubles 
have  from  time  to  time  occurred,  and  the  risk  of  their  recur¬ 
rence  may  not  be  past.  In  Luzon  great  improvements  have 
been  effected  in  the  way  both  of  constructing  roads  and  other 
public  works,  and  of  introducing  sanitary  reforms.  Municipal 


chap,  xcvii  THE  NEW  TRANSMARINE  DOMINIONS 


579 


councils  have  been  set  up,  elected  by  the  people ;  natives  are 
being  appointed  to  administrative  posts,  and  the  friars,  who 
were  large  land  owners  and  enjoyed  great  power,  have  been 
settled  with  on  liberal  terms. 

Chinese  immigration  has  been  forbidden,  and  the  taking  up 
of  land  by  incorporated  companies  restricted.  It  may  fairly 
be  said  that  the  American  authorities  have  exerted  themselves 
in  a  worthy  spirit  for  the  benefit  of  all  sections  of  the  popula¬ 
tion  irrespective  of  race  or  religion.  Nevertheless  the  natives 
have  so  far  shown  themselves  less  grateful  for  benefits  received 
than  desirous  of  an  autonomy  for  which  neither  their  rulers  nor 
impartial  foreign  observers  deem  them  qualified.  They  are  not 
the  only  people  which  apparently  prefers  governing  itself  badly 
to  being  well  governed  by  strangers. 

A  sharp  controversy  arose  in  the  United  States  over  both  the 
constitutionality  and  the  wisdom  of  the  annexation  of  the  Philip¬ 
pines,  most  of  the  Democrats  and  a  section  of  the  Republican 
party  arguing  that  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  were  being  forsaken,  and  that  these  remote  tropical  terri¬ 
tories,  inhabited  by  a  population  diverse  in  blood  and  speech 
from  their  rulers,  would  be  rather  an  encumbrance  than  a  source 
of  strength  to  the  Republic.  The  subject  was  a  prominent  issue 
at  the  Presidential  election  of  1900.  This  controversy  has 
since  then  gradually  subsided,  and  it  played  little  part  in  the 
elections  of  1904  and  1908.  There  has,  however,  continued  to 
exist  much  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  benefits  derivable  by 
the  United  States  from  the  acquisition  of  the  islands,  and  as  to 
the  action  proper  to  be  taken  regarding  them  in  the  future. 
The  absorption  of  men’s  minds  in  domestic  questions  and  the 
fact  that  hardly  any  one  proposes  to  withdraw  forthwith  from 
the  islands,  leaving  them  “  to  sink  or  swim,”  has  latterly  reduced 
public  interest  in  the  matter,  the  discussion  of  which  began  to 
seem  rather  academical  than  practical  when  it  appeared  that 
feeling  had  so  far  cooled  and  opinions  so  far  approximated  that 
the  one  party  no  longer  claimed  any  credit  for  the  conquest 
and  the  other  could  not  suggest  how  to  get  rid  of  it. 

Large  sums  have  been  voted  from  the  revenues  of  the  United 
States  to  be  expended  in  the  islands,  and  the  tariff  upon  their 
products  entering  United  States  ports  was  in  1909  lowered  almost 
to  the  point  of  extinction.  Were  they  deemed  to  be  a  part  of 
the  United  States  within  the  meaning  of  Article  I,  §  8,  par.  1 


580 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


of  the  Constitution,  their  products  would  of  course  be  subject  to 
no  import  duties  at  all.  A  legislature  has  been  established,  one 
house  of  which  is  elected  on  a  property  qualification,  the  other 
being  composed  of  officials,  as  in  some  British  Crown  Colonies. 
The  progress  made  in  the  provision  of  instruction  is  very  re¬ 
markable  when  the  difficulties  of  the  country  are  considered, 
for  out  of  about  2,000,000  of  children  between  the  ages  of  five 
and  eighteen,  570,000  were  in  1909  enrolled,  with  an  average 
attendance  of  321,000.  Provision  has  been  made  for  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  a  university,  and  the  medical  school  which  is  to 
form  a  part  of  it  is  already  at  work. 

The  Canal  Zone  (as  it  is  called)  at  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  is 
important  not  for  its  area,  only  474  square  miles,  but  from  its  posi¬ 
tion,  for  it  brings  the  United  States  into  direct  contact  with  Cen¬ 
tral  America,  while  the  future  control  of  the  Canal  opens  up  a 
vista  of  closer  relations  with  the  commerce  and  possibly  the  poli¬ 
tics  of  western  South  America.  The  strip  of  territory  which 
has  been  ceded  is  administered  by  the  War  Department,  and 
the  legal  status  of  its  inhabitants  under  the  Federal  Constitu¬ 
tion  does  not  seem  to  have  been  precisely  determined.  Great 
difficulty  has  indeed  been  found  in  adjusting  to  these  new  trans¬ 
marine  possessions  the  provisions  of  an  instrument  framed  with 
no  idea  that  it  might  ever  have  to  be  applied  to  remote  countries 
inhabited  by  alien  peoples  and  held  by  the  sword.  The  over¬ 
whelming  naval  strength  of  the  United  States  as  towards  the 
weak  republics  of  Colombia  and  Costa  Rica,  and  the  still  weaker 
new  republic  of  Panama,  makes  the  defence  of  the  Zone  an 
easy  matter,  for  the  great  difficulty  of  former  days  —  a  high 
mortality  due  to  frequent  outbreaks  of  yellow  fever  and  the 
constant  presence  of  ma)  arial  fevers  —  has  been  removed  by 
the  sanitary  measures  carried  out  here,  as  previously  in  Cuba, 
by  the  American  authorities  with  an  admirable  energy  and 
skill  which  entitle  them  to  the  undying  gratitude  of  mankind. 

Cuba,  the  island  whose  troubles  led  the  United  States  into 
the  war  which  brought  about  these  recent  acquisitions,  was  not 
herself  annexed,  nor  was  even  any  protectorate  established. 
But  in  1901,  at  the  time  when  the  American  forces  were  in  occu¬ 
pation,  though  preparing  to  leave  the  island,  Congress  passed 
a  statute  the  provisions  of  which  were  subsequently  incorpor¬ 
ated  in  an  ordinance  appended  to  the  Cuban  Constitution  and 
ultimately  embodied  in  a  treaty  between  the  United  States  and 


chap,  xcvii  THE  NEW  TRANSMARINE  DOMINIONS 


581 


the  republic  of  Cuba  in  1903.  These  provisions  declare,  inter 
alia,  that  the  Cuban  government  shall  never  permit  any  foreign 
Power  to  obtain  lodgment  in  or  control  over  any  part  of  the 
island  ;  that  the  United  States  may  intervene  for  the  preserva¬ 
tion  of  Cuban  independence  and  the  maintenance  of  a  govern¬ 
ment  adequate  for  the  protection  of  life,  property,  and  individual 
liberty ;  that  the  Cuban  government  shall  carry  out  sanitary 
measures  such  as  will  prevent  the  recurrence  of  epidemic  and  in¬ 
fectious  diseases,  and  that  it  will  also  lease  or  sell  to  the  United 
States  lands  for  coaling  or  naval  stations  at  points  to  be  subse¬ 
quently  agreed  upon.  Under  these  provisions,  commonly  known 
as  “the  Platt  amendment,”  the  harbours  of  Guantanamo  and 
Bahia  Honda  were  subsequently  leased  to  the  United  States. 
The  closeness  of  the  tie  uniting  Cuba  with  her  powerful  neigh¬ 
bour  was  ultimately  further  recognized  by  the  special  treat¬ 
ment  extended  by  each  country  to  the  other  in  the  framing  of 
customs  duties. 

The  stipulations  above  mentioned  create  a  very  peculiar  re¬ 
lation  between  the  United  States  and  Cuba,  although  they 
neither  amount  to  an  alliance  nor  destroy  the  character  of  the 
island  as  a  sovereign  state,  independent  in  general  international 
relations.  In  1906  effect  was  given  to  the  clause  providing  for 
intervention.  Disorders  having  arisen  in  Cuba,  a  small  body 
of  American  troops  was  despatched  thither.  Having  reestab¬ 
lished  tranquillity  and  supervised  the  election  of  a  new  President, 
it  withdrew  early  in  1909.  It  is  generally  believed  that  if  similar 
difficulties  were  to  recur,  a  similar  intervention  would  follow. 
But  the  United  States  government  has  given  every  evidence  of 
its  honest  desire  to  avoid  the  annexation  of  the  island  or  the 
assumption  of  any  further  responsibilities  in  respect  of  it,  nor 
is  there  reason  to  think  that  this  policy,  deliberately  adopted, 
will  be  soon  or  lightly  forsaken.  Reciprocal  reductions  have 
been  made  in  the  respective  tariffs  of  the  two  governments,  and 
a  good  deal  of  American  capital  has  now  been  invested  in  the 
island. 

The  notion  that  all  the  republics  of  the  New  World  ought, 
simply  because  they  are  called  republics,  to  stand  closely  together 
apart  from  the  rest  of  the  world  —  a  notion  as  old  as  the  early 
part  of  last  century  and  savouring  of  those  simple  days  —  was 
revived,  but  with  a  view  rather  to  business  than  to  sentiment, 
when  in  1899  a  Pan-American  Congress  was  invited  to  meet  in 


582 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


Washington  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  trying  to  arrange  some¬ 
thing  approaching  a  general  tariff  system  for  the  independent 
states  of  the  Western  hemisphere.  That  project  came  to  nothing, 
but  three  subsequent  Congresses  have  been  held,  in  Mexico,  in 
Rio  de  Janeiro,  and  in  Buenos  Ayres,  at  the  two  latter  of  which 
various  questions  of  common  interest  have  been  discussed,  and 
a  certain  reciprocal  interest  is  believed  to  have  been  awakened. 
Under  the  auspices  of  these  gatherings,  moreover,  there  has 
been  established  in  Washington  a  Bureau  of  American  Repub¬ 
lics  which  collects  from  all  quarters,  and  supplies  to  all  enquirers, 
information  relating  to  the  industry,  products,  commerce,  and 
legislation  of  these  States  which  promises  to  be  of  real  value, 
and  doubtless  tends  to  bring  the  American  countries  into  closer 
commercial  touch  with  one  another,  each  republic  having  a 
right  to  be  represented  in  the  organization  of  the  Bureau.  In 
other  ways  also  the  relations  of  the  United  States  with  Latin 
America  have  become  closer  and  more  frequent.  On  several 
occasions  there  have  been  pacific  interventions  by  the  former, 
sometimes  in  order  to  give  protection  against  European  powers, 
sometimes  for  the  purpose  of  averting  conflicts.  In  the  case  of 
Central  America,  where  the  independent  states  are  the  smallest, 
the  most  turbulent,  the  most  bellicose,  and  the  least  advanced 
in  point  of  civilization,  efforts  were  made  in  1907-8  to  take 
action  in  conjunction  with  Mexico,  as  being  the  republic  not 
only  the  nearest  to  the  disturbed  area,  but  also  far  more  power¬ 
ful  and  enlightened  than  are  most  of  its  petty  neighbours  to 
the  South.  Later,  under  the  joint  auspices  of  Mexico  and  the 
United  States,  there  was  set  up  a  Central  American  Court  of 
Arbitration,  by  whose  action,  if  the  rather  irresponsible  presi¬ 
dential  dictators  can  be  compelled  to  resort  to  it,  it  is  hoped 
that  the  constantly  recurring  strife  that  has  retarded  progress 
in  these  countries  may  be  prevented. 

The  temptation  to  intervene  and  either  bring  to  reason  or 
dethrone  and  expel  the  military  adventurers  who  rule  most  of 
these  states  is  often  a  strong  one,  especially  to  a  nation  which, 
eager  to  develop  its  trade  on  its  own  continent,  perceives  that 
till  peace  and  order  are  secured,  trade  cannot  advance.  But  the 
wisest  statesmen  of  America  feel  that  the  temptation  ought  to 
be  resisted.  The  example  of  other  countries,  and  especially  of 
Great  Britain  in  India  and  of  Russia  in  Central  Asia,  has  shown 
how  difficult  it  is  for  a  strong  power,  when  once  it  has  inter- 


chap,  xcvii  THE  NEW  TRANSMARINE  DOMINIONS 


583 


fered  to  put  down  one  government  and  set  up  another,  to  with¬ 
draw  and  leave  the  new  government  to  take  its  chances.  Most 
of  the  advances  of  Russia  in  Central  and  Northern  and  of  Eng¬ 
land  in  Southern  Asia  have  arisen  because  an  interference  which 
seemed  justifiable  or  even  necessary  led  on  to  an  annexation 
that  was  never  intended,  and  in  many  cases  never  desired. 
With  this  lesson  before  them  such  statesmen  have  generally 
sought  to  restrain  any  popular  impulse,  whether  ambitious  or 
philanthropic,  to  step  out  of  their  own  sphere.  They  have 
another  sound  reason  in  the  fact  that  any  action  on  their  part 
that  could  seem  aggressive  or  over-bearing  would  rekindle  all 
over  Spanish  America  those  suspicions  of  the  too  powerful 
sister  republic  which  have  been  more  or  less  felt  ever  since  the 
Mexican  War  of  1846.  To  allay  such  suspicions  has  been  a 
main  aim  of  recent  United  States  policy. 

Americans  have  latterly  been  wont  to  speak  of  themselves  as 
having  become,  through  the  events  of  1898,  a  World  Power. 
So  far  as  potential  strength  was  concerned,  they  were  a  World 
Power  even  before  that  year,  for  their  material  resources  were 
at  least  equal  to  those  of  any  other  state.  But  it  is  true  that 
the  acquisition  of  transmarine  dominions  and  the  wider  horizon 
which  the  control  of  these  opened  out  before  them,  have  led  to 
their  taking  a  larger  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  planet  as  a  whole 
than  they  had  ever  done  before.  To  this  tendency  another  cause 
also  has  contributed.  The  immense  expansion  of  the  produc¬ 
tive  and  manufacturing  industries  of  the  country  has  induced 
a  desire  to  have  a  larger  share  in  world  commerce  and  to  increase 
the  mercantile  marine.1  “  New  foreign  markets  for  American 
goods  ”  loom  larger  in  the  eyes  of  the  mercantile  class,  and 
Administrations  have  proclaimed  the  wish  and  purpose  to  do 
all  that  can  be  done  to  promote  American  enterprise  abroad. 
This  tendency,  which  seems  likely  to  grow  stronger  in  the  years 
to  come,  has  taken  concrete  shape  not  only  in  stimulating  the 
effort  to  claim  for  the  United  States  a  sort  of  hegemony  among 
the  republics  of  its  own  hemisphere,  but  also  in  the  adoption  of 
a  forward  commercial  policy  in  the  Far  East,  where  the  doctrine 
of  what  is  called  “  the  Open  Door  ”  for  trade  in  Manchuria  and 
China  has  been  repeatedly  proclaimed  as  the  watchword  of  the 

1  Mr.  Coolidge  observes  that  whereas  in  1880  manufactured  goods  formed 
but  12%  per  cent  of  the  total  exports  (in  value)  from  the  United  States  in  1906 
these  had  risen  to  36%  per  cent.  (The  United  States  as  a  World  Power,  p.  177.) 


584 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


United  States,  and  as  the  principle  it  seeks  to  urge  upon  other 
Powers. 

A  question  has  been  raised  as  to  whether  the  traditional  maxim 
that  the  United  States  should  confine  the  assertion  of  its  interests 
to  the  Western  Hemisphere  —  a  maxim  correlative  to  the  declara¬ 
tion  in  which  Alonroe  and  Adams  stated  their  objection  to  any 
fresh  establishment  of  European  powers  therein  —  applies  to 
the*  eastern  side  of  Asia  as  well  as  to  the  rest  of  the  Old  World.1 
Is  or  is  not  the  Pacific  Ocean  to  be  the  boundary  of  American 
action  on  the  one  side  as  the  Atlantic  is  on  the  other  ?  To  this 
question  no  answer  has  so  far  been  returned. 

As  with  the  Spanish  War  there  came  a  great  enlargement  of 
the  regular  army  of  the  United  States,  so  with  the  acquisition  of 
territories  beyond  the  sea  and  the  assumption  of  wider  responsi¬ 
bilities  in  the  world,  there  came  an  even  greater  expansion  of 
the  navy,  which  had  in  1910  become  one  of  the  three  strongest 
afloat.  In  1889  it  had  cost  only.  $25,000,000  and  in  1909  was 
costing  $121,000,000. 

What  have  been  the  broad  results  of  these  changes,  and  what 
future  do  they  portend  for  the  United  States  as  a  World  Power  ? 

If  ever  there  was  a  warning  administered  to  overconfident 
prophets,  that  warning  was  given  by  the  events  of  1898.  It  was 
the  Unforeseen  that  happened.  There  was  nothing  in  the  world 
which  the  American  people  less  expected  when  they  went  into 
the  war  against  Spain  than  that  they  should  come  out  of  it  the 
sovereigns  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  four  thousand  miles  from 
their  own  shores.  Even  the  victory  at  Manila  was  won  with  no 
intent  to  acquire  the  isles.  That  was  the  result  of  a  series  of 
accidents.  The  Americans  drifted  into  dominion,  and  were 
amazed  to  find  whither  they  had  drifted. 

But  without  speculating  about  the  future,  a  few  remarks  may 
be  made  on  the  present  state  of  national  opinion. 

The  people  have  not  been  seized  by  any  lust  for  further  con¬ 
quests.  From  1903  till  1910  they  appeared  to  be  taking  com¬ 
paratively  little  interest  in  their  new  possessions,  which  were 
seldom  mentioned  even  at  election  time,  and  regarding  the  ad¬ 
ministration  of  which  no  more  controversy  was  arising  in  the 
national  legislature  than  in  the  British  parliament  about  Ceylon 
or  Borneo.  It  is  only  tariff  questions  affecting  these  transmarine 
territories  that  have  latterly  given  rise  to  debates  in  Congress. 

1  See  upon  this  subject  the  remarks  of  Mr.  Coolidge  ut  supra ,  pp.  117-119. 


chap,  xcvii  THE  NEW  TRANSMARINE  DOMINIONS 


585 


Among  statesmen,  who  must  of  course  study  the  position  both 
in  its  actualities  and  its  possibilities,  there  is  a  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  the  best  mode  of  dealing  with  the  possessions  al¬ 
ready  acquired ;  for  though  no  one  proposes  to  give  up  Hawaii  or 
Puerto  Rico,  some  few  have  recommended  the  abandonment  of 
the  Philippines,  while  others,  including  all  the  members  of  the 
Administrations  in  power  from  1898  till  1910,  have  held  that  the 
islands  ought  to  be  retained,  at  least  until  their  people  can  be  pro¬ 
nounced  fit  for  self-government.  But  as  to  future  policy,  all 
agree  in  the  view  that  the  United  States  ought  to  make  no  fur¬ 
ther  conquests  and,  if  possible,  avoid  the  annexation  of  any  more 
territory.  Such  territory,  they  observe,  would  lie  within  the 
tropics,  for  there  is  none  to  be  had  elsewhere,  and  therefore  the 
population  would  not  be  of  American  or  North  European  stock. 
It  would  either  have  to  be  governed  as  a  subject  colony  or  else 
admitted  to  the  Union  as  a  State.  The  objection  to  the  former 
alternative  is  that  not  only  the  Constitution  and  frame  of  govern¬ 
ment,  but  the  political  habits  of  the  American  people,  are  not 
well  fitted  for  ruling  over  distant  subjects  of  another  race.  The 
thing  may  no  doubt  be  done,  and  in  the  Philippines  it  is  being 
done,  and  that  in  a  worthy  spirit.  But  it  is  not  a  welcome  task. 
The  Declaration  of  Independence  is  a  plant  ill  fitted  for  trans¬ 
plantation  to  tropical  lands  inhabited  by  backward  races.  The 
latter  alternative  (admission  to  the  Union)  presents  still  greater 
difficulties,  because  a  State  composed  of  citizens  speaking  a 
different  language,  unused  to  constitutional  self-government, 
imbued  with  quite  other  notions  and  traditions,  would  be  detri¬ 
mental  to  the  political  life  of  the  American  people,  as  a  foreign 
substance  lodged  in  the  physical  body  injures  or  endangers  its 
vital  forces.  Or,  to  put  it  shortly,  democratic  government  re¬ 
quires  for  its  success  the  equality  and  the  homogeneity  of  the 
citizens. 

Thoughtful  Americans  feel  that  the  Republic  has  already 
a  sufficiently  heavy  load  to  carry  in  ten  millions  of  negroes  and 
four  or  five  millions  of  recent  immigrants,  ignorant  of  its  insti¬ 
tutions.  To  add  other  millions  of  mixed  Spanish-Indian  or 
Spanish-negro  blood  would  be  an  evil  not  compensated  by  the 
gain  of  territory  and  possible  growth  of  trade.  The  recognition 
of  these  facts  and  the  dying  down  of  the  sudden  imperialistic 
impulse  of  1898-1900  make  it  probable  that  for  some  time  to 
come  American  policy  will  aim  at  avoiding  annexations,  or  in- 


586 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  y 


terventions  likely  to  lead  to  annexations.  As  to  the  more  dis¬ 
tant  future,  —  let  us  again  remind  ourselves  of  1898  and  be¬ 
ware  of  prophesying. 

In  realizing  herself  as  a  World  Power  America  has  not  become 
more  arrogant  or  more  combative.  Relations  with  Mexico  are 
better  than  ever  before,  and  still  more  noteworthy  is  the  growth 
of  friendliness  between  the  United  States  and  Canada,  evidenced 
by  the  conclusion  of  a  group  of  treaties  designed  to  remove, 
or  provide  means  for  the  settlement  of,  all  possible  causes  of 
controversy.  Though  there  are  in  her  people,  as  in  all  peoples, 
latent  bellicose  tendencies  capable  under  excitement  of  bursting 
into  a  blaze,  the  better  sentiment  which  desires  peace  and  en¬ 
deavours  to  substitute  arbitration  for  war  has  gained  strength ; 
and  all  that  recent  Administrations  have  done  in  concluding 
arbitration  treaties,  and  in  urging  on  other  Powers  the  desira¬ 
bility  of  establishing  permanent  Courts  of  Arbitration,  has  been 
heartily  approved  by  the  nation. 


CHAPTER  XCVIII 


LAISSEZ  FAIRE 

A  European  friend  of  a  philosophic  turn  of  mind  bade  me, 
when  he  heard  that  I  was  writing  this  book,  dedicate  at  least 
one  chapter  to  the  American  Theory  of  the  State.  I  answered 
that  the  Americans  had  no  theory  of  the  State,  and  felt  no  need 
for  one,  being  content,  like  the  English,  to  base  their  constitu¬ 
tional  ideas  upon  law  and  history. 

In  England  and  America  alike  (I  pursued)  one  misses  a  whole 
circle  and  system  of  ideas  and  sentiments  which  have  been  potent 
among  the  nations  of  the  European  continent.  To  those  nations 
the  State  is  a  great  moral  power,  the  totality  of  the  wisdom  and 
conscience  and  force  of  the  people,  yet  greater  far  than  the  sum 
of  the  individuals  who  compose  the  people,  because  consciously 
and  scientifically,  if  also  by  a  law  of  nature,  organized  for  pur¬ 
poses  which  the  people  indistinctly  apprehend,  and  because 
it  is  the  inheritor  of  a  deep-rooted  reverence  and  an  almost 
despotic  authority.  There  is  a  touch  of  mysticism  in  this  con¬ 
ception,  which  has  survived  the  change  from  arbitrary  to  repre¬ 
sentative  government,  and  almost  recalls  the  sacredness  that 
used  to  surround  the  mediaeval  church.  In  England  the  tradi¬ 
tions  of  an  ancient  monarchy  and  the  social  influence  of  the 
class  which  till  lately  governed  have  enabled  the  State  and  its 
service  to  retain  a  measure  of  influence  and  respect.  No  one, 
however,  attributes  any  special  wisdom  to  the  State,  no  one 
treats  those  concerned  with  administration  or  legislation  as  a 
superior  class.  Officials  are  strictly  held  within  the  limits  of 
their  legal  powers,  and  are  obeyed  only  so  far  as  they  can  show 
that  they  are  carrying  out  the  positive  directions  of  the  law. 
Their  conduct,  and  indeed  the  decisions  of  the  highest  State 
organs,  are  criticised,  perhaps  with  more  courtesy,  but  otherwise 
in  exactly  the  same  way  as  those  of  other  persons  and  bodies. 
Yet  the  State  is  dignified,  and  men  are  proud  to  serve  it.  From 
the  American  mind,  that  which  may  be  called  the  mystic  aspect 

587 


588 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


of  the  State,  and  the  theory  of  its  vast  range  of  action,  are  as 
conspicuously  absent  as  they  are  from  the  English.  They  are 
absent,  not  because  America  is  a  democracy,  but  because  the 
political  ideas  of  the  two  branches  of  the  race  are  fundamen¬ 
tally  the  same,  a  fact  which  continental  observers  of  the  United 
States  constantly  fail  to  appreciate.  In  America,  however, 
even  the  dignity  of  the  State  has  vanished.  It  seems  actually 
less  than  the  individuals  who  live  under  it.  The  people,  that  is 
to  say  the  vast  multitude  of  men  who  inhabit  the  country,  inspire 
respect  or  awe,  the  organism  is  ignored.  The  State  is  nothing 
but  a  name  for  the  legislative  and  administrative  machinery 
whereby  certain  business  of  the  inhabitants  is  despatched.  It 
has  no  more  conscience,  or  moral  mission,  or  title  to  awe  and 
respect,  than  a  commercial  company  for  working  a  railroad  or 
a  mine ;  and  those  who  represent  it  are  treated  in  public  and 
in  private  with  quite  as  little  deference. 

Hereupon  my  friend  rejoined  that  people  in  America  must 
at  least  have  some  general  views  about  the  functions  of  govern¬ 
ment  and  its  relations  to  the  individual.  “We  are  told,”  he 
continued,  “that  the  whole  American  polity  is  more  coherent, 
more  self-consistent,  than  that  of  England ;  it  must  therefore 
have  what  the  Germans  call  ‘  ground-ideas. ’  There  is  a  profu¬ 
sion  of  legislation.  Legislation  must  proceed  upon  these  ideas, 
and  by  examining  the  current  legislation  of  the  Federal  govern¬ 
ment  and  of  the  States  you  will  be  able  to  dis  over  and  present 
the  beliefs  and  notions  regarding  the  State  which  the  Americans 
cherish.” 

The  term  “ground-ideas”  does  not  happily  describe  the  doc¬ 
trines  that  prevail  in  the  United  States,  for  the  people  are  not 
prone  to  form  or  state  their  notions  in  a  philosophic  way.  There 
are,  however,  certain  dogmas  or  maxims  which  are  in  so  far 
fundamental  that  they  have  told  widely  on  political  thought, 
and  that  one  usually  strikes  upon  them  when  sinking  a  shaft, 
so  to  speak,  into  an  American  mind.  Among  such  dogmas  are 
the  following  :  — 

Certain  rights  of  the  individual,  as,  for  instance,  his  right  to 
the  enjoyment  of  what  he  has  earned,  and  to  the  free  expression 
of  his  opinions,  are  primordial  and  sacred. 

All  political  power  springs  from  the  people,  and  the  most 
completely  popular  government  is  the  best. 

Legislatures,  officials,  and  all  other  agents  of  the  sovereign 


CHAP.  XCVIII 


LAISSEZ  FAIRE 


589 


people  ought  to  be  strictly  limited  by  law,  by  each  other,  and 
by  the  shortness  of  the  terms  of  office. 

Where  any  function  can  be  equally  well  discharged  by  a 
central  or  by  a  local  body,  it  ought  by  preference  to  be  entrusted 
to  the  local  body,  for  a  centralized  administration  is  more  likely 
to  be  tyrannical,  inefficient,  and  impure  than  one  which,  being 
on  a  small  scale,  is  more  fully  within  the  knowledge  of  the 
citizens  and  more  sensitive  to  their  opinion. 

Two  men  are  wiser  than  one,  one  hundred  than  ninety-nine, 
thirty  millions  than  twenty-nine  millions.  Whether  they  are 
wiser  or  not,  the  will  of  the  larger  number  must  prevail  against 
the  will  of  the  smaller.  But  the  majority  is  not  wiser  because 
it  is  called  the  Nation,  or  because  it  controls  the  government, 
but  only  because  it  is  more  numerous.  The  nation  is  nothing 
but  so  many  individuals.  The  government  is  nothing  but 
certain  representatives  and  officials,  agents  who  are  here  to-day 
and  gone  to-morrow. 

The  less  of  government  the  better ;  that  is  to  say,  the  fewer 
occasions  for  interfering  with  individual  citizens  are  allowed 
to  officials,  and  the  less  time  citizens  have  to  spend  in  looking 
after  their  officials,  so  much  the  more  will  the  citizens  and  the 
community  prosper.  The  functions  of  government  must  be 
kept  at  their  minimum. 

The  first  five  of  these  dogmas  have  been  discussed  and  illus¬ 
trated  in  earlier  chapters.  The  last  of  them  needs  a  little 
examination,  because  it  suggests  points  of  comparison  with  the 
Old  World,  and  because  the  meaning  of  it  lies  in  the  applica¬ 
tion.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  the  functions  of  govern¬ 
ment  should  be  kept  at  a  minimum ;  but  the  bureaucrats  of 
Russia  might  say  the  same.  What  is  this  minimum?  Every 
nation,  every  government,  every  philosopher,  has  his  own  view 
as  to  the  functions  which  it  must  be  taken  to  include. 

The  doctrine  of  Laissez  faire,  or  non-interference  by  govern¬ 
ment  with  the  citizen,  has  two  foundations,  which  may  be  called 
the  sentimental  and  the  rational.  The  sentimental  ground  is 
the  desire  of  the  individual  to  be  let  alone,  to  do  as  he  pleases, 
indulge  his  impulses,  follow  out  his  projects.  The  rational 
ground  is  the  principle,  gathered  from  an  observation  of  the 
phenomena  of  society,  that  interference  by  government  more 
often  does  harm  than  good  —  that  is  to  say,  that  the  desires 
and  impulses  of  men  when  left  to  themselves  are  more  likely 


590 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


by  their  natural  collision  and  co-operation  to  work  out  a  happy 
result  for  the  community  and  the  individuals  that  compose  it 
than  will  be  attained  by  the  conscious  endeavours  of  the  State 
controlling  and  directing  those  desires  and  impulses.  There 
are  laws  of  nature  governing  mankind  as  well  as  the  material 
world ;  and  man  will  thrive  better  under  these  laws  than  under 
those  which’  he  makes  for  himself  through  the  organization  we 
call  Government. 

Of  these  two  views,  the  former  or  sentimental  has  been  ex¬ 
tremely  strong  in  America,  being  rooted  in  the  character  and 
habits  of  the  race,  and  seeming  to  issue  from  that  assertion  of 
individual  liberty  which  is  proclaimed  in  such  revered  docu¬ 
ments  as  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  older  State 
constitutions.  The  latter  view,  incessantly  canvassed  in  Europe, 
has  played  no  great  part  in  the  United  States ;  or  rather  it  has 
appeared  in  the  form  not  of  a  philosophic  induction  from  ex¬ 
perience,  but  of  a  common-sense  notion  that  everybody  knows 
his  own  business  best,  that  individual  enterprise  has  “made 
America/’  and  will  “run  America,”  better  than  the  best  govern¬ 
ment  could  do. 

The  State  governments  of  1776  and  the  National  government 
of  1789  started  from  ideas,  mental  habits,  and  administrative 
practice  generally  similar  to  those  of  contemporary  England. 
Now  England  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  that  one  among 
European  countries  in  which  government  had  the  narrowest 
sphere.  The  primitive  paternal  legislation  of  the  later  Middle 
Ages  had  been  abandoned.  The  central  government  had  not 
begun  to  stretch  out  its  arms  to  interfere  with  quarter  sessions 
in  the  counties,  or  municipal  corporations  in  the  towns,  to 
care  for  the  health,  or  education,  or  morals  of  the  people.  That 
strengthening  and  reorganization  of  administration  which  was 
in  progress  in  many  parts  of  the  continent,  as  in  Prussia  under 
Frederick  the  Great,  and  in  Portugal  under  Pombal,  had  not 
spread  to  England,  and  would  have  been  resisted  there  by  men 
of  conservative  tendencies  for  one  set  of  reasons,  and  men  of 
liberal  tendencies  for  another.  Everything  tended  to  make 
the  United  States  in  this  respect  more  English  than  England, 
for  the  circumstances  of  colonial  life,  the  process  of  settling 
the  western  wilderness,  the  feelings  evoked  by  the  struggle 
against  George  III,  all  went  to  intensify  individualism,  the 
love  of  enterprise,  and  the  pride  in  personal  freedom.  And 


CHAP.  XCVIII 


LAISSEZ  FAIRE 


591 


from  that  day  to  this,  individualism,  the  love  of  enterprise,  and 
the  pride  in  personal  freedom,  have  been  deemed  by  Americans 
not  only  their  choicest,  bub  their  peculiar  and  exclusive  possessions. 

The  hundred  years  which  have  passed  since  the  birth  of  the 
Republic  have,  however,  brought  many  changes  with  them. 
Individualism  is  no  longer  threatened  by  arbitrary  kings,  and 
the  ramparts  erected  to  protect  it  from  their  attacks  are  useless 
and  grass-grown.  If  any  assaults  are  to  be  feared  they  will 
come  from  another  quarter.  New  causes  are  at  work  in  the 
world  tending  not  only  to  lengthen  the  arms  of  government, 
but  to  make  its  touch  quicker  and  firmer.  Do  these  causes 
operate  in  America  as  well  as  in  Europe?  and,  if  so,  does 
America,  in  virtue  of  her  stronger  historical  attachment  to 
individualism,  oppose  a  more  effective  resistance  to  them  ? 

I  will  mention  a  few  among  them.  Modern  civilization,  in 
becoming  more  complex  and  refined,  has  become  more  exacting. 
It  discerns  more  benefits  which  the  organized  power  of  govern¬ 
ment  can  secure,  and  grows  more  anxious  to  attain  them.  Men 
live  fast,  and  are  impatient  of  the  slow  working  of  natural  laws. 
The  triumphs  of  physical  science  have  enlarged  their  desires 
for  comfort,  and  shown  them  how  many  things  may  be  accom¬ 
plished  by  the  application  of  collective  skill  and  large  funds  which 
are  beyond  the  reach  of  individual  effort.  Still  greater  has  been 
the  influence  of  a  quickened  moral  sensitiveness  and  philan¬ 
thropic  sympathy.  The  sight  of  preventable  evil  is  painful, 
and  is  felt  as  a  reproach.  He  who  preaches  patience  and  reliance 
upon  natural  progress  is  thought  callous.  The  sense  of  sin  may, 
as  theologians  tell  us,  be  declining  ;  but  the  dislike  to  degrading 
and  brutalizing  vice  is  increasing  ;  there  is  a  warmer  recognition 
of  the  responsibility  of  each  man  for  his  neighbour,  and  a  more 
earnest  zeal  in  works  of  moral  reform.  Some  doctrines  which, 
because  they  had  satisfied  philosophers,  were  in  the  last  genera¬ 
tion  accepted  by  the  bulk  of  educated  men,  have  now  become,  if 
not  discredited  by  experience,  yet  far  from  popular.  They  are 
thought  to  be  less  universally  true,  less  completely  beneficial, 
than  was  at  first  supposed.  There  are  benefits  which  the  laws 
of  demand  and  supply  do  not  procure.  Unlimited  competition 
seems  to  press  too  hardly  on  the  weak.  The  power  of  groups  of 
men  organized  by  incorporation  as  joint-stock  companies,  or 
of  small  knots  of  rich  men  acting  in  combination,  has  developed 
with  unexpected  strength  in  unexpected  ways,  overshadowing 


592 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


individuals  and  even  communities,  and  showing  that  the  very 
freedom  of  association  which  men  sought  to  secure  by  law  when 
they  were  threatened  by  the  violence  of  potentates  may,  under 
the  shelter  of  the  law,  ripen  into  a  new  form  of  tyranny.  And 
in  some  countries,  of  which  Britain  may  be  taken  as  the  type, 
the  transference  of  political  power  from  the  few  to  the  many  has 
made  the  many  less  jealous  of  governmental  authority.  The 
government  is  now  their  creature,  their  instrument  —  why  should 
they  fear  to  use  it  ?  They  may  strip  it  to-morrow  of  the  power 
wdtli  which  they  have  clothed  it  to-day.  They  may  rest  con¬ 
fident  that  its  power  will  not  be  used  contrary  to  the  wishes 
of  the  majority  among  themselves.  And  as  it  is  in  this  majo  ity 
that  authority  has  now  been  vested,  they  readily  assume  that  the 
majority  will  be  right. 

How  potent  these  influences  and  arguments  have  proved  in 
the  old  countries  of  Europe,  how  much  support  they  receive  not 
only  from  popular  sentiment,  but  from  the  writings  of  a  vigor¬ 
ous  school  of  philosophical  economists,  all  the  world  knows. 
But  what  of  newer  communities,  where  the  evils  to  be  combated 
by  state  action  are  fewer,  where  the  spirit  of  liberty  and  the 
sentiment  of  individualism  are  more  intense  ?  An  eminent 
Englishman  expressed  the  general  belief  of  Englishmen  when 
he  said  in  1883  :  — 

“How  is  it  that  while  the  increasing  democracy  at  home  is  insisting, 
with  such  growing  eagerness,  on  more  control  by  the  state,  we  see  so 
small  a  corresponding  development  of  the  same  principle  in  the  United 
States  or  in  Anglo-Saxon  colonies  ?  It  is  clearly  not  simply  the  demo¬ 
cratic  spirit  which  demands  so  much  central  regulation.  Otherwise  we 
should  find  the  same  conditions  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  democracies  across 
the  seas.”  1 

That  belief  of  Englishmen  was  then  the  general  belief  of  Amer¬ 
icans  also.  Nine  men  out  of  ten  told  the  stranger  that  both 
the  Federal  government  and  the  State  governments  interfered 
little,  and  many  ascribed  the  prosperity  of  the  country  to  this 
noninterference  as  well  as  to  the  self-reliant  spirit  of  the  people. 
So  far  as  there  can  be  said  to  be  any  theory  on  the  subject  in  a 
land  which  gets  on  without  theories,  laissez  aller  has  been  the 
orthodox  and  accepted  doctrine  in  the  sphere  both  of  Federal 
and  of  State  legislation. 

Nevertheless  the  belief  wras  mistaken  then  and  has  since  then 

1  Mr.  Goschen,  in  an  address  delivered  at  Edinburgh. 


CHAP.  XCYIII 


LAISSEZ  FAIRE 


593 


become  still  more  evidently  groundless.  The  new  democracies 
of  America  are  as  eager  for  state  interference  as  the  democ¬ 
racy  of  Britain,  and  try  their  experiments  with  even  more  light¬ 
hearted  promptitude.  No  one  need  be  surprised  at  this  when 
he  reflects  that  the  causes  which  have  been  mentioned  as  telling 
on  Europe,  tell  on  the  United  States  with  no  less  force.  Men 
are  even  more  eager  than  in  Europe  to  hasten  on  to  the  ends 
they  desire,  even  more  impatient  of  the  delays  which  a  reliance 
on  natural  forces  involves,  even  more  sensitive  to  the  wretched¬ 
ness  of  their  fellows,  and  to  the  mischiefs  which  vice  and  igno¬ 
rance  breed.  Unrestricted  competitition  has  shown  its  dark  side  : 
great  corporations  have  been  more  powerful  than  in  Britain, 
and  more  inclined  to  abuse  their  power.  Having  lived  longer 
under  a  democratic  government,  the  American  masses  have 
realized  more  perfectly  than  those  of  Europe  that  they  are 
themselves  the  government.  Their  absolute  command  of  its 
organization  (except  where  constitutional  checks  are  inter¬ 
posed)  makes  them  turn  more  quickly  to  it  for  the  accomplish¬ 
ment  of  their  purposes.  And  in  the  State  legislatures  they 
possess  bodies  with  which  it  is  easy  to  try  legislative  experi¬ 
ments,  since  these  bodies,  though  not  of  themselves  disposed 
to  innovation,  are  mainly  composed  of  men  unskilled  in  eco¬ 
nomics,  inapt  to  foresee  any  but  the  nearest  consequences  of 
their  measures,  prone  to  gratify  any  whim  of  their  constituents, 
and  open  to  the  pressure  of  any  section  whose  self-interest  or 
impatient  philanthropy  clamours  for  some  departure  from  the 
general  principles  of  legislation.  For  crotchet-mongers  as  well 
as  for  intriguers  there  is  no  such  paradise  as  the  lobby  of  a 
State  legislature.  No  responsible  statesman  is  there  to  oppose 
them.  No  warning  voice  will  be  raised  by  a  scientific  economist. 

Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that,  though  the  Americans  have 
no  theory  of  the  State  and  take  a  narrow  view  of  its  functions, 
though  they  conceive  themselves  to  be  devoted  to  laissez  faire 
in  principle,  and  to  be  in  practice  the  most  self-reliant  of  peo¬ 
ples,  they  have  grown  no  less  accustomed  than  the  English  to 
carry  the  action  of  government  into  ever-widening  fields.  Eco¬ 
nomic  theory  did  not  stop  them,  for  practical  men  are  proud 
of  getting  on  without  theory.1  The  sentiment  of  individualism 

1  Till  recently,  there  has  been  little  theoretical  discussion  of  these  questions 
in  the  United  States.  At  present  the  two  tendencies,  that  of  faissez  faire  and 
that  which  leans  to  State  interference,  are  well  represented  by  able  writers. 

2q 


594 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


did  not  stop  them,  because  State  intervention  has  usually  taken 
the  form  of  helping  or  protecting  the  greater  number,  while 
restraining  the  few ;  and  personal  freedom  of  action,  the  love 
of  which  is  strong  enough  to  repel  the  paternalism  of  France 
or  Germany,  was  at  first  infringed  upon  only  at  the  bidding  of  a 
strong  moral  sentiment,  such  as  that  which  condemns  intem¬ 
perance.  So  gradual  was  the  process  of  transition  to  this  new 
habit  that  for  a  long  time  few  but  lawyers  and  economists 
became  aware  of  it,  and  the  lamentations  with  which  old-fash¬ 
ioned  English  thinkers  accompany  the  march  of  legislation  were 
in  America  scarcely  heard  and  wholly  unheeded.  Now  however 
the  complexity  of  civilization  and  the  desire  to  have  things  done 
which  a  public  authority  can  most  quickly  do,  and  the  cost 
of  which  is  less  felt  by  each  man  because  it  comes  out  of  the  public 
revenue,  to  which  he  is  only  one  of  many  contributors  —  these 
causes  have  made  the  field  of  governmental  action  almost  as  wide 
as  it  is  in  Europe,  and  men  recognize  the  fact. 

As  ordinary  private  law  and  administration  belong  to  the 
States,  it  is  chiefly  in  State  legislation  that  we  must  look  for 
instances  of  such  intervention.  Recent  illustrations  of  the 
tendency  to  do  by  law  what  men  were  formerly  let  to  do  for 
themselves,  and  to  prohibit  by  law  acts  of  omission  and  com¬ 
mission  which  used  to  pass  unregarded,  might  be  culled  in  abun¬ 
dance  from  the  statute-books  of  nearly  every  commonwealth.1 
It  is  in  the  West,  which  plumes  itself  on  being  pre-eminently  the 
land  of  freedom,  enterprise,  and  self-help,  that  this  tendency  is 
most  active  and  plays  the  strangest  pranks,  because  legislators 
are  in  the  West  more  impatient  and  self-confident  than  else¬ 
where. 

The  forms  which  legislative  intervention  takes  may  be  roughly 
classified  under  the  following  heads  :  — 

Prohibitions  to  individuals  to  do  acts  which  are  not,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  criminal  ( e.g .  to  sell  intoxicating 
liquors,  to  employ  a  labourer  for  more  than  so  many  hours  in 
a  day). 

Directions  to  individuals  to  do  things  which  it  is  not  ob¬ 
viously  wrong  to  omit  (e.g.  to  provide  seats  for  shop-women, 
to  publish  the  accounts  of  a  railway  company). 

Interferences  with  the  ordinary  course  of  law  in  order  to 
protect  individuals  from  the  consequences  of  their  own  acts 

1  I  have  collected  some  instances  in  a  note  to  this  chapter. 


CHAP.  XCVIII 


LAISSEZ  FAIRE 


595 


(e.g.  the  annulment  of  contracts  between  employer  and  work¬ 
men  making  the  former  not  liable  for  accidental  injuries  to 
the  latter,  the  exemption  of  homesteads,  or  of  a  certain  amount 
of  personal  property,  from  the  claims  of  creditors,  the  prohibition 
of  more  than  a  certain  rate  of  interest  on  money). 

Directions  to  a  public  authority  to  undertake  work  which 
might  be  left  to  individual  action  and  the  operation  of  supply 
and  demand  (e.g.  the  providing  of  schools  and  dispensaries, 
the  establishment  of  State  analysts,  State  oil  inspectors,  the 
collection  and  diffusion,  at  the  public  expense,  of  statistics). 

Retention,  appropriation,  or  control  by  the  State  of  certain 
natural  sources  of  wealth  or  elements  in  its  production  (e.g. 
the  declaration,  made  by  Washington,  Wyoming,  Montana,  and 
Idaho,  that  the  use  of  all  waters,  whether  still  or  flowing,  within 
their  respective  bounds,  is  a  public  use,  and  forever  subject  to 
State  control,  the  prohibition  by  Indiana  of  the  wasteful  use 
of  natural  gas). 

In  every  one  of  these  kinds  of  legislative  interference  the 
Americans,  or  at  least  the  Western  States,  seem  to  have  gone 
farther  than  the  English  Parliament.  The  restrictions  on  the 
liquor  traffic  have  been  more  sweeping ;  while  (except  in  the 
South)  those  upon  the  labour  of  women  and  children,  and  of 
persons  employed  by  the  State,  have  been  not  less  so.  Moral 
duties  are  more  frequently  enforced  by  legal  penalties  than  in 
England.  Railroads,  insurance  and  banking  companies,  and 
other  corporations  are,  in  most  States,  strictly  regulated. 
Efforts  to  protect  individuals  coming  under  the  third  head  are 
so  frequent  and  indulgent  that  their  policy  is  beginning  to  be 
seriously  questioned.1  Gratuitous  elementary  and  secondary 


1  “A  numerous  and  ever-increasing  list  of  possessions  has  been  entirely 
exempted  from  execution  for  debt,  starting  with  the  traditional  homestead, 
and  going  on  through  all  the  necessities  of  life,  implements  of  trade,  and  even 
corner-lots  and  money,  until  in  some  States,  as  in  Texas,  almost  every  con¬ 
ceivable  object  of  desire,  from  a  house  and  corner-lot  to  a  span  of  fast  horses, 
may  be  held  and  enjoyed  by  the  poor  man  free  from  all  claims  of  his  creditors. 
Without  going  further  into  details  it  may  be  boldly  stated  that  the  tendency 
of  democratic  legislation  on  this  subject  has  been  to  require  the  repayment  of 
debts  only  when  it  can  be  made  out  of  superfluous  accumulated  capital.”  — 
Mr.  F.  J.  Stimson,  in  a  vigorous  and  thoughtful  article  on  the  ‘‘Ethics  of  De¬ 
mocracy,”  in  Scribner’s  Magazine  for  June,  1887. 

The  latest  Constitution  of  Texas  provides  that  where  a  contractor  becomes 
bankrupt,  the  labourers  employed  by  him  shall  have  a  right  of  action  against 
the  company  or  person  for  whose  benefit  the  work  on  which  they  were  em¬ 
ployed  was  done. 


596 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


education  is  provided  all  over  the  Union,  and  in  the  West 
there  are  also-  State  universities  provided  for  women  as  well 
as  for  men  at  very  low  charges.  And  although  the  State 
has  not  gone  so  far  in  superseding  individual  action  as  to  create 
for  itself  monopolies,  it  is  apt  to  spend  money  on  some  objects 
not  equally  cared  for  by  European  governments.  It  tries  to 
prevent  adulteration  by  putting  its  stamp  on  agricultural 
fertilizers,  and  prohibiting  the  sale  of  oleomargarine ;  it  estab¬ 
lishes  dairy  commissions,  bureaux  of  animal  industry,  and  boards 
of  live-stock  commissioners  armed  with  wide  powers  of  inspection, 
it  distributes  seed  to  farmers,  provides  a  State  chemist  to  analyze 
soils  gratuitously  and  recommend  .the  appropriate  fertilizers, 
subsidizes  agricultural  fairs,  sends  round  lecturers  on  agriculture, 
and  encourages  by  bounties  the  culture  of  beetroot  and  manu¬ 
facture  of  sugar  therefrom,  the  making  of  starch  from  State- 
grown  potatoes,  tree-planting,  and  the  killing  of  noxious  animals, 
—  English  sparrows  in  Massachusetts,  panthers  and  wolves  in 
Wyoming.1  The  farmer  of  Kansas  or  Iowa  is  more  palpably 
the  object  of  the  paternal  solicitude  of  his  legislature  than  the 
farmer  of  any  European  country.  And  in  the  pursuit  of  its 
schemes  for  blessing  the  community  the  State  raises  a  taxation 
which  would  be  complained  of  in  a  less  prosperous  country.2 

What  has  been  the  result  of  this  legislation?  Have  the 
effects  which  the  economists  of  the  physiocratic  or  laissez  alter 
school  taught  us  to  expect  actually  followed  ?  Has  the  natural 
course  of  commerce  and  industry  been  disturbed,  has  the  self¬ 
helpfulness  of  the  citizen  been  weakened,  has  government  done 
its  work  ill  and  a  new  door  to  jobbery  been  opened?  It  is  still 
too  soon  to  form  conclusions  on  these  points.  Some  few  of  the 
experiments  have  failed,  others  seem  to  be  succeeding ;  but  the 
policy  of  State  interference  as  a  whole  has  net  yet  been  adequately 
tested.  In  making  this  new  departure  American  legislatures  are 
serving  the  world,  if  not  their  own  citizens,  for  they  are  providing 

1  In  Kansas  the  gift  of  bounties  for  the  heads  of  coyotes  (prairie-wolves) 
led  to  the  rearing  of  these  animals  on  a  large  scale  in  a  new  description  of  stock- 
farms  ! 

2  “Speaking  broadly,  and  including  indirect  taxation,  it  may  be  stated 
that  the  laws  now  purport  to  give  the  State  power  to  dispose  of  at  least  one- 
third  the  annual  revenues  of  property.  ...  Of  course  these  taxes  are  largely, 
by  the  richest  citizens,  evaded,  but  upon  land  at  least  they  are  effectual.  It 
is  certainly  understating  it  to  say  that  the  general  taxation  upon  land  equals 
one-third  the  net  rents,  i.e.  Ricardo’s  margin  of  cultivation  less  expenses  of 
management  ”  —  Stimson,  ut  supra. 


CHAP.  XCVIII 


LAISSEZ  FAIRE 


597 


it  with  a »store  of  valuable  data  for  its  instruction,  data  which 
deserve  more  attention  than  they  have  hitherto  received,  and 
whose  value  will  increase  as  time  goes  on. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  these  unconscious  philosophers  to  try 
experiments  with  less  risk  than  countries  like  France  or  Eng¬ 
land  would  have  to  run,  for  the  bodies  on  which  the  experi¬ 
ments  are  tried  are  so  relatively  small  and  exceptionally  vig¬ 
orous  that  failures  need  not  inflict  permanent  injury.  Railroads 
and  other  large  business  interests  complain,  and  sometimes  not 
without  reason,  but  no  people  is  shrewder  than  the  American  in 
coming  to  recognize  the  results  of  overbold  legislation  and  modi¬ 
fying  it  when  it  is  found  to  tell  against  the  general  prosperity. 

Note 

I  collect  a  few  instances  of  legislation  illustrating  the  tendency  to 
extend  State  intervention  and  the  scope  of  penal  law  :  — 

New  York  provides  that  no  guest  shall  be  excluded  from  any  hotel 
on  account  of  race,  creed  (some  had  refused  to  receive  Jews),  or  colour. 

Wisconsin  requires  every  hotel  above  a  certain  height  to  be  furnished 
with  fireproof  staircases  ;  and  Michigan  punishes  the  proprietors  of  any 
shop  or  factory  in  which  the  health  of  employees  is  endangered  by  im¬ 
proper  heating,  lighting,  ventilation,  or  sanitarian  arrangements. 

Michigan  compels  railroad  companies  to  provide  automatic  car  coup¬ 
lings.  Other  States  direct  the  use  of  certain  kinds  of  brakes. 

Georgia  orders  railway  companies  to  put  up  a  bulletin  stating  how 
much  any  train  already  half  an  hour  late  is  overdue  ;  Arkansas  requires 
this  even  if  the  train  is  only  a  few  minutes  late. 

Wyoming  requires  railroads  passing  within  four  miles  of  any  city  to 
provide,  at  the  nearest  point,  a  depot  whereat  all  local  trains  shall  stop  ; 
while  Arkansas  forbids  baggage  to  be  tumbled  from  cars  on  to  the  plat¬ 
form  at  a  depot ;  and  Ohio  permits  no  one  to  be  engaged  as  a  train  con¬ 
ductor  unless  he  has  had  two  years’  previous  experience  as  trainhand. 

Massachusetts  forbids  the  employment  of  colour-blind  persons  on 
railways,  and  provides  for  the  examination  of  those  so  employed. 

Ohio  requires  druggists  to  place  on  bottles  containing  poison  a  red 
label,  naming  at  least  two  of  the  most  readily  procurable  antidotes. 

Several  States  order  employers  to  find  seats  for  women  employed  in 
shops,  warehouses,  or  manufactories. 

Several  States  forbid  any  one  to  practise  dentistry  as  well  as  medi¬ 
cine  unless  licensed  by  a  State  Board. 

Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Illinois  compel  corporations  to 
pay  workmen  weekly.  (Massachusetts  forbade  employers  to  deduct 
fines  from  the  sums  payable  by  them  for  wages,  but  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  State  [by  a  majority]  held  the  statute  unconstitutional.) 

Maryland  institutes  a  “State  Board  of  Commissioners  of  Practical 
Plumbing,”  and  confines  the  practice  of  that  industry  to  persons 


598 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


licensed  by  the  same.  New  York  provides  Boards  of  Examiners  to 
supervise  plumber’s  work. 

Kansas  punishes  as  a  crime  the  making  any  misrepresentation  to  or 
deceiving  any  person  in  the  sale  of  fruit  or  shade  trees,  shrubs  or  bulbs  ; 
and  New  Jersey  does  the  like  as  regards  fruit  trees  or  briars. 

Mississippi  punishes  with  fine  and  imprisonment  any  legislative, 
executive,  judicial,  or  ministerial  officer,  who  shall  travel  on  any  rail¬ 
road  without  paying  absolutely,  and  without  any  evasion  whatever,  the 
same  fare  as  is  required  of  passengers  generally. 

Many  States  offer  bounties  on  the  raising  of  various  agricultural 
products  or  on  manufactures,  while  California  appropriates  money  for 
the  introduction  from  Australia  of  parasites  and  predaceous  insects, 
with  a  view  to  the  extermination  of  a  moth  which  injures  orange  trees. 

Texas  makes  it  a  punishable  misdemeanour  to  deal  in  “futures”  or 
“keep  any  ‘bucket  shop’  or  other  establishment  where  future  contracts 
are  bought  or  sold  with  no  intention  of  an  actual  delivery  of  the  article 
so  bought  or  sold,”  while  Massachusetts  is  content  with  making  such 
contracts  voidable. 

Michigan  prescribes  a  system  of  minority  voting  at  the  election  of 
directors  of  joint-stock  corporations  ;  Kentucky  (by  her  new  constitu¬ 
tion)  prescribes  cumulative  voting  in  like  cases. 

Pennsylvania  forbids  the  consolidation  of  telegraph  companies. 

Ohio  punishes  by  fine  and  imprisonment  the  offering  to  sell  “op¬ 
tions,”  or  exhibiting  any  quotations  of  the  prices  of  “margins,”  “fu¬ 
tures,”  or  “options.”  Georgia  imposes  on  dealers  in  “futures”  a  tax 
of  8500  a  year. 

New  York  forbids  the  hiring  of  barmaids,  and  Colorado  permits  no 
woman  to  enter  a  “wine  room.” 

Colorado,  Kansas,  and  North  Carolina  make  the  seduction  under 
promise  of  marriage  of  any  chaste  woman  a  felony. 

New  York  punishes  with  fine  and  imprisonment  any  person  “who 
shall  send  a  letter  with  intent  to  cause  annoyance  to  any  other  person.  ” 

Virginia  punishes  with  death  the  destruction  by  dynamite  or  any 
other  explosive  of  any  dwelling,  if  at  night,  or  endangering  human  life. 

Kentucky  makes  it  a  misdemeanour  to  play  with  dice  any  game  for 
money,  and  a  felony  to  keep,  manage,  or  operate  any  such  game. 

Washington  punishes  any  one  who  permits  a  minor  to  play  at  cards 
in  his  house  without  the  written  permission  of  the  minor’s  parent  or 
guardian. 

Oregon  prohibits  secret  societies  in  all  public  schools  ;  and  California  also 
forbids  the  formation  of  “  secret  oath-bound  fraternities  ”  in  public  schools. 

Maine  requires  every  public  school  teacher  to  devote  not  less  than 
ten  minutes  per  week  to  instruction  in  the  principles  of  kindness  to  birds 
and  animals,  and  punishes  any  nurse  who  fails  at  once  to  report  to  a 
physician  that  the  eye  of  an  infant  has  become  reddened  or  inflamed 
within  five  weeks  after  birth.  Rhode  Island  in  a  similar  statute  fixes  a 
fortnight  from  birth  and  allows  six  hours  for  the  report. 

Illinois  and  Arizona  forbid  marriages  between  first  cousins. 

\  irginia  punishes  with  a  fine  of  $100  the  sale  to  a  minor,  not  only  of 
pistols,  dirks,  and  bowie-knives,  but  also  of  cigarettes.  Twenty-four 


CHAP.  XCVIII 


LAISSEZ  FAIRE 


599 


other  States  have  similar  laws  forbidding  minors  to  smoke  or  chew 
tobacco  in  public.  Arizona  makes  it  penal  to  sell  or  give  liquor  to  a 
minor  without  his  parents’  consent,  or  even  to  admit  him  to  a  saloon. 

Several  States  have  recently  made  the  smoking  of  cigarettes  a  punish¬ 
able  offence. 

Kentucky  prohibits  the  sale  of  any  book  or  periodical,  “the  chief 
feature  of  which  is  to  record  the  commission  of  crimes,  or  display  by 
cuts  or  illustrations  of  crimes  committed,  or  the  pictures  of  criminals, 
desperadoes,  or  fugitives  from  justice,  or  of  men  or  women  influenced 
by  stimulants”  ;  and  North  Dakota  punishes  the  sale  or  gift  to,  and 
even  the  exhibition  within  sight  of,  any  minor  of  any  book,  magazine, 
or  newspaper  “principally  made  up  of  criminal  news  or  pictures,  stories 
of  deeds  of  bloodshed,  lust,  or  crime.” 

Some  States  permit  judges  to  hear  in  private  cases  the  evidence  in 
which  is  of  an  obscene  nature. 

Massachusetts  compels  insurance  companies  to  insure  the  lives  of 
coloured  persons  on  the  same  terms  with  those  of  whites. 

Oregon  requires  the  doors  of  any  building  used  for  public  purposes 
to  be  so  swung  as  to  open  outwards. 

Minnesota  enacts  that  all  labour  performed  by  contract  upon  a 
building  shall  be  a  first  lien  thereon  ;  and  declares  that  the  fact  that 
the  person  performing  the  labour  was  not  enjoined  from  so  doing  shall 
be  conclusive  evidence  of  the  contract ;  while  Iowa  gives  to  all  workers 
in  coal  mines  a  lien  for  their  wages  upon  all  property  used  in  construct¬ 
ing  and  working  the  mine. 

Alabama  makes  it  penal  for  a  banker  to  discount  at  a  higher  rate 
than  8  per  cent. 

Many  States  have  stringent  usury  laws. 

Pennsylvania  forbids  a  mortgagee  to  contract  for  the  payment  by  the 
mortgagor  of  any  taxes  over  and  above  the  interest  payable. 

Kentucky  and  some  other  States  have  been  making  strenuous  (but 
imperfectly  successful)  efforts  to  extinguish  lotteries.  On  the  other 
hand,  Nevada  appears  to  have  authorized  one. 

Some  of  the  newer  states  by  their  constitutions,  and  many  others  by 
statutes,  endeavour  to  destroy  the  combinations  of  capitalists  called 
“Trusts,”  treating  them  as  conspiracies,  and  threatening  severe  penal¬ 
ties  against  those  concerned  in  them. 

Laws  purporting  to  limit  the  hours  of  adult  male  labour  have  been 
passed  by  Congress  and  in  many  States.  None,  however,  appear  to 
forbid  under  penalty  overtime  work,  except  as  respects  public  servants 
(under  the  Federal  Government,  and  in  Massachusetts,  Maryland, 
Pennsylvania,  Colorado),  the  limit  being  8  or  9  hours,  railway  servants 
(Maryland,  New  Jersey,  Michigan),  10  to  12  hours,  and  coal-miners 
(Wyoming),  8  hours.  These  laws,  in  fact,  amount  to  little  more  than 
a  declaration  that  the  number  of  hours  mentioned  shall  (except  as  afore¬ 
said)  constitute  a  legal  day’s  work  in  the  absence  of  an  agreement  for 
longer  service. 

Congress  and  the  legislatures  of  at  least  fourteen  States  have  by  statute 
created  or  provided  for  the  creation  of  Boards  of  Arbitration  in  trade 
disputes,  but  have  conferred  very  restricted  powers  for  that  purpose. 


CHAPTER  XCIX 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 

Although  the  question  of  admitting  women  to  the  right 
of  voting  has  never  been  one  of  the  foremost  political  issues 
in  the  United  States,  its  history  and  present  position  are  so 
illustrative  of  the  way  in  which  political  proposals  spring  up, 
and  are  agitated  and  handled  in  that  country,  that  it  would 
deserve  to  be  here  noticed,  even  were  it  not  a  matter  which  has 
a  present  interest  for  at  least  one  European  country.  All  those 
who  have  speculated  on  the  foundations  of  human  society  and 
government  have  long  been  confronted  by  the  question  how  far 
differences  of  sex  ought  to  imply  and  prescribe  a  distinction  of 
civic  rights  and  functions  between  men  and  women.  Some 
of  the  bolder  among  philosophers  have  answered  the  question 
by  simply  ignoring  the  differences.  Perceiving  in  women  an 
intelligence  and  will,  which,  if  never  equal  to  that  of  the  very 
strongest  men,  yet  makes  the  average  woman  the  equal  for 
most  purposes  of  the  average  man,  inasmuch  as  she  gains  in 
quickness  and  delicacy  of  perception  what  she  loses  in  force 
and  endurance,  they  have  found  no  reason  why  woman  should 
not  share  the  labours,  duties,  and  privileges  of  man.  This  was 
Plato’s  view,  pushed  by  him  so  far  as  to  expunge  marriage  and 
domestic  life  altogether ;  and  it  has  found  expression  in  more 
than  one  religious  movement  in  ancient  as  well  as  in  modern 
times. 

Christianity  aproached  the  problem  from  another  side. 
Recognizing  in  woman  an  immortal  soul  equally  precious  with 
the  soul  of  man,  the  New  Testament  and  the  usages  of  the 
primitive  church  opened  to  her  a  wide  range  of  functions,  vir¬ 
tues,  and  glories,  in  some  of  which  she  was  fitted  to  surpass, 
and  has  in  fact  surpassed  man ;  while  the  imagination  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  more  intense  and  fervid  than  that  of  any  other 
epoch  in  history,  created  an  ideal  of  feminine  sweetness,  purity, 

600 


CHAP.  XCIX 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


601 


and  moral  beauty  infinitely  surpassing  that  of  the  ancient 
world,  and  which  the  modern  world  may  count  as  its  noblest 
possession,  an  ideal  on  the  preservation  of  which,  more  perhaps 
than  of  any  other  human  conception,  the  welfare  of  the  race 
depends. 

The  consecration  of  the  spiritual  equality  of  woman  would 
doubtless  have  gone  still  farther  than  it  did  to  secure  for  her  a 
tangible  equality  in  social  and  possibly  even  in  political  mat¬ 
ters  but  for  the  rudeness  of  the  times,  in  which  physical  force 
counted  for  much,  and  for  the  growth  of  a  sacramental  and 
sacerdotal  system,  which  confined  priesthood  and  the  adminis¬ 
tration  of  certain  life-giving  sacraments  to  men.  Thus,  though 
the  relations  of  the  sexes  were  placed  on  a  more  wholesome 
basis  than  in  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity,  though  the  standard 
of  purity  was  raised  and  the  conception  of  marriage  dignified, 
the  recognition  of  equality  in  the  sphere  of  law,  both  private 
and  public,  was  less  complete  than  might  have  been  expected. 
When  sacramentalism  and  sacerdotalism  were,  in  the  peoples 
of  Northern  Europe,  shattered  by  the  religious  movement  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  idea  of  a  clerical  order  confined  to 
men  was  nevertheless  maintained,  except  in  a  few  small  sects ; 
and  though  the  law  grew  ultimately  more  just  and  humane  to 
women,  scarcely  a  voice  was  raised  to  claim  for  them  a  share 
in  the  privileges  of  public  life. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  American  Republic  it  seems  to  have 
occurred  to  no  statesman,  though  it  did  occur  to  a  few  keen¬ 
witted  women,  that  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde¬ 
pendence  might  find  application  without  distinction  of  sex ; 
but  as  they  were  not  to  be  applied  to  men  of  any  other  colour 
than  white,  this  need  the  less  be  wondered  at.  However,  the 
legal  position  of  women  was  speedily  improved.  State  legis¬ 
lation  gave  them  fuller  rights  of  property  and  a  better  social 
status  than  they  had  enjoyed  under  the  English  common  law, 
and  the  respectful  deference  with  which  they  were  treated  was 
remarked  by  travellers  as  a  singular  exception  to  the  general 
imperfection  of  American  male  manners,  and  as  in  fact  tending 
to  affect  inauspiciously  the  grace  of  female  manners. 

When  negro  slavery  began  to  excite  the  horror  of  sensitive 
minds,  it  became  necessary  to  re-examine  the  foundations  of 
society  and  find  a  theory  which  would,  in  asserting  the  ulti¬ 
mate  similarity  and  equality  of  all  men,  condemn  the  owner- 


602 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


ship  of  one  man  by  another.  This  was  done  by  recurring  to 
the  New  Testament  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Two 
questions  speedily  suggested  themselves.  If  all  men  of  what¬ 
ever  race  are  equal,  what  of  women  ?  If  equality  be  an  abso¬ 
lute  and,  so  to  speak,  indefeasible  truth  and  principle,  what 
does  it  import?  Does  it  cover  merely  the  passive  rights  of 
citizenship,  the  right  to  freedom  and  protection  for  person 
and  property?  or  does  it  extend  to  the  active  right  of  par¬ 
ticipating  in  the  government  of  the  commonwealth?  “We 
demand  freedom  for  the  negro.  Do  we  also  demand  a  share  in 
the  government?  If  we  do,  are  not  women  at  least  as  well 
entitled?  If  w'e  do  not,  it  is  because  we  see  that  the  negro  is 
so  ignorant  and  altogether  backward  as  to  be  unfit  to  exercise 
political  power.  But  can  this  be  said  of  women  ?  The  con¬ 
siderations  which  might  apply  to  the  case  of  the  liberated 
negro  do  not  apply  to  her,  for  she  is  educated  and  capable. 
How,  then,  can  she  be  excluded  ?  ” 

This  was  an  abstract  way  of  looking  at  the  matter,  because 
there  had  not  as  yet  been  any  substantial  demand  by  women  for 
political  rights.  But  it  was  on  the  basis  of  abstract  right  that 
they  were  proceeding.  Theory  is  potent  with  those  who  are 
themselves  appealing  from  an  actual  state  of  things  to  theory 
and  general  principles.  And  in  this  instance  a  practical  turn 
was  given  to  the  question  by  the  fact  that  many  of  the  most 
zealous  and  helpful  workers  in  the  Abolitionist  movement  were 
women.  They  showed  as  much  courage  in  facing  obloquy  and 
even  danger  in  what  they  deemed  a  sacred  cause  as  Garrison  or 
Lovejoy.  They  filled  the  Abolition  societies  and  flocked  to  the 
Abolitionist  conventions.  They  were  soon  admitted  to  vote 
and  hold  office  in  these  organizations.  The  more  timid  or  con¬ 
servative  members  protested,  and  some  seceded.  But  in  an 
aggressive  movement,  as  in  a  revolution,  those  who  go  farthest 
are  apt  to  fare  best.  The  advocates  of  women’s  claims  were 
the  bolder  spirits  who  retained  the  direction  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
movement.  The  women  established  their  right  to  share  the 
perils  of  the  combat  and  the  glories  of  the  victory. 

The  claim  of  women  to  be  admitted  to  the  franchise  and  to 
public  office  wrould  no  doubt  have  been  made  sooner  or  later  in 
America  (as  it  has  been  made  in  England)  had  there  been  no 
anti-slavery  agitation.  But  the  circumstances  of  its  origin  in 
that  agitation  have  tinged  its  subsequent  course.  They  invested 


CHAP.  XCIX 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


603 


it  in  the  eyes  of  one  set  of  persons  with  a  species  of  consecra¬ 
tion  while  providing  it  with  a  body  of  trained  workers  and  a  prece¬ 
dent  inspiring  hope  and  teaching  patience.  To  minds  of  an 
opposite  cast  they  gave  it  a  flavour  of  sentimentalism,  crotcheti- 
ness,  and  of  what  used  to  be  called  in  America  “  radicalism.”  1 
While  the  struggle  against  slavery  continued,  the  question  was 
content  to  stand  back,  but  after  the  end  of  the  Civil  War  and 
the  admission  of  the  negroes  to  the  franchise,  it  came  to  the 
front,  and  continues  from  time  to  time  to  be  pressed.  There  are 
now  woman  suffrage  societies  in  most  parts  of  the  North  and  West. 
An  annual  convention  of  delegates  from  these  societies  is  held, 
which  stimulates  the  local  workers  and  resolves  on  a  plan  of 
operations.2  Proposals  for  the  admission  of  women  to  this  or 
that  species  of  suffrage  are  sedulously  urged  on  State  legisla¬ 
tures.  In  many  Congresses  amendments  to  the  Federal  Consti¬ 
tution  recognizing  women  as  voters  have  been  submitted,  but 
have  always  failed  to  secure  a  majority  in  either  House.  The 
chance  that  three-fourths  of  the  States  would  accept  one  is  at 
present  very  small.  Once  or  twice  women  have  been  nominated 
as  candidates  for  the  Presidency,  though  none  has  ever  put 
out  a  list  of  presidential  electors  pledged  to  support  her 
candidature. 

These  efforts  have  borne  some  fruit,  though  less  than  the 
party  counted  on  when  the  agitation  began.  So  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  ascertain  the  present  state  of  the  law  in  the  different  States 
and  Territories  of  the  Union,  the  political  rights  of  women  stand 
as  follows  :  — 

In  1869  the  legislature  of  the  Territory  of  Wyoming  conferred 
the  suffrage  on  women  for  all  purposes  and  when  the  Territory 
received  statehood  in  1890,  this  provision  was  retained.3  Since 


1  The  word  “radical,”  frequently  applied  outside  the  sphere  of  pure  poli¬ 
tics,  e.g.  to  theology,  denotes  in  American  use  rather  a  tendency  than  either  a 
party  or  a  set  of  doctrines. 

2  The  first  Women’s  Convention  was  held  in  1848. 

3  According  to  Governor  Hoyt  of  Wyoming  woman  suffrage  was  carried 
there  in  1869,  by  the  arts  of  one  man.  His  account  is  as  follows  :  “One  large- 
hearted  legislator  in  Wyoming  went  and  talked  with  other  members  of  the 
legislature.  They  smiled.  But  he  got  one  of  the  lawyers  to  help  him  draw 
up  a  short  bill,  which  he  introduced.  It  was  considered  and  discussed.  People 
smiled  generally.  There  was  not  much  expectation  that  anything  of  that  sort 
would  be  done  ;  but  this  was  a  shrewd  fellow,  who  managed  the  party  card  in 
such  a  way  as  to  get,  as  he  believed,  enough  votes  to  carry  the  measure  before 
it  was  brought  to  the  test.  Thus  he  said  to  the  Democrats  :  ‘We  have  a  Re¬ 
publican  Governor  and  a  Democratic  Assembly.  Now  then,  if  we  can  carry  this 


604 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


then  a  like  privilege  has  been  given  to  women  in  Colorado  and 
Idaho  by  amendments  to  their  Constitutions,  and  in  Utah  by 
the  first  Constitution,  adopted  in  1895.  In  Colorado  the  pro¬ 
posal  was  (in  1893)  carried  by  the  “  Populist  ”  party,  then  for 
a  brief  space  dominant.  In  some  other  States  constitutional 
amendments  purporting  to  confer  this  suffrage  have  been  passed 
by  the  legislature,  but  rejected  by  the  people,  and  generally  by 
a  decisive  vote.  This  happened  in  Oregon  in  1908.  In  Utah 
it  was  abolished  by  a  Federal  statute,  because  thought  to  be 
exercised  by  the  Mormon  wives  at  the  bidding  of  their  polyga¬ 
mous  husbands,  and  thus  to  strengthen  the  polygamic  party. 
In  Washington  Territory  the  law  which  conferred  it  in  1883 
was  declared  invalid  by  the  courts  in  1887,  because  its  nature 
had  not  been  properly  described  in  the  title,  was  re-enacted 
immediately  afterwards,  and  was  in  1888  again  declared  invalid 
by  the  U.  S.  Territorial  Court,  on  the  ground  that  the  Act  of 
Congress  organizing  the  Territorial  legislature  did  not  empower 
it  to  extend  the  suffrage  to  women.  In  enacting  their  State 
Constitution  (1889)  the  people  of  Washington  pronounced 
against  female  suffrage  by  a  majority  of  two  to  one ;  and  a 
good  authority  declared  to  me  that  ‘  ‘  few  women  took  advan¬ 
tage  of  the  privilege  and  most  of  them  were  greatly  relieved 
that  the  responsibility  was  removed.”  It  was  also  rejected  in 
S.  Dakota  by  a  majority  of  two  to  one.  In  Wisconsin  the  legis¬ 
lature  is  permitted  by  the  Constitution  to  confer  the  suffrage 


bill  through  the  Assembly,  and  the  Governor  vetoes  it,  we  shall  have  made  a 
point,  you  know  ;  we  shall  have  shown  our  liberality  and  lost  nothing.  But 
keep  still ;  don’t  say  anything  about  it.’  They  promised.  He  then  went  to 
the  Republicans  and  told  them  that  the  Democrats  were  going  to  support  his 
measure,  and  that  if  they  didn’t  want  to  lose  capital  they  had  better  vote  for 
it  too.  He  didn’t  think  there  would  be  enough  of  them  to  carry  it ;  but  the 
vote  would  be  on  record,  and  thus  defeat  the  game  of  the  other  party.  And 
they  likewise  agreed  to  vote  for  it.  So  when  the  bill  came  to  a  vote  it  went 
right  through  !  The  members  looked  at  each  other  in  astonishment,  for  they 
hadn’t  intended  to  do  it,  quite .  Then  they  laughec},  and  said  it  was  a  good 
joke,  but  they  had  ‘got  the  Governor  in  a  fix.’  So  the  bill  went,  in  the  course 
of  time,  to  John  A.  Campbell,  who  was  then  Governor  —  the  first  Governor  of 
the  Territory  of  Wyoming  —  and  he  promptly  signed  it !  His  heart  was  right !  ” 
—  Address  delivered  at  Philadelphia  in  1882.  Mr.  Horace  Plunkett,  however, 
discredits  this  story,  and  assigns  as  the  reasons  for  the  passing  of  the  bill  the 
notion  that  it  would  serve  to  advertise  Wyoming  (which  it  did)  and  a  sort  of 
rough  Western  liking  for  a  joke.  ( The  Working  of  Woman  Suffrage  in  Wyom¬ 
ing,  Cheyenne,  Wyo.,  1890.)  In  Colorado  the  amendment  conferring  the 
suffrage  won  the  support  of  the  Populist  party,  powerful  in  1893,  and  of  large 
sections  of  the  working  men,  who  are  supposed  to  have  been  influenced  by 
abstract  doctrines  of  equality. 


CHAP.  XCIX 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


G05 


on  women,  but  the  law  must  be  affirmed  by  the  people  at  an  elec¬ 
tion.  In  Oregon  the  question  was  in  1908  submitted  to  popular 
vote  under  the  Initiative,  and  rejected  by  a  very  large  majority. 

In  twenty-one  States  besides  the  four  which  give  full  suffrage  1 
women  are  allowed  to  vote  at  elections  of  school  officers,  or  on 
some  question  connected  with  schools ;  and  in  several  other 
States  (nine  at  least),  as  well  as  in  all  or  nearly  all  of  these  twenty- 
one,  they  may  be  chosen  to  fill  school  offices,  such  as  that  of 
school  visitor,  or  superintendent,  or  member  of  a  school  com¬ 
mittee.  They  also  enjoy  “school  suffrage”  in  Arizona  and 
sporadically  in  a  few  cities. 

In  several  States  they  have  the  right  of  voting  upon  questions 
submitted  to  the  vote  of  the  tax-payers  as  much.  This  includes 
the  question  of  granting  licences  for  the  sale  of  intoxicants.  A 
bill  to  confer  the  same  right  was  lost  in  the  Massachusetts  legis¬ 
lature  of  1888  by  a  majority  of  one  vote  only. 

In  Kansas  in  1886  and  in  Michigan  in  1893  women  received 
the  suffrage  in  all  municipal  elections.  In  Michigan,  however, 
the  law  was  subseqently  held  unconstitutional.2 

In  those  States  where  women  possess  the  school  suffrage  it 
is  reported  that  few  vote ;  and  this  is  ascribed  partly  to  indif¬ 
ference,  partly  to  the  difficulty  which  women  of  the  humbler 
class  experience  in  leaving  their  homes  to  go  to  the  poll.  In 
Massachusetts  the  number  of  women  going  to  the  poll  declined 
rapidly  after  the.  first  few  years.  But  there  have  been  cases 
there,  and  also  in  Kansas  at  municipal  elections,  in  which  a 
heavy  vote  was  cast  by  the  female  voters. 

In  Wyoming  (while  it  was  still  a  Territory)  women  served  as 
jurors  for  some  months  till  the  judges  discovered  that  they  were 
not  entitled  by  law  to  do  so,  and  in  Washington  (while  a  Terri¬ 
tory)  they  served  from  1884  to  1887,  when  the  legislature,  in 
regranting  the  right  of  voting,  omitted  to  grant  the  duty  or 
privilege  of  jury  service.  Those  whose  opinions  I  have  enquired 


1  Connecticut,  North  Dakota,  South  Dakota,  Nevada,  Illinois,  Indiana, 
Kansas,  Kentucky,  Massachusetts,  Michigan,  Minnesota,  Montana,  Nebraska, 
New  Hampshire,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Oklahoma,  Oregon,  Vermont,  Wash¬ 
ington,  Wisconsin.  Women  enjoy  school  and  municipal  franchise  in  the  Ca¬ 
nadian  Provinces  of  Ontario,  Nova  Scotia,  Manitoba,  and  British  Columbia. 

2  Similar  proposals  have  from  time  to  time  been  defeated  in  a  good  many 
States,  though  often  by  small  majorities.  In  several  of  the  smaller  cities  of 
Kansas  all  the  municipal  offices,  from  the  mayoralty  and  police  judgeship  down¬ 
wards,  have  occasionally  been  filled  by  women. 


606 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


inform  me  that  the  presence  of  women  on  juries  was  deemed 
a  grave  evil,  and  that  in  prosecutions  for  gambling  or  the  sale 
of  intoxicants  a  defendant  had  no  chance  before  them.  It  is 
also  stated  that  comparatively  few  went  to  the  poll.  In  Wy¬ 
oming,  moreover,  the  women  on  juries  are  stated  to  have  been 
more  severe  than  men. 

As  respects  the  suffrage  in  Wyoming,  the  evidence  I  have 
collected  privately  is  conflicting.  One  of  the  most  trustworthy 
authorities  wrote  to  me  as  follows  :  — 

“  After  the  first  excitement  is  over,  it  is  impossible  to  get 
respectable  women  out  to  vote  except  every  two  or  three  years 
on  some  purely  emotional  question  like  Prohibition  or  other  tem¬ 
perance  legislation.  The  effect  on  family  life  seems  to  be  nil; 
certainly  not  bad.”  Another  highly  competent  witness  wrote  : 
“There  are  no  large  towns.  In  the  larger  places  most  of  the 
women,  who  are  chiefly  married,  vote  ;  in  the  smaller  and  more 
rural  places  the  women  take  little  interest  in  it,  as  indeed  the 
men  do.  As  a  rule,  women  are  in  favour  of  temperance  and 
good  schools,  and  so  far  as  they  have  been  able  to  cast  their 
influence,  it  has  been  on  the  right  side  in  those  questions. 
Woman  suffrage  so  far  seems  to  work  well,  but  the  field  of  its 
operations  is  one  presenting  singular  immunity  from  the  evils 
which  elsewhere  might  attach  to  it,  the  population  being  sparse 
and  women  in  the  minority.” 

Beside  these  and  similar  statements  may  be  set  the  fact  that 
no  opposition  was  offered  in  the  Convention  of  1889,  which 
drafted  the  present  Constitution,  to  the  enactment  of  woman 
suffrage  for  all  purposes.  The  opinion  of  the  people  at  large 
was  not  duly  ascertained,  because  the  question  was  not  sepa¬ 
rately  submitted  to  them  at  the  polls,  but  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  it  would  have  been  favourable.  The  declarations  of 
Wyoming  officials  may  deserve  no  great  weight,  for  they  do  not 
wish  to  offend  any  section  of  the  voters,  and  every  Western 
American  feels  bound  to  say  the  best  he  can  and  something 
more  for  the  arrangements  of  his  own  State.  But  the  whole 
proceedings  of  the  Convention  of  1889  leave  the  impression 
that  the  equal  suffrage  in  force  since  1869  had  worked  fairly, 
and  the  summing  up  of  the  case  by  a  thoughtful  and  dispassion¬ 
ate  British  observer  (Mr.  H.  Plunkett B  is  to  the  same  effect. 

1  In  the  pamphlet  already  cited.  He  observes  that  his  informants  never 
attempted  to  connect  the  frequency  of  divorces  in  Wyoming  with  the  political 


CHAP.  XCIX 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


607 


Moreover,  had  the  results  been  obviously  bad  in  Wyoming, 
they  would  have  been  quoted  against  the  adoption  of  the 
proposal  by  Colorado  in  1893.  It  deserves,  however,  to 
be  noticed  that  in  these  new  Western  States  women 
have  been  in  a  minority.  In  the  four  woman  suffrage 
States,  there  were  (census  of  1900)  588,570  men  and  only 
482,182  women. 

No  evidence  has  come  in  any  way  tending  to  show  that  poli¬ 
tics  are  in  Wyoming,  Idaho,  or  Utah  substantially  purer  than 
in  the  adjoining  States,  though  it  is  said  that  the  polls  are 
quieter.  The  most  that  seems  to  be  alleged  is  that  they  are 
no  worse;  or,  as  the  Americans  express  it,  “ Things  are  very 
much  what  they  were  before,  only  more  so.”  The  conditions 
of  the  small  and  scattered  populations  of  these  States  —  Utah 
being  moreover  exceptional  as  still  largely  Mormon  —  render 
their  experience  of  slight  value  for  such  communities  as  the 
Eastern  and  Middle  States. 

Colorado,  with  a  population  of  over  600,000,  and  with  one 
great  city,  Denver,  offers  a  better  field  for  observation,  and 
a  book  by  Miss  Helen  L.  Sumner,  published  in  1909  under 
the  title  of  Equal  Suffrage,  presents  the  results  of  a  minute 
and  careful  study  of  the  working  of  woman  suffrage  there  in 
a  spirit  which  strikes  the  reader  as  impartial  and  scientific.1 
The  conclusions  reached  are,  on  the  whole,  favourable  to  the 
experiment,  though  there  is  admittedly  much  difference  of 
opinion  in  Colorado  itself  upon  the  subject,  among  women  as 
well  as  among  men.  Such  changes  as  there  have  been,  for 
good  or  for  evil,  are  less  marked  than  either  advocates  or 

equality  of  the  sexes,  conceiving  this  to  have  exercised  no  influence  on  the 
family  life,  nor  led  to  domestic  discord.  “Political  differences  constitute  one 
of  the  few  domestic  troubles  which  no  State  or  Territory  (so  far)  recognizes 
as  just  cause  for  dissolution  of  matrimony.” 

1  It  would  be  impossible  to  abridge  the  facts  and  arguments  without  the 
danger  of  misrepresenting  them  ;  but  two  or  three  points  may  be  worth  noting. 
Miss  Sumner  thinks  legislation  has  been  improved  by  the  voting  of  women,  and 
cites  instances,  but  remarks  that  the  Prohibition  cause  does  not  appear  to  have 
substantially  gained,  nor  the  salaries  paid  to  women  to  have  been  equalized  with 
those  paid  to  men,  even  in  educational  work.  One  of  the  gains  has,  however, 
been  the  general  appointment  of  women  as  County  Superintendents  of  Schools. 
Eleven  women  were  between  1893  and  1909  elected  to  the  State  House  of  Rep¬ 
resentatives,  but  none  to  the  State  Senate. 

It  is  stated  that  “  the  only  occupation  legally  forbidden  to  women  in  Colorado 
is  work  in  coal  mines,  though  in  practice  they  are  excluded  from  other  mines 
also.  By  police  order  they  have  been  prevented  from  serving  as  barmaids  in 
Denver  saloons”  ( Equal  Suffrage,  p.  162). 


608 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


opponent  expected.  Enquiries  made  in  many  quarters  have 
led  me  to  believe  that  woman  suffrage  has  not  done  any  harm 
to  politics  in  Colorado,  and  it  is  said  to  have  done  good  occa¬ 
sionally  in  preventing  men  of  bad  character  from  being  nomi¬ 
nated  for  office.  Whether,  however,  the  State,  or  the  women 
in  it,  have  as  a  whole  gained,  the  discrepant  evidence  makes  it 
hard  to  determine. 

Wherever  the  suffrage  or  any  other  public  right  has  been 
given,  it  is  given  equally  to  married  and  to  unmarried 
women.1  No  one  dreams  of  drawing  any  distinction  between  the 
claims  of  the  single  and  the  married,  or  of  making  marriage  entail 
disfranchisement.  To  do  so  would  be  alien  to  the  whole  spirit  of 
American  legislation,  and  would  indeed  involve  a  much  grosser 
anomaly  or  injustice  than  the  exclusion  of  all  women  alike  from 
political  functions.  This  point,  therefore,  on  which  much  con¬ 
troversy  has  arisen  in  England,  has  given  no  trouble  in  the 
United  States  :  and,  similarly,  the  Americans  always  assume 
that  wherever  women  receive  the  right  of  voting  at  the  election 
to  any  office,  they  become  as  a  matter  of  course  eligible  for  the 
office  itself.  In  some  cases  eligibility  for  the  office  has  preceded 
the  gift  of  the  suffrage.  There  are  States  in  which  women 
have  no  school  suffrage,  but  are  chosen  to  school  offices ;  and 
States  (Massachusetts,  for  instance)  in  which  they  have  no 
vote  at  municipal  or  State  elections,  but  where  they  are  placed 
on  the  State  Board  of  Education  or  the  Board  of  Prison  Com¬ 
missioners.  It  would  be  deemed  in  the  last  degree  illogical  to 
give  women  municipal  suffrage,  and  not  allow  a  woman  to  be 
chosen  Mayoress,  to  give  State  (and  therewith  congressional) 
suffrage  and  not  allow  a  woman  to  be  capable  of  holding  any 
State  or  any  Federal  office.  In  Wyoming,  five  votes  out 
of  thirty-five  were  once  given  for  a  woman  candidate  for  the 
post  of  United  States  Senator.2 


1  In  a  few  States,  however  ( e.g .  Indiana  and  Oregon),  school  suffrage  is 
limited  to  women  who  are  heads  of  families,  because  these  only  are  deemed  to 
be  interested  in  respect  of  children  ;  and  in  a  few  (e.g.  Michigan,  Indiana,  and 
Oregon)  there  are  property  qualifications  of  small  amount  attached  to  the 
school  suffrage  in  the  case  of  women  which  are  not  required  in  the  case  of  men. 
In  Kentucky  school  suffrage  is  granted  only  to  widows  wdio  have  children. 

2  Women  are  not  unfrequently  appointed  to  posts  connected  with  legislative 
bodies.  I  found  in  Washington  that  they  had  been  chosen  to  be  clerks  and 
messengers  to  one  or  other  of  the  Houses  of  the  (then  Territorial)  legislature. 
It  appears  to  have  been  held  in  Connecticut  that  a  woman  may  be  appointed 
pension  agent  and  in  Illinois  that  she  may  be  a  master  (or  mistress)  in  chancery. 


CHAP.  XCIX 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


609 


“What/7  it  will  be  asked,  “are  the  forces  by  which  the  Woman’s 
Rights  movement  is  now  pressed  forward  ?  What  are  the  argu¬ 
ments  used  to  support  it?  Are  they  of  a  theoretical  o i  of  a 
practical  nature?  Is  it  on  the  ground  of  abstract  justice  and 
democratic  principle  that  the  battle  is  being  fought,  or  is  it  al- 
alleged  that  women  suffer  from  positive  disabilities  and  hard¬ 
ships  which  nothing  but  an  equal  share  in  political  power  will 
remove  ?” 

Both  sets  of  arguments  are  employed  ;  but  those  of  a  theo¬ 
retical  order  seem  to  hold  the  chief  place.  In  all  or  nearly 
all  States  married  women  have  complete  rights  to  their 
property ;  and  mothers  have  rights  considerable,  if  not  quite 
equal  to  those  of  fathers,  in  the  guardianship  of  their  children. 
Women  enjoy  the  equal  protection' of  the  law  and  are  admissi¬ 
ble  to  professions  and  the  training  needed  for  professions,  while 
the  laws  of  divorce,  whatever  may  be  said  of  them  in  other 
respects,  are  not  more  indulgent  to  husbands  than  to  wives. 
Although  therefore  the  advocates  of  woman  suffrage  claim  that 
some  tangible  legislative  benefits  will  accrue  to  woman  from 
her  admission  to  the  franchise,  especially  in  the  way  of  obtain¬ 
ing  better  protection  for  her  and  for  children,  the  case  on 
this  side  seems  weak,  and  excites  little  feeling.  No  one  who 
observes  America  can  doubt  that  whatever  is  deemed  to  be  for 
the  real  benefit  of  women  in  the  social  and  industrial  sphere 
will  be  obtained  for  them  from  the  good-will  and  sympathy 
of  men,  without  the  agency  of  the  political  vote.  It  is  on 
grounds  of  abstract  right,  it  is  because  the  exclusion  from 
political  power  is  deemed  in  itself  unjust  and  degrading,  and 
is  thought  to  place  woman  on  a  lower  level,  that  this  exclusion 
is  resented.  It  seems  to  be  believed  that  a  nobler  and  more 
vigorous  type  of  womanhood  would  be  developed  by  the  com¬ 
plete  recognition  of  her  equality,  a  wider  and  grander  sphere  of 
action  opened  to  her  efforts.  Perhaps  the  commonest  argument 
is  contained  in  the  question,  “  Why  not  ?  What  reason  can  you 
give,  you  whose  forefathers  revolted  from  England  because  rep¬ 
resentation  was  not  suffered  to  go  with  taxation,  you  who 
annually  repeat  the  Declaration  of  Independence  as  if  it  were  the 
Nicene  Creed,  you  who  after  the  War  enfranchised  ignorant 
negroes,  for  excluding  from  the  suffrage  women  who  pay  taxes, 
who  are  within  the  reason  and  meaning  of  the  Declaration  of  1776, 
who  are  far  more  intellectually  and  morally  competent  than  the 
2r 


610 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


coloured  millions  of  the  South?”  This  appeal,  which  becomes 
all  the  stronger  as  an  argumentum  ad  hominem  because  the 
American  man  is  exceptionally  deferential  to  women,  and  the 
American  statesman  exceptionally  disposed  to  comply  with  every 
request  which  is  urgently  pressed  upon  him,  is  the  kernel  of  the 
suffragist  case.  However,  it  derived  for  a  time  no  small  practical 
aid  from  a  practical  consideration.  The  one  question  of  current 
politics  which  heartily  interests  women  is  the  question  of  restrict¬ 
ing  or  prohibiting  the  sale  of  intoxicants.  This  is  also  the 
question  which  excites  not  perhaps  the  widest  yet  certainly  the 
keenest  interest  in  the  minds  of  a  great  host  of  male  voters. 
The  enemies  of  the  liquor  traffic  have  therefore  a  strong  motive 
for  desiring  to  see  their  voting  power  reinforced  by  those  whose 
aid  would  secure  victory ;  and  in  fact  Prohibitionist  Conventions 
almost  always  declare  in  favour  of  woman  suffrage.  For  a  dif¬ 
ferent  reason,  the  Socialist  and  Labour  parties  are,  as  were  the 
Populists  also,  disposed  to  support  it,  as  indeed  the  Socialists 
usually  do  in  Europe. 

Yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  sentimental  arguments 
are  all  on  one  side.  There  is  a  widespread  apprehension  that 
to  bring  women  into  politics  might  lower  their  social  position, 
diminish  men’s  deference  for  them,  harden  and  roughen  them, 
and,  as  it  is  expressed,  “brush  the  bloom  off  the  flowers.”  This 
feeling  is  at  least  as  strong  among  women  as  among  men,  and 
some  judicious  observers  deem  it  stronger  now  than  it  was  for¬ 
merly.  The  proportion  of  women  who  desire  the  suffrage  seems 
to  be  smaller  in  America  than  in  England.  Of  the  many 
American  ladies  whose  opinion  I  have  from  time  to  time  during 
forty  years  inquired,  the  enormous  majority  expressed  them¬ 
selves  hostile ;  and  in  most  of  the  States  where  the  question 
has  come  near  to  being  a  practical  issue  there  have  been  formed 
Women’s  Anti-Suffrage  Associations  which  conduct  an  active 
agitation,  and  present  to  the  committees  of  State  Legislatures 
their  arguments  against  the  proposal.  They  support  journals 
also,  which  press  upon  women  the  desirability  of  their  continuing 
in  the  sphere  they  have  hitherto  occupied,  and  dwell  upon  the 
greater  and  better  influence  which,  so  it  is  thought,  they  may 
exert  on  legislation  and  administration  if  they  remain  “outside 
politics.”  It  is  remarkable  that  the  movement  has  hitherto 
found  comparatively  little  support  among  what  may  be  called 
the  “upper  classes.”  Woman  suffragism  has  been,  though  less 


CHAP.  XCIX 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


611 


so  now  than  formerly,  thought  “bad  form/’  and  supposed  to 
betoken  a  want  of  culture  and  refinement.  The  same  reproach 
attached  before  the  Civil  War  to  Abolitionism.  It  was  at  one 
time  an  injury  to  the  cause  that  some  few  of  its  prominent  ad¬ 
vocates,  disavowed  no  doubt  by  the  great  bulk  of  the  suffrage 
party,  also  advocated  a  general  unsettlement  of  the  relations 
between  the  sexes,  and  that  a  few  others  were  too  masculine  in 
their  manners  and  discourse.  The  sentimental  aversion  to  see¬ 
ing  women  immersed  in  politics  is  all  the  greater  because 
“politics”  have  a  technical  meaning  which  is  repellent  to  re¬ 
fined  Americans;  and  it  is  felt  that  “ politics”  are  more  likely 
to  soil  women  than  women  to  purify  “politics.” 

But  one  of  the  objections  deemed  gravest  is  this,  that  in 
this  land  where  the  suffrage  is,  as  respects  men,  universal,  the 
constituencies,  which  are  already  enormous  —  a  member  of  Con¬ 
gress  represents  more  than  six  times  as  many  voters  as  an 
English  member  of  Parliament  —  would  be  doubled  in  size, 
and  all  the  difficulties  which  already  attach  to  elections  be 
immensely  aggravated.  Even  those  who  desire  to  see  the  sale 
of  intoxicants  restricted  doubt  the  expediency  of  attaining  their 
object  by  the  votes  of  women,  because  the  difficulty  of  enforcing 
prohibitory  legislation,  already  serious  where  the  drinking  mi¬ 
nority  is  strong,  would  be  much  greater  if  a  majority  of  men  in 
favour  of  keeping  bars  and  saloons  open  were  overborne  by  a 
minority  of  men  turned  into  a  majority  by  the  votes  of  women. 

It  is  commonly  assumed  that,  in  a  democratic  country,  all 
changes  are  towards  a  further  extension  of  the  suffrage,  that 
democratic  legislatures  will,  like  the  unjust  judge  in  the  parable, 
yield  to  importunity  what  they  might  refuse  to  justice,  in  short, 
that  whatever  an  active  section  continues  to  press  for  will  sooner 
or  later  be  conceded.  But  this  assumption  may  be  too  hasty. 
True  it  is  that  so  far  the  agitation  for  the  grant  of  suffrage  to 
women  was  for  a  while  met  by  comparatively  little  in  the  way 
of  counter  agitation,  and  that  abstract  democratic  doctrine 
has  still  power  over  the  American  mind.  Yet  who  can  tell 
whether  the  movement  will  evoke  as  much  enthusiasm  during 
the  next  thirty  years  as  it  has  heretofore  done?  Will  the 
spirit,  which  among  the  old  Abolitionists  insisted  on  giving 
full  political  effect  to  the  conception  of  equal  human  rights, 
and  which  has  died  down  under  the  experience  gained  by 
watching  negro  suffrage  in  the  South,  revive  in  its  old  inten- 


612 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  Y 


sity?  Is  not  that  which  may  be  called,  in  no  disparaging 
sense,  the  sentimental  tendency  in  politics  a  declining  and  not 
a  growing  force?  Schemes  for  restraining  the  sale  of  intoxi¬ 
cants  triumphed  in  the  Southern  and  Western  States  without 
the  aid  of  women’s  votes. 

However,  the  progress  which  the  movement  has  made  in  Eng¬ 
land  cheers  its  American  adherents ;  and  in  1909  the  passion 
shewn  by  the  English  propagandists  of  the  cause  stirred  both 
those  adherents  and  the  women  who  oppose  the  grant  to  more 
strenuous  efforts. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  question  lies  outside  the 
ordinary  party  lines.  Few  of  the  leaders  on  either  side  have 
given  it  any  support;  nor  have  those  “ Independents ”  or 
“ Reformers”  who  try  to  work  for  the  general  purification  of 
political  methods  advocated  it,  probably  because  they  dislike 
“sentimentalism,”  and  think  that  the  improvement  of  methods 
and  destruction  of  the  machine  ought  to  be  accomplished 
before  considering  further  extensions  of  a  suffrage  perhaps 
already  too  large.  These  are  some  of  the  reasons  which  make 
an  impartial  observer  doubt  whether  full  political  suffrage,  as 
distinguished  from  school  or  municipal  suffrage,  is  likely  to  be 
granted  to  women  in  many  States  of  the  Union  within  the 
next  twenty  years,  for  of  the  remoter  future  it  would  be  rash 
to  speak.  Advances  have  no  doubt  been  made,  and  where 
any  form  of  suffrage  has  been  once  granted,  it  has  never, 
except  in  the  State  of  Washington,  been  withdrawn.  But 
none  of  these  advances  has  been  made  since  1893,  and  it 
seems  impossible  to  determine  whether  the  tide  of  opinion  on 
the  subject  among  women  themselves  is  a  rising  or  a  falling  one. 
If  women  generally  come  to  desire  it,  it  will  doubtless  be  granted. 

To. a  European  observer  the  question  seems  one  rather  of 
social  than  of  political  moment.  If  he  sees  no  reason  to  ex¬ 
pect  an  improvement  in  politics  from  the  participation  of 
women  in  elections  and  their  admission  to  Congress  and  to 
high  political  office,  neither  does  he  find  much  cause  for  fear. 
The  results  of  universal  suffrage  may  not,  so  far  as  legislation 
is  concerned,  greatly  differ  from  those  of  manhood  suffrage. 
Such  misgivings  as  he  entertains  are  of  a  different  nature. 
They  are  serious  misgivings,  and  they  are  rendered  not  less 
serious  by  a  study  of  the  social  changes  which  are  passing  upon 
the  world  in  Europe  as  well  as  in  America. 


CHAPTER  C 


THE  SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 

The  question  which  in  one  form  or  another  every  European 
politician  has  during  the  last  half-century  been  asking  about 
the  United  States,  is  the  broad  question,  How  does  democracy 
answer?  No  other  country  has  tried  the  experiment  of  a 
democratic  government  on  so  large  a  scale,  with  so  many  minor 
variations,  for  the  State  governments  are  forty-six  autonomous 
democracies,  or  with  such  advantages  of  geographical  position 
and  material  resources.  And  those  who  think  that  all  civilized 
countries  are  moving  towards  democracy,  even  though  they  may 
not  be  destined  to  rest  there,  find  the  question  an  important  one 
for  themselves.  The  reader  who  has  followed  thus  far  the  account 
I  have  tried  to  give  of  the  Federal  Constitution  and  its  working, 
of  the  State  Constitutions,  of  local  government,  of  the  party 
machinery,  of  the  influence  of  public  opinion  as  a  controlling 
power  over  all  the  institutions  of  the  country,  will  be  content 
with  a  comparatively  brief  summary  of  the  results  to  which  the 
inquiries  made  under  these  heads  point. 

That  summary  naturally  falls  into  three  parts.  We  have  to 
ask  first,  how  far  the  faults  usually  charged  on  democracy  are 
present  in  America ;  next,  what  are  the  special  faults  which 
characterize  it  here;  last,  what  are  the  strong  points  which  it 
has  developed. 

The  chief  faults  which  philosophers,  from  Plato  downwards, 
and  popular  writers  repeating  and  caricaturing  the  dicta  of 
philosophers,  have  attributed  to  democratic  governments,  are  the 
following :  — 

Weakness  in  emergencies,  incapacity  to  act  with  prompti¬ 
tude  and  decision. 

Fickleness  and  instability,  frequent  changes  of  opinion,  con¬ 
sequent  changes  in  the  conduct  of  affairs  and  in  executive 
officials. 

Insubordination,  internal  dissensions,  disregard  of  authority, 

613 


614 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


with  a  frequent  resort  to  violence,  bringing  on  an  anarchy  which 
ends  in  military  tyranny. 

A  desire  to  level  down,  and  an  intolerance  of  greatness. 

Tyranny  of  the  majority  over  the  minority. 

A  love  of  novelty :  a  passion  for  changing  customs  and  de¬ 
stroying  old  institutions. 

Ignorance  and  folly,  producing  a  liability  to  be  deceived  and 
misled;  consequent  growth  of  demagogues  playing  on  the 
passions  and  selfishness  of  the  masses. 

I  do  not  say  that  this  list  exhausts  the  reproaches  directed 
against  democracy,  but  it  includes  those  which  are  most  often 
heard  and  are  best  worth  examining.  Most  of  them  are  drawn 
from  the  history  of  the  Greek  republics  of  antiquity  and  the 
Italian  republics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  small  communities  where 
the  conditions  of  social  and  political  life  were  so  different  from 
those  of  a  great  modern  country  that  we  ought  not  to  expect 
similar  results  to  follow  from  political  arrangements  called  by 
the  same  name.  However,  as  this  consideration  has  not  pre¬ 
vented  writers  and  statesmen,  even  in  our  own  day,  from  re¬ 
peating  the  old  censures,  and  indeed  from  mixing  together  in 
one  repulsive  potion  all  the  faults  that  belonged  to  small 
aristocratic  republics  with  all  that  can  belong  to  large  demo¬ 
cratic  republics,  it  is  worth  while  to  examine  these  current 
notions,  and  try  them  by  the  light  of  the  facts  which  America 
furnishes. 

Weakness  and  Want  of  Promptitude.  —  The  American  democ¬ 
racy  is  long-suffering  and  slow  in  rousing  itself ;  it  is  often 
perplexed  by  problems,  and  seems  to  grope  blindly  for  their 
solution.  In  the  dealings  with  England  and  France  which  pre¬ 
ceded  the  War  of  a.d.  1812,  and  in  the  conduct  of  that  war,  its 
government  showed  some  irresolution  and  sluggishness.  The 
habit  of  blustering  in  its  intercourse  with  foreign  powers,  and 
the  internal  strife  over  slavery,  led  Europeans  to  think  it  lacked 
firmness  and  vigour.  They  were  undeceived  in  1861.  While 
it  seemed  possible  to  avert  a  breach  with  the  Southern  slave¬ 
holders,  the  North  was  willing  to  accept,  and  did  accept,  a  series 
of  compromises  whose  inadequacy  was  soon  revealed.  The 
North  was  ill  led  in  Congress,  and  the  South  was  boldly  if  not 
wisely  led.  Yet  when  the  crisis  arrived,  the  North  put  forth 
its  power  with  a  suddenness  and  resolution  which  surprised 
the  world.  There  was  no  faltering  in  the  conduct  of  a  struggle 


chap,  c  SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 


615 


which  for  two  long  years  French  and  English  statesmen  deemed 
hopeless.  The  best  blood  of  the  North  freely  offered  itself  to  be 
shed  on  the  battlefields  of  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  for  the 
sake  of  the  Union ;  while  an  enormous  debt  was  incurred  in 
equipping  army  after  army.  As  every  one  knows,  the  Southern 
people  displayed  no  less  vigour  even  when  the  tide  had  evidently 
begun  to  turn  against  them,  and  the  hope  of  European  interven¬ 
tion  died  away.  If  want  of  force,  dash,  and  courage  in  moments 
of  danger  is  a  defect  generally  chargeable  on  popular  govern¬ 
ments,  it  was  not  then  chargeable  on  the  United  States.  But 
the  doctrine  is  one  which  finds  little  to  support  it  either  in  ancient 
or  in  modern  history,  while  there  are  many  instances  to  the  con¬ 
trary  :  witness  the  war  of  the  Swiss  against  Charles  the  Bold, 
and  the  defence  of  Florence  against  Charles  the  Fifth. 

Fickleness  and  Instability.  —  The  indictment  fails  on  this 
count  also.  The  people  are  open  to  sudden  impulses,  and  in 
particular  States  there  have  been  ill-considered  innovations 
and  a  readiness  to  try  wild  experiments,  such  as  those  I  have 
described  in  California.  But  taking  the  nation  as  a  whole,  its 
character  is  marked  by  tenacity  of  beliefs  and  adherence  to 
leaders  once  chosen.  The  opposite  charge  of  stubbornness  in 
refusing  to  be  convinced  by  argument  and  to  admit  the  failings 
of  men  who  have  established  some  title  to  gratitude,  might 
more  plausibly  be  preferred.  Western  farmers  have  been 
accustomed  to  suffer  from  the  high  price  of  the  clothes  they 
wear  and  the  implements  they  use,  but  once  they  had  imbibed  the 
belief  that  a  protective  tariff  makes  for  the  general  good  of  the 
country  they  remained  protectionists  down  till  1890 ;  and  of 
those  who  then  wavered  many  have  since  reverted  to  that  view. 
The  blunders  of  President  Grant’s  first  administration,  and 
the  misdeeds  of  the  knot  of  men  who  surrounded  him,  playing 
upon  the  political  inexperience  of  a  blunt  soldier,  scarcely  affected 
the  loyalty  of  the  masses  to  the  man  whose  sword  had  saved  the 
Union.  Congressmen  and  State  officials  are  no  doubt  often 
changed,  but  they  are  changed  in  pursuance  of  a  doctrine  and  a 
habit  in  which  the  interests  of  a  class  are  involved,  not  from  any 
fickleness  in  the  people.1 

Insubordination  and  Contempt  for  Authority.  —  On  this  head 
the  evidence  is  more  conflicting.  There  are  States  and  cities, 


1  See  Chap.  XX  in  Vol.  I. 


616 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


in  which  the  laws  are  imperfectly  enforced.  Homicide  is  hardly 
a  crime  in  some  parts  of  the  South  —  that  is  to  say,  a  man  who 
kills  another  is  not  always  arrested,  often  not  convicted  when 
arrested  and  put  on  his  trial,  very  rarely  hanged  when  convicted.1 
One  might  almost  say  that  private  war  is  recognized  by  opinion 
in  these  districts,  as  it  was  in  Europe  during  the  earlier  Middle 
Ages.  In  the  mountainous  country  of  Eastern  Kentucky,  and 
the  adjoining  parts  of  Virginia  and  Tennessee,  quarrels  are  kept 
up  from  generation  to  generation  between  hostile  families  and 
their  respective  friends,  which  the  State  authorities  cannot  suc¬ 
ceed  in  repressing.  In  1890,  I  was  assured  when  passing  the 
borders  of  that  region,  that  in  one  such  blood  feud  more  than 
fifty  persons  had  perished  within  the  preceding  ten  years,  each 
murder  provoking  another  in  revenge.  When  a  judge  goes  into 
these  parts  it  has  sometimes  befallen  that  a  party  of  men  come 
down  fully  armed  from  the  mountains,  surround  the  court  house, 
and  either  drive  him  away  or  oblige  him  to  abandon  the  attempt 
to  do  justice  on  slayers  belonging  to  their  faction.  In  the  West, 
again,  particularly  in  such  South-western  States  as  Missouri, 
Arkansas,  and  Texas,  brigandage  was  for  a  time,  and  is  still  in 
some  few  places,  regarded  with  a  certain  amusement,  rising  into 
sympathy,  by  a  part  of  the  peaceable  population.  Having  arisen 
partly  out  of  the  Border  ruffianism  which  preceded  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War,  partly  among  men  who  were  constantly  engaged 
in  skirmishing  with  the  Indian  tribes,  there  was  a  flavour  of 


1  Thirty  years  ago  a  distinguished  American  lawyer  said,  “There  is  no  sub¬ 
ject  within  the  domain  of  legislation  in  which  improvement  is  so  needed  as  in 
the  law  against  murder.  The  practical  immunity  that  crime  enjoys  in  some 
sections  of  the  country,  and  the  delay,  difficulty,  and  uncertainty  in  enforcing 
the  law  almost  everywhere,  is  a  reproach  to  our  civilization.  Efforts  to  save 
assassins  from  punishment  are  so  strenuous,  the  chances  of  escape  so  numer¬ 
ous,  and  the  proceedings  so  protracted,  that  the  law  has  few  terrors  for  those 
disposed  to  violate  it.”  —  Address  of  Mr.  E.  J  Phelps  to  the  American  Bar 
Association,  1881. 

More  recently  President  Taft  observed,  “  I  grieve  to  say  that  the  adminis¬ 
tration  of  the  criminal  law  is  in  nearly  all  the  States  of  the  Union  a  disgrace  to 
our  civilization”  (address  at  Yale  University),  and  in  1906  he  repeated,  “No 
one  can  examine  the  statistics  of  crime  in  this  country  and  of  successful  prose¬ 
cutions  without  realizing  that  the  administration  of  the  criminal  law  is  a  disgrace 
to  our  civilization,  and  without  tracing  to  this  condition  as  a  moving  and  over¬ 
whelming  cause  for  them,  the  horrible  lynchings  that  are  committed  the  country 
over,  with  all  the  danger  of  injustice  and  exhibition  of  fiendish  cruelty  which 
occurrences  involve”  (address  to  Pennsylvania  State  Bar  Association,  1906). 

Upon  this  whole  subject  see  Professor  Garner’s  article,  Crime  and  Judicial 
Inefficiency. 


CHAP.  C 


SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 


617 


romance  about  it,  which  ceased  to  gild  the  exploits  of  train- 
robbers  only  when  their  activity  threatened  the  commercial 
interests  of  a  rising  city.  Jesse  James,  the  notorious  bandit  of 
Missouri,  and  his  brothers  were  popular  heroes  in  the  region 
they  infested,  much  like  Robin  Hood  and  Little  John  in  the  bal¬ 
lads  of  the  thirteenth  century  in  England.  These  phenomena 
are,  however,  explicable  by  other  causes  than  democratic 
government.  The  homicidal  habits  of  the  South  are  a  relic  of 
that  semi-barbarism  which  slavery  kept  alive  long  after  the 
northern  free  States  had  reached  the  level  of  European  order. 
The  want  of  a  proper  police  is  apparently  the  cause  answerable 
for  the  train-robberies  which  still,  even  in  such  States  as  Illinois 
and  Ohio,  sometimes  occur,  and  these  are  detected  and  pun¬ 
ished  more  frequently  by  the  energy  of  the  railroad  or  express 
(parcel  delivery)  companies  and  their  skilled  detectives  than 
through  the  action  of  the  State  authorities.  Brigandage  is 
due  to  the  absence  of  a  mounted  gendarmerie  in  the  vast 
and  thinly  peopled  Further  West ;  and  there  is  no  gen¬ 
darmerie  because  the  Federal  government  leaves  the  States  to 
create  their  own,  and  unsettled  Western  communities,  being 
well  *  armed,  prefer  to  take  care  of  themselves  rather  than 
spend  their  scanty  corporate  funds  on  a  task  whose  cost  would, 
as  they  think,  be  disproportionate  to  the  result.1  In  the  western 
wilds  of  Canada,  however,  the  mounted  police  secures  perfect 
safety  for  wayfarers,  and  train-robberies  seem  to  be  unknown. 

Lynch  law  is  not  unknown  in  more  civilized  regions,  such 
as  Indiana  and  Illinois.  A  case  occurred  recently  not  far  from 
New  York  City.  Now  lynch  law,  however  shocking  it  may  seem 
to  Europeans  and  New  Englanders,  is  far  removed  from  arbitrary 
violence.  According  to  the  testimony  of  careful  observers,  it 
is  not  often  abused,  and  its  proceedings  are  generally  conducted 
with  some  regularity  of  form  as  well  as  fairness,  of  spirit.  What 
are  the  circumstances?  Those  highly  technical  rules  of  judicial 
procedure  and  still  more  technical  rules  of  evidence  which  Amer¬ 
ica  owes  to  the  English  common  law,  and  which  have  in  some 
States  retained  antiquated  minutiae  now  expunged  from  English 
practice,  or  been  rendered  by  new  legislation  too  favourable  to 
prisoners,  have  to  be  applied  in  districts  where  population  is  thin, 
where  there  are  very  few  officers,  either  for  the  apprehension  of 

1  There  is  always  a  sheriff,  whose  business  it  is  to  pursue  criminals,  and 
hang  them  if  convicted,  but  much  depends  on  his  individual  vigour. 


618 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


offenders,  or  for  the  hunting  up  of  evidence  against  them, 
and  where,  according  to  common  belief,  both  judges  and  juries 
are  occasionally  “squared”  or  “got  at.”  Many  crimes  would 
go  unpunished  if  some  more  speedy  and  efficient  method  of 
dealing  with  them  were  not  adopted.  This  method  is  found 
in  a  volunteer  jury,  summoned  by  the  leading  local  citizens,  or 
in  very  clear  cases,  by  a  simple  seizure  and  execution  of  the 
criminal.1  Why  not  create  an  efficient  police  ?  Because  crime 
is  uncommon  in  many  districts  —  in  such  districts,  for  instance, 
as  Michigan  or  rural  Wisconsin  —  and  the  people  have  delib¬ 
erately  concluded  that  it  is  cheaper  and  simpler  to  take  the 
law  into  their  own  hands  on  those  rare  occasions  when  a  police 
is  needed  than  to  be  at  the  trouble  of  organizing  and  paying  a 
force  for  which  there  is  usually  no  employment.  If  it  be  urged 
that  they  are  thus  forming  habits  of  lawlessness  in  themselves, 
the  Americans  reply  that  experience  does  not  seem  to  make 
this  probable,  because  lawlessness  does  not  increase  among  the 
farming  population,  and  has  disappeared  from  places  where  the 
rudeness  or  simplicity  of  society  formerly  rendered  lynch  law 
necessary.  Cases  however  occur  for  which  no  such  excuse  can 
be  offered,  cases  in  which  a  prisoner  (probably  a  negro)  already 
in  the  hands  of  justice  is  seized  and  put  to  death  by  a  mob. 
Some  years  ago  there  was  in  several  States,  and  notably  in  parts 
of  Southern  Indiana,  —  a  rough,  wooded  country,  with  a  back¬ 
ward  and  scattered  population,  —  a  strange  recrudescence  of 
lynching  in  the  rise  of  the  so-called  White  Caps,  people  who 
seized  by  night  men  or  women  who  had  given  offence  by  their 
immoral  life  or  other  vices,  dragged  them  into  the  woods,  flogged 
them  severely,  and  warned  them  to  quit  the  neighbourhood 
forthwith.  Similar  outrages  are  often  reported  from  other  States 
to  the  south-west  of  Indiana,  as  far  as  Alississippi.  In  Ohio 
they  were  promptly  repressed  by  an  energetic  governor.  In 
1908-9  disputes  connected  with  the  alleged  attempt  by  a  powerful 
corporation  to  create  a  monopoly  in  the  purchasing  of  tobacco  for 
manufacture  led  to  a  series  of  nocturnal  outrages  by  armed  men 
who  sought,  by  whipping  or  killing  those  farmers  who  refused  to 
join  them  in  their  resistance  to  the  attempts  referred  to,  to 

1  The  savageness  which  occasionally  appears  in  these  lynchings  is  surpris¬ 
ing  to  one  who  knows  the  general  kindliness  of  the  American  people.  Not 
long  ago  the  people  of  East  Kentucky  hunted  for  a  murderer  to  burn  him  to 
death,  and  the  White  Cap  and  Night  Riding  outrages  are  sometimes  accom¬ 
panied  by  revolting  cruelty. 


CHAP.  C 


SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 


619 


coerce  the  tobacco  growers  into  joining  that  organized  resistance. 
These  Night  Riders  gave  great  trouble  in  Kentucky  and  parts 
of  Tennessee,  though  the  Governor  took  vigorous  measures 
against  them. 

The  so-called  “Molly  Maguire”  conspiracy,  which  vexed 
and  terrified  Pennsylvania  for  several  years,  showed  the  want 
of  a  vigorous  and  highly  trained  police.  A  sort  of  secret  society 
organized  a  succession  of  murders,  much  like  the  Italian  Camorra, 
which  remained  undetected  till  a  daring  man  succeeded  in  per¬ 
suading  the  conspirators  to  admit  him  among  them.  He 
shared  their  schemes,  and  learnt  to  know  their  persons  and 
deeds,  then  turned  upon  them  and  brought  them  to  justice. 
This  remarkable  case  illustrates  not  any  neglect  of  law  or  tender¬ 
ness  for  crime,  but  mainly  the  power  of  a  combination  which 
can  keep  its  secrets.  Once  detected,  the  Molly  Maguires 
were  severely  dealt  with.  The  Pittsburg  riots  of  1877,  and 
the  Cincinnati  riots  of  1884,  and  the  Chicago  troubles  of  1894 
alarmed  the  Americans  themselves,  so  long  accustomed  to  domes¬ 
tic  tranquillity  as  to  have  forgotten  those  volcanic  forces  which 
lie  smouldering  in  all  ignorant  masses,  ready  to  burst  forth  upon 
sufficient  excitement.  The  miners  and  iron-workers  of  the  Pitts¬ 
burg  district  are  rough, fellows,  many  of  them  recent  immigrants 
who  have  not  yet  acquired  American  habits  of  order ;  nor  would 
there  have  been  anything  to  distinguish  the  Pennsylvanian 
disturbance  from  those  wdiich  happen  during  strikes  in  England, 
as,  for  instance,  at  Blackburn,  in  Lancashire  and,  later,  dur¬ 
ing  a  coal  strike  at  one  or  two  places  in  Yorkshire  and  Derby¬ 
shire,  or  in  times  of  distress  in  France,  as  at  Decazeville  in  1886, 
had  there  been  a  prompt  suppression.  Unfortunately  there  was 
in  1877  no  proper  force  on  the  spot.  The  governor  was  absent  ; 
the  mayor  and  other  local  authorities  lost  their  heads  ;  the  police, 
feebly  handled,  were  overpowered  ;  the  militia  showed  weakness  ; 
so  that  the  riot  spread  in  a  way  which  surprised  its  authors,  and 
the  mob  raged  for  several  days  along  the  railroads  in  several 
States,  and  over  a  large  area  of  manufacturing  and  mining  towns. 

The  moral  of  this  event  was  the  necessity,  even  in  a  land  of 
freedom,  of  keeping  a  force  strong  enough  to  repress  tumults 
in  their  first  stage.  The  Cincinnati  riot  began  in  an  attempt 
to  lynch  two  prisoners  who  were  thought  likely  to  escape  the 
punishment  they  richly  deserved ;  and  it  would  probably  have 
ended  there  had  not  the  floating  rabble  of  this  city  of  300,000 


620 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


inhabitants  seized  the  opportunity  to  do  a  little  pillage  and 
make  a  great  noise  on  their  own  account.  Neither  sedition 
had  any  political  character,  nor  indeed  any  specific  object, 
except  that  the  Pennsylvanian  mob  showed  special  enmity  to 
the  railroad  company. 

In  1892  the  same  moral  was  enforced  by  the  strike  riots  on 
some  of  the  railroads  in  New  York  State  and  in  the  mining 
regions  of  Idaho,  by  the  local  wars  between  cattlemen  and 
“rustlers”  in  Wyoming,  by  the  disturbances  at  the  Homestead 
works  in  Pennsylvania,  and  by  the  sanguinary  conflict  which 
arose  at  the  convict-worked  mines  in  Tennessee,  where  a  mob 
of  miners  attacked  the  stockades  in  which  were  confined  con¬ 
victs  kept  at  labour  under  contracts  between  the  State  and  pri¬ 
vate  mine  owners,  liberated  many  of  the  convicts,  captured  and 
were  on  the  point  of  hanging  an  officer  of  the  State  militia,  and 
were  with  difficulty  at  last  repressed  by  a  strong  militia  force. 
The  riots  at  Chicago  in  1894  and  the  more  protracted  strife  be¬ 
tween  mine  owners  and  striking  miners  in  Colorado  somewhat 
later  are  other  instances.  Such  tumults  are  not  specially  prod¬ 
ucts  of  democracy,  but  they  are  unhappily  proofs  that  de¬ 
mocracy  does  not  secure  the  good  behaviour  of  its  worse  and 
newest  citizens,  and  that  it  must  be  prepared,  no  less  than 
other  governments,  to  maintain  order  by  the  prompt  and  stern 
application  of  physical  force.1 

It  was  a  regrettable  evidence  of  the  extent  to  which  public 
authorities  have  seemed  to  abnegate  the  function  of  main¬ 
taining  order  that  the  habit  grew  up  among  railroad  directors 
and  the  owners  of  other  large  enterprises  of  hiring  a  private 
armed  force  to  protect,  at  the  time  of  a  strike,  not  only  the 
workmen  they  bring  in  to  replace  the  strikers,  but  also  their 
yards,  works,  and  stock  in  trade.  A  firm  which  began  business 
as  a  private  detective  agency  was  for  years  accustomed  to  supply 
for  this  purpose  bodies  of  men  well  trained  and  drilled,  who 
could  be  relied  on  to  defend  the  place  allotted  to  them  against 
a  greatly  superior  force  of  rioters.  This  firm  used  to  keep  not 
less  than  one  thousand  men  permanently  on  a  war  footing,  and 
sent  them  hither  and  thither  over  the  country  to  its  customers. 


1  There  is  a  great  difference  between  different  States  and  cities  as  regards 
police  arrangements.  The  police  of  New  York  City  are  efficient  and  indeed 
sometimes  too  promptly  severe  in  the  use  of  their  staves  ;  and  in  many  cities 
the  police  are  armed  with  revolvers. 


CHAP.  C 


SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 


621 


They  were  usually  sworn  in  as  Sheriff’s  deputies,  on  each  occa¬ 
sion  before  the  proper  local  authority.  So  frequent  had  been  the 
employment  of  “Pinkerton’s  men,”  as  they  are  called  (though  it 
is  not  always  from  Messrs.  Pinkerton  of  Chicago  that  they  are 
obtained,  and  the  name,  like  “Delmonico,”  for  a  restaurant, 
seems  to  be  passing  from  a  proper  into  a  common  noun),  that 
some  new  State  constitutions  (e.g.  Wyoming,  Idaho,  Montana, 
Washington,  Kentucky)  and  statutes  in  other  States  (e.g. 
Massachusetts)  expressly  prohibit  the  bringing  of  armed  men 
into  the  State,  and  a  Committee  of  Congress  was  set  to  investi¬ 
gate  the  subject,  so  far  without  result,  for  it  is  going  a  long  way 
to  forbid  a  man  by  statute  to  hire  persons  to  help  him  to  protect 
his  property  when  he  finds  it  in  danger.  These  strike  cases  are 
of  course  complicated  by  the  reluctance  of  a  State  governor  or  a 
mayor  to  incur  unpopularity  by  taking  strong  measures  against 
a  crowd  who  have  votes.  Here  we  touch  a  difficulty  specially 
incident  to  a  directly  elected  Executive,  —  a  difficulty  noted  al¬ 
ready  in  the  cases  of  elected  judges  and  elected  tax-officers,  and 
one  which  must  be  taken  into  account  in  striking  the  balance 
between  the  good  and  the  evil  of  a  system  of  direct  and  pervad¬ 
ing  popular  control.  The  remedy  is  in  extreme  cases  found  in 
the  displeasure  of  the  good  citizens,  who,  after  all,  form  the  voting 
majority.  But  it  is  a  remedy  which  may  follow  with  too  tardy 
steps.  Meantime,  many  large  employers  of  labour  find  them¬ 
selves  obliged  to  defend  their  property  by  these  condottieri, 
because  they  cannot  rely  on  the  defence  which  the  State  ought  to 
furnish,  and  the  condottieri  themselves,  who  seem  to  be  generally 
men  of  good  character  as  well  as  proved  courage,  are  so  much 
hated  by  the  workmen  as  to  be  sometimes  in  danger  of  being 
lynched  when  found  alone  or  in  small  parties.1 

In  some  States  not  a  few  laws  are  systematically  ignored  or 
evaded,  sometimes  by  the  connivance  of  officials  who  are  im¬ 
properly  induced  to  abstain  from  prosecuting  transgressors, 
sometimes  with  the  general  consent  of  the  community  which 
perceives  that  they  cannot  be  enforced.  Thus  some  years  ago 
the  laws  against  the  sale  of  liquor  on  Sundays  in  the  city  of 
Chicago  were  not  enforced.  The  German  and  Irish  part  of 
the  population  disliked  them,  and  showed  its  dislike  by  turn- 

1  It  is  probably  this  popular  hostility  to  the  employment  of  Pinkerton’s  men 
that  has  caused  them  to  figure  little  if  at  all  in  the  more  recent  strike  troubles. 
They  are  now  seldom  heard  of. 


622 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


ing  out  of  the  municipal  offices  those  who  had  enforced  them, 
while  yet  the  law  remained  on  the  statute-book  because,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  Constitution  of  Illinois,  it  took  a  majority  of  two- 
thirds  in  the  legislature  to  repeal  an  Act ;  and  the  rural  members, 
being  largely  Prohibitionists,  stood  by  this  law  against  Sunday 
dealing.  When  in  Texas  I  heard  of  the  same  thing  as  happening 
in  the  city  of  San  Antonio,  and  doubt  not  that  it  occurs  in  many 
cities.  More  laws  are  quietly  suffered  to  be  broken  in  America 
than  in  England,  France,  or  Germany.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
fair  to  say  that  the  credit  which  the  New  Englanders  used  to 
claim  of  being  a  law-abiding  people  is  borne  out  by  the  general 
security  of  property  and  person  which,  apart  from  the  cases  men¬ 
tioned  above,  and  especially  from  s  rike  troubles,  the  traveller 
remarks  over  the  rural  parts  of  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States.1 
Political  disturbances  (other  than  occasional  collisions  between 
whites  and  negroes)  are  practically  unknown.  Even  when  an 
election  is  believed  to  have  been  fraudulently  won,  the 
result  is  respected,  because  it  is  externally  regular.  Fights 
seldom  occur  at  elections ;  neither  party  disturbs  the  meet¬ 
ings  or  processions  of  the  other  in  the  hottest  presidential 
campaign.  To  Americans  the  habit  of  letting  opponents 
meet  and  talk  in  peace  seems  essential  to  a  well-ordered 
free  government. 

The  habit  of  obedience  to  constituted  authority  is  another 
test,  and  one  which  Plato  would  have  considered  specially  con¬ 
clusive.  The  difficulty  of  applying  it  in  America  is  that  there 
are  so  few  officials  who  come  into  the  relation  of  command 
with  the  people,  or  in  other  words,  that  the  people  are  so  lit¬ 
tle  “ governed,”  in  the  French  or  German  sense,  that  one  has 
few  opportunities  of  discovering  how  they  comport  themselves. 
The  officers  of  both  the  Federal  and  the  State  governments,  in 
levying  taxes  and  carrying  out  the  judgments  of  the  Courts, 
have  seldom  any  resistance  to  fear,  except  in  such  regions  as 
those  already  referred  to,  where  the  fierce  mountaineers  will  not 
brook  interference  with  their  vendetta,  or  suffer  the  Federal 
excisemen  to  do  their  duty.  These  regions  are,  however,  quite 
exceptional,  forming  a  sort  of  enclave  of  semi-barbarism  in  a 
civilized  country,  such  as  the  rugged  Albania  was  in  the  Roman 

1  There  is  little  use  in  comparing  the  aggregate  of  crimes  reported  and  of 
convictions  with  the  aggregates  of  European  countries,  because  in  disorderly 
regions  many  crimes  go  unreported  as  well  as  unpunished. 


CHAP.  C 


SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 


623 


Empire.  Other  authorities  experience  no  difficulty  in  making 
themselves  respected.  A  railroad  company,  for  instance,  finds 
its  passengers  only  too  submissive.  They  endure  with  a  patience 
which  astonishes  Englishmen  frequent  irregularities  of  the  train 
service  and  other  discomforts,  which  would  in  England  produce 
a  whole  crop  of  letters  to  the  newspapers.  The  discipline  of  the 
army  and  nav}^  is  in  war  time  nearly  as  strict  as  in  European 
armies.  So  in  universities  and  colleges  discipline  is  maintained 
with  the  same  general  ease  and  the  same  occasional  troubles  as 
arise  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The  children  in  the  city  schools 
are  proverbially  docile.  Except  when  strikes  occur,  employers 
do  not  complain  of  any  trouble  in  keeping  order  among  their 
work-people  while  at  work.  So  far,  indeed,  is  insubordination 
from  being  a  characteristic  of  the  native  Americans,  that  they 
are  conspicuously  the  one  free  people  of  the  world  which,  owing 
to  its  superior  intelligence,  has  recognized  the  permanent  value 
of  order,  and  observes  it  on  every  occasion,  not  least  when  a  sud¬ 
den  alarm  arises.  Anarchy  is  of  all  dangers  or  bugbears  the  one 
which  the  modern  wTorld  has  least  cause  to  fear,  for  the  tendency 
of  ordinary  human  nature  to  obey  is  the  same  as  in  past  times, 
and  the  aggregation  of  human  beings  into  great  masses  weakens 
the  force  of  the  individual  will,  and  makes  men  more  than  ever 
like  sheep,  so  far  as  action  is  concerned.  Much  less,  therefore, 
is  there  ground  for  fancying  that  out  of  anarchy  there  will  grow 
any  tyranny  of  force.  Whether  democracies  may  not  end  in 
yielding  greater  power  to  their  executives  is  quite  another  ques¬ 
tion,  whereof  more  anon  ;  all  I  observe  here  is  that  in  no  country 
can  a  military  despotism,  such  as  that  which  has  twice  prevailed 
in  France  and  once  in  England,  be  deemed  less  likely  to  arise. 
During  the  Civil  War  there  were  many  persons  in  Europe 
cultivating,  as  Gibbon  says,  the  name  without  the  temper  of 
philosophy,  who  predicted  that  some  successful  leader  of  the 
Northern  armies  would  establish  his  throne  on  the  ruins  of  the 
Constitution.  But  no  sooner  had  General  Lee  surrendered  at 
Appomattox  than  the  disbandment  of  the  victorious  host  began  ; 
and  the  only  thing  which  thereafter  distinguished  Generals 
Grant,  Sherman,  and  Sheridan  from  their  fellow-citizens  was  the 
liability  to  have  “receptions”  forced  on  them  when  they  visited 
a  city,  and  find  their  puissant  arms  wearied  by  the  handshakings 
of  their  enthusiastic  admirers. 

Csesarism  is  the  last  danger  likely  to  menace  America.  In 


624 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


no  nation  is  civil  order  more  stable.  None  is  more  averse  to 
the  military  spirit.  No  political  system  would  offer  a  greater 
resistance  to  an  attempt  to  create  a  standing  army  or  centralize 
the  administration. 

Jealousy  of  Greatness ,  and  a  Desire  to  Level  Down.  —  This 
charge  derives  a  claim  to  respectful  consideration  from  the 
authority  of  Tocqueville,  who  thought  it  a  necessary  attribute 
of  democracy,  and  professed  to  have  discovered  symptoms  of  it 
in  the  United  States.  It  alarmed  J.  S.  Mill,  and  has  been  fre¬ 
quently  dwelt  on  by  his  disciples,  and  by  many  who  have  adopted 
no  other  part  of  his  teachings,  as  an  evil  equally  inevitable 
and  fatal  in  democratic  countries.  There  was  probably  good 
ground  for  it  in  1830.  Even  now  one  discovers  a  tendency  in 
the  United  States,  particularly  in  the  West,  to  dislike,  possibly 
to  resent,  any  outward  manifestation  of  social  superiority. 
A  man  would  be  ill  looked  upon  who  should  build  a  castle  in  a 
park,  surround  his  pleasure-grounds  with  a  high  wall,  and  re¬ 
ceive  an  exclusive  society  in  gilded  drawing-rooms.  One  of  the 
parts  which  prominent  politicians,  who  must  be  assumed  to  know 
their  business,  most  like  to  play  is  the  part  of  Cincinnatus  at  the 
plough,  or  Curius  Dentatus  receiving  the  Samnite  envoys  over 
his  dinner  of  turnips.  They  welcome  a  newspaper  interviewer 
at  their  modest  farm,  and  take  pains  that  he  should  describe 
how  simply  the  rooms  are  furnished,  and  how  little  “help” 
(i.e.  how  few  servants)  is  kept.  Although  the  cynics  of  the 
New  York  press  make  a  mock  of  such  artless  ways,  the  desired 
impression  is  produced  on  the  farmer  and  the  artisan.  At  a 
senatorial  election  some  time  ago  in  a  North-western  State, 
the  opponents  of  the  sitting  candidate  procured  a  photograph 
of  his  residence  in  Washington,  a  handsome  mansion  in  a  fash¬ 
ionable  avenue,  and  circulated  it  among  the  members  of  the 
State  legislature,  to  show  in  what  luxury  their  Federal  represen¬ 
tative  indulged.  I  remember  to  have  heard  it  said  of  a  states¬ 
man  proposing  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  that 
he  did  not  venture  during  the  preceding  year  to  occupy  his 
house  in  Washington,  lest  he  should  give  occasion  for  similar 
criticism.  Whether  or  not  this  was  his  real  motive,  the  attribu¬ 
tion  of  it  to  him  is  equally  illustrative.  But  how  little  the  wealthy 
fear  to  display  their  wealth  and  take  in  public  the  pleasures  it 
procures  may  be  understood  by  any  one  who,  walking  down 
Fifth  Avenue  in  New  York,  observes  the  superb  houses  which 


CHAP.  C 


SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 


625 


line  it,  houses  whose  internal  decorations  and  collected  objects 
of  art  rival  those  of  the  palaces  of  European  nobles,  or  who 
watches  in  Newport,  one  of  the  most  fashionable  of  summer 
resorts,  the  lavish  expenditure  upon  servants,  horses,  carriages, 
and  luxuries  of  every  kind.  No  spot  in  Europe  conveys  an  equal 
impression  of  the  lust  of  the  eyes  and  the  pride  of  life,  of  boundless 
wealth  and  a  boundless  desire  for  enjoyment,  as  does  the  Ocean 
Drive  at  Newport  on  an  afternoon  in  August. 

Intellectual  eminence  excites  no  jealousy,  though  it  is  more 
admired  and  respected  than  in  Europe.  The  men  who  make 
great  fortunes  —  and  their  number  as  well  as  the  scale  of  their 
fortunes  increases  —  are  regarded  not  so  much  with  envy,  as 
with  admiration.  “  When  thou  doest  good  unto  thyself,  all  men 
shall  speak  well  of  thee.”  Wealth  does  not  always,  as  in  Eng¬ 
land,  give  its  possessors  an  immediate  entree  to  fashionable  society, 
but  it  marks  them  as  the  heroes  and  leaders  of  the  commercial 
world,  and  sets  them  on  a  pinnacle  of  fame  which  fires  the  imagi¬ 
nation  of  ambitious  youths  in  dry  goods  stores  or  traffic  clerks 
on  a  railroad.  The  demonstrations  of  hostility  to  wealthy  “mo¬ 
nopolists,”  and  especially  to  railroad  companies,  and  the  mag¬ 
nates  of  the  Trusts,  are  prompted,  not  by  hatred  to  prominence 
or  wealth  but  by  discontent  at  the  immense  power  which  capi¬ 
talists  exercise,  especially  in  the  business  of  transporting  goods, 
and  which  they  have  frequently  abused. 

Tyranny  of  the  Majority.  —  Of  this  I  have  spoken  in  a  previ¬ 
ous  chapter,  and  need  only  summarize  the  conclusions  there 
arrived  at.  So  far  as  compulsive  legislation  goes,  it  has  never 
been,  and  is  now  less  than  ever,  a  serious  or  widespread  evil. 
The  press  is  free  to  advocate  unpopular  doctrines,  even  the 
most  brutal  forms  of  anarchism.  Religious  belief  and  practices 
are  untouched  by  law.  The  sale  of  intoxicants  is  no  doubt  in 
many  places  restricted  or  forbidden,  but  to  assume  that  this  is 
a  tyrannical  proceeding  is  to  beg  a  question  on  which  the  wise 
are  much  divided.  The  taxation  of  the  rich  for  the  benefit  of 
the  poor  offers  the  greatest  temptation  to  a  majority  disposed 
to  abuse  its  powers.  But  neither  Congress  nor  the  State  legis¬ 
latures  have,  with  a  very  few  exceptions,  gone  any  farther  in 
this  direction  than  the  great  nations  of  Europe.  If  such 
abstention  from  legislative  tyranny  be  held  due,  not  to  the 
wisdom  and  fairness  of  the  American  democracy,  but  to  the 
restraints  which  the  Federal  and  State  constitutions  impose 


626 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


upon  it,  the  answer  is  —  Who  impose  and  maintain  these  re¬ 
straints?  The  people  themselves,  who  deserve  the  credit  of 
desiring  to  remove  from  their  own  path  temptations  which 
might  occasionally  prove  irresistible.  '  It  is  true  that  the  con¬ 
ditions  have  been  in  some  points  exceptionally  favourable. 
Class  hatreds  are  absent.  The  two  great  national  parties  are 
not  class  parties,  foE  if  we  take  the  country  as  a  whole,  rich 
and  poor  are  fairly  represented  in  both  of  these  parties.  Neither 
proposes  to  overtax  the  rich.  Both  denounce  monopolism  in  the 
abstract,  and  promise  to  restrain  capital  from  abusing  its  power, 
but  neither  is  more  forward  than  the  other  to  take  practical  steps 
for  such  a  purpose,  because  each  includes  capitalists  whose 
contributions  the  party  needs,  and  each  includes  plenty  of  the 
respectable  and  wealthy  classes.  Party  divisions  do  not  coin¬ 
cide  with  social  or  religious  divisions,  as  has  often  happened  in 
Europe. 

Moreover,  in  State  politics  —  and  it  is  in  the  State  rather 
than  in  the  Federal  sphere  that  attacks  on  a  minority  might 
be  feared  —  the  lines  on  which  parties  act  are  fixed  by  the 
lines  which  separate  the  national  parties,  and  each  party  is 
therefore  held  back  from  professing  doctrines  which  menace 
the  interests  of  any  class.  The  only  exceptions  occur  where 
some  burning  economic  question  supersedes  for  the  moment 
the  regular  party  attachments.  This  happened  in  California, 
with  the  consequences  already  described.  It  came  near  hap¬ 
pening  in  two  or  three  of  the  North-western  States,  such  as 
Illinois  and  Wisconsin,  where  the  farmers,  organized  in  their 
Granges  or  agricultural  clubs,  caused  the  legislatures  to  pass 
statutes  which  bore  hardly  on  the  railroads  and  the  owners  of 
elevators  and  grain  warehouses.  Similar  attempts  were  more 
recently  made  by  the  Populists  and  must  from  time  to  time 
be  expected.  Yet  even  this  kind  of  legislation  can  scarcely 
be  called  tyrannical.  It  is  an  attempt,  however  clumsy  and 
abrupt,  to  deal  with  a  real  economical  mischief,  not  an  undue 
extension  of  the  scope  of  legislation  to  matters  in  which 
majorities  ought  not  to  control  minorities  at  all. 

Love  of  Novelty;  Passion  for  destroying  Old  Institutions.  —  It 
is  easy  to  see  how  democracies  have  been  credited  with  this 
tendency.  They  have  risen  out  of  oligarchies  or  aristocratic 
monarchies,  the  process  of  their  rise  coinciding,  if  not  always 
with  a  revolution,  at  least  with  a  breaking  down  of  many  old 


CHAP.  C 


SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 


627 


usages  and  institutions.  It  is  this  very  breaking  down  that 
gives  birth  to  them.  Probably  some  of  the  former  institutions 
are  spared,  are  presently  found  incompatible  with  the  new  order 
of  things,  and  then  have  to  be  changed  till  the  people  has,  so 
to  speak,  furnished  its  house  according  to  its  taste.  But  when 
the  new  order  has  been  established,  is  there  any  ground  for 
believing  that  a  democracy  is  an  exception  to  the  general  ten¬ 
dency  of  mankind  to  adhere  to  the  customs  they  have  formed, 
admire  the  institutions  they  have  created,  and  even  bear  the 
ills  they  know  rather  than  incur  the  trouble  of  finding  some 
way  out  of  them  ?  The  Americans  are  not  an  exception.  They 
value  themselves  only  too  self-complacently  on  their  methods 
of  government ;  they  abide  by  their  customs,  because  they 
admire  them.  They  love  novelty  in  the  sphere  of  amusement, 
literature,  and  social  life ;  but  in  serious  matters,  such  as 
the  fundamental  institutions  of  government  and  in  re¬ 
ligious  belief,  no  progressive  and  civilized  people  is  more 
conservative. 

Liability  to  be  misled;  Influence  of  Demagogues.  —  No  doubt 
the  inexperience  of  the  xecent  immigrants,  the  want  of  trained 
political  thought  among  the  bulk  even  of  native  citizens,  the 
tendency  to  sentimentalism  which  marks  all  large  masses  of 
men,  do  lay  the  people  open  to  the  fallacious  reasoning  and 
specious  persuasions  of  adventurers.  This  happens  in  all  popu¬ 
larly  governed  countries ;  and  a  phenomenon  substantially  the 
same  occurs  in  oligarchies,  for  you  may  have  not  only  aristo¬ 
cratic  demagogues,  but  demagogues  playing  to  an  aristocratic 
mob.  Stripped  of  its  externals  and  considered  in  its  essential 
features,  demagogism  is  no  more  abundant  in  America  than  in 
England,  France,  or  Italy.  Empty  and  reckless  declaimers, 
such  as  were  some  of  those  who  figured  in  the  Granger  and 
Populist  movements  (for  sincere  and  earnest  men  have  shared 
in  both),  are  allowed  to  talk  themselves  hoarse,  and  ultimately 
relapse  into  obscurity.  A  demagogue  of  greater  talent  may 
aspire  to  some  high  executive  office;  if  not  to  the  Presidency, 
then  perhaps  to  a  place  in  the  Cabinet,  where  he  may  practically 
pull  the  vires  of  a  President  whom  he  has  put  into  the  chair. 
Failing  either  of  these,  he  aims  at  the  governorship  of  his  State 
or  the  mayoralty  of  a  great  city.  In  no  one  of  these  positions  is 
it  easy  for  him  to  do  permanent  mischief.  The  Federal  executive 
has  no  influence  on  legislation,  and  even  in  foreign  policy  and  in 


628 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  making  of  appointments  requires  the  consent  of  the  Senate. 
That  any  man  should  acquire  so  great  a  hold  on  the  country  as 
to  secure  the  election  of  two  Houses  of  Congress  subservient  to 
his  will,  while  at  the  same  time  securing  the  Presidency  or  Secre¬ 
taryship  of  State  for  himself,  is  an  event  too  improbable  to  enter 
into  calculation.  Nothing  approaching  it  has  been  seen  since 
the  days  of  Jackson.  The  size  of  the  country,  the  differences 
between  the  States,  a  hundred  other  causes,  make  achievements 
possible  enough  in  a  European  country  all  but  impossible  here. 
That  a  plausible  adventurer  should  clamber  to  the  presidential 
chair,  and  when  seated  there  should  conspire  with  a  corrupt 
congressional  ring,  purchasing  by  the  gift  of  offices  and  by  jobs 
their  support  for  his  own  schemes  of  private  cupidity  or  public 
mischief,  is  conceivable,  but  improbable.  The  system  of  counter¬ 
checks  in  the  Federal  government,  which  impedes  or  delays  much 
good  legislation,  may  be  relied  on  to  avert  many  of  the  dangers 
to  which  the  sovereign  chambers  of  European  countries  are 
exposed. 

A  demagogue  installed  as  governor  of  a  State  —  and  it  is 
usually  in  State  politics  that  demagogism  appears  —  has  but 
limited  opportunities  for  wrong-doing.  He  can  make  a  few 
bad  appointments,  and  can  discredit  the  commonwealth  by 
undignified  acts.  He  cannot  seriously  harm  it.  Two  politicians 
who  seemed  to  deserve  the  title  obtained  that  honourable 
post  in  two  great  Eastern  States.  One  of  them,  a  typical 
“ringster,”  perpetrated  some  jobs,  tampered  with  some  elections, 
and  vetoed  some  good  bills.  Venturing  too  far,  he  at  last  in¬ 
volved  his  party  in  an  ignominious  defeat.  The  other,  a  man 
of  greater  natural  gifts  and  greater  capacity  for  mischief,  whose 
capture  of  the  chief  magistracy  of  the  State  had  drawn  forth 
lamentations  from  the  better  citizens,  left  things  much  as  he 
found  them,  and  the  most  noteworthy  incident  which  marked 
his  year  of  office  —  for  he  was  turned  out  at  the  next  election  — 
was  the  snub  administered  by  the  leading  university  in  the  State, 
which  refused  him  the  compliment,  usually  paid  to  the  chief 
magistrate,  of  an  honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws. 

This  inquiry  has  shown  us  that  of  the  faults  traditionally 
attributed  to  democracy  one  only  is  fairly  chargeable  on  the 
United  States ;  that  is  to  say,  is  manifested  there  more  con¬ 
spicuously  than  in  the  constitutional  monarchies  of  Europe. 
This  is  the  disposition  to  be  lax  in  enforcing  laws  disliked  by 


CHAP.  C 


SUPPOSED  FAULTS  OF  DEMOCRACY 


629 


any  large  part  of  the  population,  to  tolerate  breaches  of  public 
order,  and  to  be  too  indulgent  to  offenders  generally.  The 
Americans  themselves  admit  this  to  be  one  of  their  weak  points. 
How  far  it  is  due  to  that  deficient  reverence  for  law  which  is 
supposed  to  arise  in  popular  governments  from  the  fact  that  the 
people  have  nothing  higher  than  themselves  to  look  up  to,  how 
far  to  the  national  easy-goingness  and  good-nature,  how  far  to 
the  prejudice  against  the  maintenance  of  an  adequate  force  of 
military  and  police  and  to  the  optimism  which  refuses  to  recog¬ 
nize  the  changes  brought  by  a  vast  increase  of  population,  largely 
consisting  of  immigrants,  these  are  points  I  need  not  attempt 
to  determine.  It  has  produced  no  general  disposition  to  lawless¬ 
ness,  which  rather  tends  to  diminish  in  the  older  parts  of  the 
country.  And  it  is  sometimes  (though  not  always)  replaced  in 
a  serious  crisis  by  a  firmness  in  repressing  disorders  which  some 
European  governments  may  envy.  Men  who  are  thoroughly 
awakened  to  the  need  for  enforcing  the  law,  enforce  it  all  the  more 
resolutely  because  it  has  the  whole  weight  of  the  people  behind  it. 


CHAPTER  Cl 


THE  TRUE  FAULTS  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

We  have  seen  that  the  defects  commonly  attributed  to  demo¬ 
cratic  government  are  not  specially  characteristic  of  the  United 
States.  It  remains  to  enquire  what  are  the  peculiar  blemishes 
which  the  country  does  show.  So  far  as  regards  the  constitu¬ 
tional  machinery  of  the  Federal  and  of  the  State  government 
this  question  has  been  answered  in  earlier  chapters.  It  is 
now  rather  the  tendency  of  the  institutions  generally,  the  dis¬ 
position  and  habits  of  the  governing  people,  that  we  have  to 
consider.  The  word  Democracy  is  often  used  to  mean  a  spirit 
or  tendency,  sometimes  the  spirit  of  revolution,  sometimes  the 
spirit  of  equality.  For  our  present  purpose  it  is  better  to 
take  it  as  denoting  simply  a  form  of  government,  that  in  which 
the  numerical  majority  rules,  deciding  questions  of  state  by 
the  votes,  whether  directly,  as  in  the  ancient  republics,  or  medi¬ 
ately,  as  in  modern  representative  government,  of  the  body  of 
citizens,  the  citizens  being,  if  not  the  whole,  at  least  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  adult  males.  The  enquiry  may  begin  with  the 
question,  What  are  the  evils  to  which  such  a  form  of  government 
is  by  its  nature  exposed  ?  and  may  then  proceed  to  ascertain 
whether  any  other  defects  exist  in  the  United  States  government 
which,  though  traceable  to  democracy,  are  not  of  its  essence,  but 
due  to  the  particular  form  which  it  has  there  taken. 

It  is  an  old  maxim  that  republics  live  by  Virtue  —  that  is, 
by  the  maintenance  of  a  high  level  of  public  spirit  and  justice 
among  the  citizens.  If  the  republic  be  one  in  which  power  is 
confined  to,  or  practically  exercised  by,  a  small  educated  class, 
the  maintenance  of  this  high  level  is  helped  by  the  sense  of  per¬ 
sonal  dignity  which  their  position  engenders.  If  the  republic 
itself  be  small,  and  bear  rule  over  others,  patriotism  may  be  in¬ 
tense,  and  the  sense  of  the  collective  dignity  of  the  state  may 
ennoble  the  minds  of  the  citizens,  make  them  willing  to  accept 
sacrifices  for  its  sake,  to  forego  private  interests  and  suppress 

630 


chap,  ci  FAULTS  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


631 


private  resentments,  in  order  to  be  strong  against  the  outer 
world.  But  if  the  state  be  very  large,  and  the  rights  of  all 
citizens  equal,  we  must  not  expect  them  to  rise  above  the  average 
level  of  human  nature.  Rousseau  and  Jefferson  will  tell  us 
that  this  level  is  high,  that  the  faults  which  governments  have 
hitherto  shown  are  due  to  the  selfishness  of  privileged  persons 
and  classes,  that  the  ordinary  unsophisticated  man  will  love 
justice,  desire  the  good  of  others,  need  no  constraint  to  keep 
him  in  the  right  path.  Experience  will  contradict  them,  and 
whether  it  talks  of  Original  Sin  or  adopts  some  less  scholastic 
phrase,  will  recognize  that  the  tendencies  to  evil  in  human  nature 
are  not  perhaps  as  strong,  but  as  various  and  abiding  even  in  the 
most  civilized  societies,  as  its  impulses  to  good.  Hence  the 
rule  of  numbers  means  the  rule  of  ordinary  mankind,  without 
those  artificial  helps  which  their  privileged  position  has  given 
to  limited  governing  classes,  though  also,  no  doubt,  without  those 
special  temptations  which  follow  in  the  wake  of  power  and  privi¬ 
lege. 

Since  every  question  that  arises  in  the  conduct  of  government 
is  a  question  either  of  ends  or  of  means,  errors  may  be  committed 
by  the  ruling  power  either  in  fixing  on  wrong  ends  or  in  choosing 
wrong  means  to  secure  those  ends.  It  is  now,  after  long  resist¬ 
ance  by  those  who  maintained  that  they  knew  better  what  was 

good  for  the  people  than  the  people  knew  themselves,  at  last 

« 

agreed  that  as  the  masses  are  better  judges  of  what  will  conduce 
to  their  own  happiness  than  are  the  classes  placed  above  them, 
they  must  be  allowed  to  determine  ends.  This  is  in  fact  the 
essence  of  free  or  popular  government,  and  the  justification  for 
vesting  power  in  numbers.  But  assuming  the  end  to  be  given, 
who  is  best  qualified  to  select  the  means  for  its  accomplishment  ? 
To  do  so  needs  in  many  cases  a  knowledge  of  the  facts,  a  skill  in 
interpreting  them,  a  power  of  forecasting  the  results  of  measures, 
unattainable  by  the  mass  of  mankind.  Such  knowledge  is  too 
high  for  them.  It  is  attainable  only  by  trained  economists, 
legists,  statesmen.  If  the  masses  attempt  it  they  will  commit 
mistakes  not  less  serious  than  those  which  befall  a  litigant  who 
insists  on  conducting  a  complicated  case  instead  of  leaving  it  to 
his  attorney  and  counsel.  But  in  popular  governments  this 
distinction  between  ends  and  means  is  apt  to  be  forgotten. 
Often  it  is  one  which  cannot  be  sharply  drawn,  because  some 
ends  are  means  to  larger  ends,  and  some  means  are  desired 


632 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


not  only  for  the  sake  of  larger  ends,  but  for  their  own  sakes  also. 
And  the  habit  of  trusting  its  own  wisdom  and  enjoying  its  own 
power,  in  which  the  multitude  is  encouraged  by  its  leaders  and 
servants,  disposes  it  to  ignore  the  distinction  even  where  the 
distinction  is  clear,  and  makes  it  refer  to  the  direct  arbitrament 
of  the  people  matters  which  the  people  are  unfit  to  decide,  and 
which  they  might  safely  leave  to  their  trained  ministers  or  repre¬ 
sentatives.  Thus  we  find  that  the  direct  government  of  the 
multitude  may  become  dangerous  not  only  because  the  multitude 
shares  the  faults  and  follies  of  ordinary  human  nature,  but  also 
because  it  is  intellectually  incompetent  for  the  delicate  business 
of  conducting  the  daily  work  of  administration,  i.e.  of  choosing 
and  carrying  out  with  vigour  and  promptitude  the  requisite  exec¬ 
utive  means.  The  People,  though  we  think  of  a  great  entity 
when  we  use  the  word,  means  nothing  more  than  so  many 
millions  of  individual  men.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  it  is  true 
that  the  people  are  wiser  than  the  wisest  man.  But  what  is  true 
of  their  ultimate  judgment  after  the  lapse  of  time  sufficient  for 
full  discussion,  is  not  equally  true  of  decisions  that  have  to  be 
promptly  taken. 

What  are  the  consequences  which  we  may  expect  to  follow 
from  these  characteristics  of  democracy  and  these  conditions 
under  which  it  is  forced  to  work  ? 

First,  a  certain  commonness  of  mind  and  tone,  a  want  of 
dignity  and  elevation  in  and  about  the  conduct  of  public  affairs, 
an  insensibility  to  the  nobler  aspects  and  finer  responsibilities 
of  national  life. 

Secondly,  a  certain  apathy  among  the  luxurious  classes  and 
fastidious  minds,  who  find  themselves  of  no  more  account  than 
the  ordinary  voter,  and  are  disgusted  by  the  superficial  vul¬ 
garities  of  public  life. 

Thirdly,  a  want  of  knowledge,  tact,  and  judgment  in  the 
details  of  legislation,  as  well  as  in  administration,  with  an 
inadequate  recognition  of  the  difficulty  of  these  kinds  of  work, 
and  of  the  worth  of  special  experience  and  skill  in  dealing  with 
them.  Because  it  is  incompetent,  the  multitude  will  not  feel 
its  incompetence,  and  will  not  seek  or  defer  to  the  counsels  of 
those  who  possess  the  requisite  capacity. 

Fourthly,  laxity  in  the  management  of  public  business.  The 
persons  entrusted  ’with  such  business  being  only  average  men, 
thinking  themselves  and  thought  of  by  others  as  average  men, 


chap,  ci  FAULTS  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


633 


and  not  rising  to  a  due  sense  of  their  responsibilities,  may  suc¬ 
cumb  to  the  temptations  which  the  control  of  legislation  and 
the  public  funds  present,  in  cases  where  persons  of  a  more 
enlarged  view  and  with  more  of  a  social  reputation  to  support 
would  remain  incorruptible.  To  repress  such  derelictions  of 
duty  is  every  citizen’s  duty,  but  for  that  reason  it  is  in  large 
communities  apt  to  be  neglected.  Thus  the  very  causes  which 
implant  the  mischief  favour  its  growth. 

The  above-mentioned  tendencies  are  all  more  or  less  observa¬ 
ble  in  the  United  States.  As  each  of  them  has  been  described 
already  in  its  proper  place,  a  summary  reference  may  here  be 
sufficient  to  indicate  their  relation  to  the  democratic  form  of 
government  and  to  the  immanent  spirit  or  theory  which  lies 
behind  that  form. 

The  tone  of  public  life  is  lower  than  one  expects  to  find  it 
in  so  great  a  nation.  -  Just  as  we  assume  that  an  individual 
man  will  at  any  supreme  moment  in  his  own  life  rise  to  a  higher 
level  than  that  on  which  he  usually  moves,  so  we  look  to  find 
those  who  conduct  the  affairs  of  a  great  state  inspired  by  a  sense 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  interests  entrusted  to  them.  Their 
horizon  ought  to  be  expanded,  their  feeling  of  duty  quickened, 
their  dignity  of  attitude  enhanced.  Human  nature  with  all 
its  weaknesses  does  show  itself  capable  of  being  thus  roused  on 
its  imaginative  side ;  and  in  Europe,  where  the  traditions  of 
aristocracy  survive,  everybody  condemns  as  mean  or  unworthy 
acts  done  or  language  held  by  a  great  official  which  would 
pass  unnoticed  in  a  private  citizen.  It  is  the  principle  of  noblesse 
oblige  with  the  sense  of  duty  and  trust  substituted  for  that  of  mere 
hereditary  rank. 

Such  a  sentiment  is  comparatively  weak  in  America.  A 
cabinet  minister,  or  senator,  or  governor  of  a  State,  sometimes 
even  a  President,  has  sometimes  felt  himself  scarcely  more 
bound  by  it  than  the  director  of  a  raihvay  company  or  the 
mayor  of  a  town  does  in  Europe.  In  order  to  avoid  the 
assumption  of  being  individually  wiser  or  better  than  his 
fellow-citizens,  he  has  been  apt  to  act  and  speak  as  though 
he  were  simply  one  of  them,  and  so  far  from  magnifying  his 
office  and  making  it  honourable,  seems  anxious  to  show  that 
he  is  the  mere  creature  of  the  popular  vote,  so  filled  by  the 
sense  that  it  is  the  people  and  not  he  who  governs  as  to 
fear  that  he  should  be  deemed  to  have  forgotten  his  per- 


634 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


sonal  insignificance.  There  is  in  the  United  States  abundance 
of  patriotism,  that  is  to  say,  of  a  passion  for  the  greatness 
and  happiness  of  the  Republic,  and  a  readiness  to  make  sacrifices 
for  it.  The  history  of  the  Civil  War  showed  this  passion  at 
least  as  strong  as  in  England  or  France.  There  is  no  want  of 
an  appeciation  of  the  collective  majesty  of  the  nation,  for  this 
is  the  theme  of  incessant  speeches,  nor  even  of  the  past  and 
future  glories  of  each  particular  State  in  the  Union.  But  these 
sentiments  do  not  bear  their  appropriate  fruit  in  raising  the 
conception  of  public  office,  of  its  worth  and  its  dignity.  The 
newspapers  assume  public  men  to  be  selfish  and  cynical.  Dis¬ 
interested  virtue  is  not  looked  for,  is  perhaps  turned  into  ridicule 
where  it  exists.  The  hard  commercial  spirit  which  pervades  the 
meetings  of  a  joint-stock  company  is  the  spirit  in  which  most 
politicians  speak,  and  are  not  blamed  for  speaking,  of  public 
business.  Something,  especially  in  the  case  of  newspapers, 
must  be  allowed  for  the  humorous  tendencies  of  the  American 
mind,  which  likes  to  put  forward  the  absurd  and  even  vulgar 
side  of  things  for  the  sake  of  getting  fun  out  of  them.  But  after 
making  such  allowances,  the  fact  remains  that,  although  no 
people  is  more  emotional,  and  even  in  a  sense  more  poetical, 
in  no  country  has  the  ideal  side  of  public  life,  what  one  may 
venture  to  call  the  heroic  element  in  a  public  career,  been  so 
ignored  by  the  mass  and  repudiated  by  the  leaders.  This  has 
affected  not  only  the  elevation  but  the  independence  and  courage 
of  public  men ;  and  the  country  has  suffered  from  the  want  of 
what  we  call  distinction  in  its  conspicuous  figures.1 

I  have  discussed  in  a  previous  chapter  the  difficulties  which 
surround  the  rule  of  public  opinion  where  it  allows  little  discre¬ 
tion  to  its  agents,  relying  upon  its  own  competence  to  supervise 
administration  and  secure  the  legislation  which  a  progressive 
country  needs.  The  American  masses  have  been  obliged,  both 
by  democratic  theory  and  by  the  structure  of  their  government, 
to  proceed  upon  the  assumption  of  their  own  competence. 
They  have  succeeded  better  than  could  have  been  expected. 
No  people  except  the  choicest  children  of  England,  long  trained 
by  the  practice  of  local  self-government  at  home  and  in  the 
colonies  before  their  revolt,  could  have  succeeded  half  so  well. 
Nevertheless  the  masses  of  the  United  States  as  one  finds  them 

1  There  are  signs  that  the  view  here  presented  is  becoming  less  true  than 
it  was  when  this  paragraph  was  first  written. 


chap,  ci  FAULTS  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


635 


to-day  show  what  are  the  limitations  of  the  average  man.  They 
can  deal  with  broad  and  simple  issues,  especially  with  issues  into 
which  a  moral  element  enters.  They  spoke  out  with  a  clear 
strong  voice  upon  slavery,  when  at  last  it  had  become  plain  that 
slavery  must  either  spread  or  vanish,  and  threw  themselves  with 
enthusiasm  into  the  struggle  for  the  Union.  Their  instinctive 
dislike  for  foreign  complications  as  well  as  for  acquisitions  of  new 
territory  have  from  time  to  time  checked  unwise  attempts 
to  incur  needless  responsibilities.  Their  sense  of  national 
and  commercial  honour  has  defeated  more  than  one  mischievous 
scheme  for  tampering  with  the  public  credit.  But  when  a  ques¬ 
tion  of  intricacy  presents  itself,  requiring  either  keen  foresight, 
exact  reasoning,  or  wide  knowledge,  they  are  at  fault.  Questions 
relating  to  currency  and  coinage,  free  trade  and  protection, 
improvements  in  the  machinery  of  constitutions  or  of  municipal 
governments,  the  control  by  the  law  of  corporations  and  still 
more  of  Trusts,  the  method  of  securing  purity  of  elections, 
the  reform  of  criminal  procedure  in  the  State  courts,  these  are 
problems  which  long  baffled,  and  some  of  which  seem  still 
to  baffle  them,  just  as  the  Free  Soil  question  did  before  the  war 
or  the  reconstruction  of  the  revolted  Southern  States  for  a  long 
time  after  it.  In  those  two  instances  a  solution  came  about,  but 
in  the  former  it  was  not  so  much  affected  by  the  policy  of  the 
people  or  their  statesmen  as  forced  on  them  by  events,  in  the 
latter  it  left  grave  evils  behind. 

Is  this  a  defect  incidental  to  all  popular  governments,  or  is 
there  anything  in  the  American  system  specially  calculated  to 
produce  it  ? 

A  state  must  of  course  take  the  people  as  it  finds  them,  with 
such  elements  of  ignorance  and  passion  as  exists  in  masses 
of  men  everywhere.  Nevertheless,  a  representative  or  parlia¬ 
mentary  system  provides  the  means  of  mitigating  the  evils  to 
be  feared  from  ignorance  or  haste,  for  it  vests  the  actual  conduct 
of  affairs  in  a  body  of  specially  chosen  and  presumably  specially 
qualified  men,  who  may  themselves  entrust  such  of  their  func¬ 
tions  as  need  peculiar  knowledge  or  skill  to  a  smaller  governing 
body  or  bodies  selected  in  respect  of  their  more  eminent  fitness. 
By  this  method  the  defects  of  democracy  are  remedied,  while  its 
strength  is  retained.  The  masses  give  their  impulse  to  the 
representatives :  the  representatives,  directed  by  the  people 
to  secure  certain  ends,  bring  their  skill  and  experience  to  bear  on 


636 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


the  choice  and  application  of  the  best  means.  The  Americans, 
however,  have  not  so  constructed  or  composed  their  representa¬ 
tive  bodies  as  to  secure  a  large  measure  of  these  benefits.  The 
legislatures  are  disjoined  from  the  administrative  offices.  The 
members  of  legislatures  are  not  selected  for  their  ability  or  ex¬ 
perience,  but  are,  two-thirds  of  them  little  above  the  average  citi¬ 
zen,  being  in  many  places  so  chosen  as  to  represent  rather  the 
local  machine  than  the  people.  They  are  not  much  respected 
or  trusted,  and  finding  no  exceptional  virtue  expected  from  them, 
they  behave  as  ordinary  men  do  when  subjected  to  temptations. 
The  separation  of  the  executive  from  the  legislature  is  a  part  of 
the  constitutional  arrangements  of  the  country,  and  has  no 
doubt  some  advantages.  The  character  of  the  legislatures  is 
due  to  a  mistaken  view  of  human  equality  and  an  exaggerated 
devotion  to  popular  sovereignty.  It  is  a  result  of  democratic 
theory  pushed  to  extremes,  but  is  not  necessarily  incident  to  a 
democratic  government.  The  government  of  England,  for 
instance,  has  now  become  substantially  a  democracy,  but  there 
is  no  reason  why  it  should  imitate  America  in  either  of  the  points 
just  mentioned ;  nor  does  democratic  France,  apt  enough  to 
make  a  bold  use  of  theory,  seem  to  have  pushed  theory  to  excess 
in  these  particular  directions.  I  do  not,  however,  deny  that  a 
democratic  system  makes  the  people  self-confident,  and  that  self- 
confidence  may  easily  pass  into  a  jealousy  of  delegated  power, 
an  undervaluing  of  skill  and  knowledge,  a  belief  that  any  citizen 
is  good  enough  for  any  political  work.  This  is  perhaps  more 
likely  to  happen  with  a  people  who  have  really  reached  a  high 
level  of  political  competence :  and  so  one  may  say  that  the 
American  democracy  is  not  better  just  because  it  is  so  good. 
Were  it  less  educated,  less  shrewd,  less  actively  interested  in 
public  affairs,  less  independent  in  spirit,  it  might  be  more  dis¬ 
posed,  like  the  masses  in  Europe,  to  look  up  to  the  classes  which 
have  hitherto  done  the  work  of  government.  So  perhaps  the 
excellence  of  rural  local  self-government  has  lowered  the  con¬ 
ception  of  national  government.  The  ordinary  American  farmer 
or  shopkeeper  or  artisan  bears  a  part  in  the  local  government  of 
his  township  or  village,  or  county,  or  small  municipality.  He 
is  quite  competent  to  discuss  the  questions  that  arise  there.  He 
knows  his  fellow-citizens,  and  can,  if  he  takes  the  trouble,  select 
the  fittest  of  them  for  local  office.  No  high  standard  of  fitness 
is  needed,  for  the  work  of  local  administration  can  be  adequately 


chap,  ci  FAULTS  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


637 


despatched  by  any  sensible  man  of  business  habits.  Taking 
his  ideas  from  this  local  government,  he  images  Congress  to 
himself  as  nothing  more  than  a  larger  town  council  or  board 
of  county  commissioners,  the  President  and  his  Cabinet  as  a 
sort  of  bigger  mayor  and  city  treasurer  and  education  superin¬ 
tendent  ;  he  is  therefore  content  to  choose  for  high  Federal 
posts  such  persons  as  he  would  elect  for  these  local  offices. 
They  are  such  as  he  is  himself ;  and  it  would  seem  to  him  a 
disparagement  of  his  own  civic  worth  were  he  to  deem  his 
neighbours,  honest,  shrewd,  hard-working  men,  unfit  for  any 
places  in  the  service  of  the  Republic. 

A  European  critic  may  remark  that  this  way  of  presenting 
the  case  ignores  the  evils  and  losses  which  defective  government 
involves.  “If,”  he  will  say,  “the  mass  of  mankind  possesses 
neither  the  knowledge  nor  the  leisure  nor  the  skill  to  determine 
the  legislation  and  policy  of  a  great  state,  will  not  the  vigour  of 
the  commonwealth  decline  and  its  resources  be  squandered? 
Will  not  a  nation  ruled  by  its  average  men  in  reliance  on  their 
own  average  wisdom  be  overtaken  in  the  race  of  prosperity  or 
overpowered  in  a  warlike  struggle  by  a  nation  of  equal  resources 
which  is  guided  by  its  most  capable  minds?”  The  answer 
to  this  criticism  is  that  America  has  hitherto  been  able  to  afford 
to  squander  her  resources,  and  that  no  other  state  threatens  her. 
With  her  wealth  and  in  her  position  she  can  with  impunity  com¬ 
mit  errors  which  might  be  fatal  to  the  nations  of  Western  Europe. 

The  comparative  indifference  to  political  life  of  the  educated 
and  wealthy  classes  which  is  so  much  preached  at  by  American 
reformers  and  dwelt  on  by  European  critics  is  partly  due  to 
this  attitude  of  the  multitude.  These  classes  find  no  smooth 
and  easy  path  lying  before  them.  Since  the  masses  do  not 
look  to  them  for  guidance,  they  do  not  come  forward  to  give 
it.  If  they  wish  for  office  they  must  struggle  for  it,  avoiding 
the  least  appearance  of  presuming  on  their  social  position.  I 
think,  however,  that  the  abstention  of  the  upper  class  is  largely 
ascribable  to  causes,  set  forth  in  a  previous  chapter,  that  have 
little  to  do  with  democracy,  and  while  believing  that  the  United 
States  have  suffered  from  this  abstention,  do  not  regard  it  as  an 
inseparable  incident  of  their  government.  Accidental  causes,  such 
as  the  Spoils  System,  which  is  a  comparatively  recent  distemper, 
already  partially  eliminated,  have  largely  contributed  to  it. 

The  Spoils  System  reminds  us  of  the  Machine  and  the  whole 


638 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


organization  of  Rings  and  Bosses.  This  ugliest  feature  in  the 
politics  of  the  country  could  not  have  grown  up  save  under 
the  rule  of  the  multitude ;  and  some  of  the  arrangements  which 
have  aided  its  growth,  such  as  the  number  and  frequency  of 
elections,  have  been  dictated  by  what  may  be  called  the  narrow 
doctrinairism  of  an  irreflective  democratic  theory.  It  is  not, 
however,  necessarily  incident  to  popular  government,  but  is 
in  America  due  to  peculiar  conditions  which  might  be  removed 
without  rendering  the  government  less  truly  popular.  The  city 
masses  may  improve  if  immigration  declines ;  offices  may  cease 
to  be  the  reward  of  party  victory ;  the  better  citizens  may 
throw  themselves  more  actively  into  political  work. 

The  many  forms  in  which  wealth  displays  its  power  point 
to  a  source  of  evil  more  deep-seated  than  the  last,  and  one  which, 
though  common  to  all  governments,  is  especially  dangerous 
in  a  democracy.  For  democracy,  in  relying  on  the  average  citi¬ 
zen,  relies  on  two  things,  the  personal  interest  which  he  has  in 
good  government  and  the  public  virtue  which  makes  him  desire 
it  for  the  sake  of  the  community.  Wealth,  skilfully  used,  can 
overcome  the  former  motive,  because  the  share  of  the  average 
man  in  the  State  is  a  small  one,  less  than  the  gain  by  which  wealth 
may  tempt  him.  As  for  virtue,  the  average  man’s  standard 
depends  on  the  standard  maintained  by  the  public  opinion  of 
other  average  men.  Now  the  sight  of  wealth  frequently  pre¬ 
vailing  over  the  sense  of  duty,  with  no  punishment  following, 
lowers  this  standard,  and  leads  opinion  to  accept  as  inevitable 
what  it  knows  to  be  harmful,  till  only  some  specially  audacious 
offender  stirs  the  public  wrath.  Under  arbitrary  governments 
,  one  expects  a  low  level  of  honour  in  officials,  because  they  are  not 
responsible  to  the  people,  and  in  the  people,  because  they  have 
no  power.  One  looks  for  renovation  to  freedom,  and  struggles 
for  freedom  accordingly.  If  similar  evils  appear  under  a  govern¬ 
ment  which  is  already  free,  the  remedy  is  less  obvious  and  the 
prospect  darker. 

Such  corruption  as  exists  in  the  United  States  will  not,  how¬ 
ever,  be  ascribed  to  its  democratic  government  by  any  one  who 
remembers  that  corruption  was  rife  in  the  English  Parliament 
in  the  days  of  Walpole  in  English  constituencies  very  much 
later,  and  now  prevails  not  only  in  an  almost  absolutist  State  like 
Russia  but  also  (less  widely)  in  some  other  European  monarchies. 
There  are  diseases  which  attack  the  body  politic,  like  the  natural 


CHAP.  Cl 


FAULTS  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


639 


body,  at  certain  stages  of  growth,  but  disappear  when  a  nation 
has  passed  into  another  stage,  or  when  sedulous  experimentation 
has  discovered  the  appropriate  remedy.  The  corruption  of 
Parliament  in  Sir  Robert  Walpole’s  days  characterized  a  period 
of  transition  when  power  had  passed  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
but  the  control  of  the  people  over  the  House  had  not  yet  been 
fully  established,  and  when,  through  a  variety  of  moral  causes, 
the  tone  of  the  nation  was  comparatively  low.  The  corruption 
of  the  electorate  in  English  boroughs  appeared  when  a  seat  had 
become  an  object  of  desire  to  rich  men,  while  yet  the  interest 
of  the  voters  in  public  affairs  was  so  feeble  that  they  were  will¬ 
ing  to  sell  their  votes,  and  their  number  often  so  small  that 
each  vote  fetched  a  high  price.  The  growth  of  intelligence  and 
independence  among  the  people,  as  well  as  the  introduction 
of  severe  penalties  for  bribery,  and  the  extinction  of  small  cons¬ 
tituencies,  have  now  almost  extinguished  electoral  corruption. 
Similar  results  may  be  expected  in  American  constituen¬ 
cies  from  the  better  ballot  and  election  laws  now  being 
enacted. 

It  is  not,  however,  only  in  the  way  of  bribery  at  popular 
elections  that  the  influence  of  wealth  is  felt.  In  some  places 
it  taints  the  election  of  Federal  senators  by  State  legislatures. 
In  others  it  induces  officials  who  ought  to  guard  the  purity  of 
the  ballot  box  to  tamper  with  returns.  It  is  always  trying  to 
procure  legislation  in  the  interests  of  commercial  undertakings. 
It  supplies  the  funds  for  maintaining  party  organizations  and 
defraying  the  enormous  costs  of  electoral  campaigns,  and  de¬ 
mands  in  return  sometimes  a  high  administrative  post,  sometimes 
a  foreign  mission,  sometimes  favours  for  a  railroad,  sometimes 
a  clause  in  a  tariff  bill,  sometimes  a  lucrative  contract.  Titles 
and  ribands  it  cannot,  as  in  Europe,  demand,  for  these  the 
country  happily  knows  not ;  yet  these  would  be  perhaps  less 
harmful  than  the  recompenses  it  now  obtains.  One  thing  alone 
it  can  scarcely  ever  buy, — impunity  for  detected  guilt.  The 
two  protections  which  the  people  retain  are  criminal  justice,  and 
the  power,  when  an  election  comes,  of  inflicting  condign  chas¬ 
tisement  not  only  on  the  men  over  whose  virtue  wealth  has 
prevailed,  but  even  over  the  party  in  State,  or  nation,  which 
they  have  compromised.  Thus  the  money  power  is  held  at 
bay,  and  though  cities  have  suffered  terribly,  and  national  in¬ 
terests  seriously,  the  general  tone  of  public  honour  seems  to  be 


640 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


rather  rising  than  falling.  It  would,  I  think,  rise  faster  but 
for  the  peculiar  facilities  which  the  last  few  years  have  revealed 
for  the  action  of  great  corporations,  wielding  enormous  pe¬ 
cuniary  resources,  but  keeping  in  the  background  the  person¬ 
ality  of  those  who  direct  these  resources  for  their  own  behoof. 

Of  the  faults  summarized  in  this  chapter,  other  than  the 
influence  of  wealth,  those  which  might  seem  to  go  deepest, 
because  they  have  least  to  do  with  the  particular  constitutional 
arrangements  of  the  country,  and  are  most  directly  the  off¬ 
spring  of  its  temper  and  habits,  are  the  want  of  dignity  in  public 
life,  prominence  of  inferior  men,  and  the  absence  of  distinguished 
figures.  The  people  are  good,  but  not  good  enough  to  be  able 
to  dispense  with  efficient  service  by  capable  representatives 
and  officials,  wise  guidance  by  strong  and  enlightened  leaders. 
There  is  too  little  of  good  serving  and  good  leading. 

If  it  were  clear  that  these  are  the  fruits  of  liberty  and  equality, 
the  prospects  of  the  world  would  be  darker  than  we  have  been 
wont  to  think  them.  They  are,  however,  the  fruits  not  of  liberty 
and  equality,  but  of  an  optimism  which  has  underrated  the  in¬ 
herent  difficulties  of  politics  and  inherent  failings  of  human 
nature,  of  a  theory  which  has  confused  equality  of  civil  rights 
and  duties  with  equality  of  capacity,  and  of  a  thoughtlessness 
which  has  forgotten  that  the  problems  of  the  world  and  the 
dangers  which  beset  society  are  always  putting  on  new  faces  and 
appearing'  in  new  directions.  The  Americans  started  their 
Republic  with  a  determination  to  prevent  abuses  of  power  such 
as  they  had  suffered  from  the  British  Crown.  Freedom  seemed 
the  one  thing  necessary ;  and  freedom  was  thought  to  consist 
in  cutting  down  the  powers  of  legislatures  and  officials.  Freedom 
was  the  national  boast  during  the  years  that  followed  down  till 
the  Civil  War;  and  in  the  delight  of  proclaiming  themselves 
superior  in  this  regard  to  the  rest  of  the  world  they  omitted  to 
provide  themselves  with  further  requisites  for  good  govern¬ 
ment,  and  forgot  that  power  may  be  abused  in  other  ways 
than  by  monarchic  tyranny  or  legislative  usurpation.  They 
continued  to  beat  the  drum  along  the  old  ramparts  erected  in 
1776  and  1789  against  George  III.,  or  those  who  might  try  to 
imitate  him,  when  the  enemy  had  moved  quite  away  from 
that  side  of  the  position,  and  was  beginning  to  threaten  their 
rear.  No  maxim  was  more  popular  among  them  than  that 
which  declares  eternal  vigilance  to  be  the  price  of  freedom. 


chap,  ci  FAULTS  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


641 


Unfortunately  their  vigilance  took  account  only  of  the  old 
dangers,  and  did  not  note  the  development  of  new  ones  as 
if  the  captain  of  a  man-of-war  were  to  think  only  of  his  guns 
and  armour-plating,  and  neglect  to  protect  himself  against  tor¬ 
pedoes.  Thus  abuses  were  suffered  to  grow  up,  which  seemed 
trivial  in  the  midst  of  so  general  a  prosperity  ;  and  good  citi¬ 
zens  who  were  occupied  in  other  and  more  engrossing  ways, 
allowed  politics  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  mean  men.  The 
efforts  which  these  citizens  are  now  making  to  recover  the 
control  of  public  business  would  have  encountered  fewer  ob¬ 
stacles  had  they  been  made  sooner.  But  the  obstacles  will 
be  overcome.  No  one,  I  think,  who  has  studied  either  the 
history  of  the  American  people,  or  their  present  mind  and 
habits,  will  conclude  that  there  is  among  them  any  jealousy  of 
merit,  any  positive  aversion  to  culture  or  knowledge.  Neither 
the  political  arrangements  nor  the  social  and  economical  con¬ 
ditions  of  the  country  tend  at  this  moment  to  draw  its  best 
intellects  and  loftiest  characters  into  public  life.  But  it  is  not 
the  democratic  temper  of  the  people  that  stands  in  the  way. 

The  commonest  of  the  old  charges  against  democracy  was 
that  it  passed  into  ochlocracy.  I  have  sought  to  show  that 
this  has  not  happened,  and  is  not  likely  to  happen  in  America. 
The  features  of  mob-rule  do  not  appear  in  her  system,  whose 
most  characteristic  faults  are  the  existence  of  a  professional 
class  using  government  as  a  means  of  private  gain  and  the 
menacing  power  of  wealth.  Plutocracy,  which  the  ancients 
contrasted  with  democracy,  has  shown  in  America  an  inaus¬ 
picious  affinity  for  certain  professedly  democratic  institutions. 

Perhaps  no  form  of  government  needs  great  leaders  so  much 
as  democracy.  The  fatalistic  habit  of  mind  perceptible  among 
the  Americans  needs  to  be  corrected  by  the  spectacle  of  courage 
and  independence  taking  their  own  path,  and  not  looking  to  see 
whither  the  mass  are  moving.  Those  whose  material  prosper¬ 
ity  tends  to  lap  them  in  self-complacency  and  dull  the  edge  of 
aspiration,  need  to  be  thrilled  by  the  emotions  which  great 
men  can  excite,  stimulated  by  the  ideals  they  present,  stirred 
to  a  loftier  sense  of  what  national  life  may  attain.  In  some 
countries  men  of  brilliant  gifts  may  be  dangerous  to  freedom  ;  but 
the  ambition  of  American  statesmen  has  been  schooled  to  flow 
in  constitutional  channels,  and  the  Republic  is  strong  enough 
to  stand  any  strain  to  which  the  rise  of  heroes  may  expose  her. 


CHAPTER  CII 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

Those  merits  of  American  government  which  belong  to  its 
Federal  Constitution  have  already  been  discussed : 1  we  have 
now  to  consider  such  as  flow  from  the  rule  of  public  opinion, 
from  the  temper,  habits,  and  ideas  of  the  people. 

I.  The  first  is  that  of  Stability.  —  As  one  test  of  a  human 
body’s  soundness  is  its  capacity  for  reaching  a  great  age,  so  it 
is  high  praise  for  a  political  system  that  it  has  stood  no  more 
changed  than  any  institution  must  change  in  a  changing  world, 
and  that  it  now  gives  every  promise  of  durability.  The  people 
are  profoundly  attached  to  the  form  which  their  national  life  has 
taken.  The  Federal  Constitution  has  been,  to  their  eyes,  an 
almost  sacred  thing,  an  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  whereon  no  man 
may  lay  rash  hands.  All  over  Europe  one  hears  schemes  of 
radical  change  freely  discussed.  There  is  still  a  monarchical 
party  in  France,  a  republican  party  in  Italy  and  Spain,  a  social 
democratic  party  everywhere,  not  to  speak  of  sporadic  anar¬ 
chist  groups.  Even  in  England,  it  is  impossible  to  feel  confident 
that  any  one  of  the  existing  institutions  of  the  country  will  be 
standing  fifty  years  hence.  But  in  the  United  States  the  dis¬ 
cussion  of  political  problems  busies  itself  with  details,  so  far 
as  the  native  Americans  are  concerned,  and  assumes  that  the 
main  lines  must  remain  as  they  are  for  ever.  This  conserva¬ 
tive  spirit,  jealously  watchful  even  in  small  matters,  sometimes 
prevents  reforms,  but  it  assures  to  the  people  an  easy  mind,  and 
a  trust  in  their  future  which  they  feel  to  be  not  only  a  present 
satisfaction  but  a  reservoir  of  strength. 

The  best  proof  of  the  well-braced  solidity  of  the  system  is  that 
it  survived  the  Civil  War,  changed  only  in  a  few  points  which 
have  not  greatly  affected  the  balance  of  National  and  State 
powers.  Another  must  have  struck  every  European  traveller 
who  questions  American  publicists  about  the  institutions  of 
their  country.  When  I  first  travelled  in  the  United  States,  I 

1  See  Chapters  XXVII.-XXX.  in  Vol.  I. 

642 


chap,  cii  STRENGTH  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


643 


used  to  ask  thoughtful  men,  superior  to  the  prejudices  of  cus¬ 
tom,  whether  they  did  not  think  the  States’  system  defective 
in  such  and  such  points,  whether  the  legislative  authority  of 
Congress  might  not  profitably  be  extended,  whether  the  suf¬ 
frage  ought  not  to  be  restricted  as  regards  negroes  or  immi¬ 
grants,  and  so  fortn.  Whether  assenting  or  dissenting,  the 
persons  questioned  invariably  treated  such  matters  as  purely 
speculative,  saying  that  the  present  arrangements  were  too 
deeply  rooted  for  their  alteration  to  come  within  the  horizon 
of  practical  politics.  So  when  a  serious  trouble  arises,  such  as 
might  in  Europe  threaten  revolution,  the  people  face  it  quietly, 
and  assume  that  a  tolerable  solution  will  be  found.  At  the 
disputed  election  of  1876,  when  each  of  the  two  great  parties, 
heated  with  conflict,  claimed  that  its  candidate  had  been  chosen 
President,  and  the  Constitution  supplied  no  way  out  of  the 
difficulty,  public  tranquillity  was  scarcely  disturbed,  and  the 
public  funds  fell  but  little.  A  method  was  invented  of  settling 
the  question  which  both  sides  acquiesced  in,  and  although  the 
decision  was  a  boundless  disappointment  to  the  party  which 
had  cast  the  majority  of  the  popular  vote,  that  party  quietly 
submitted  to  lose  those  spoils  of  office  whereon  its  eyes  had 
been  feasting. 

II.  Feeling  the  law  to  be  their  own  work,  the  people  are  dis¬ 
posed  to  obey  the  law.  —  In  a  preceding  chapter  I  have  examined 
instances  of  the  disregard  of  the  law,  and  the  supersession  of  its 
tardy  methods  by  the  action  of  the  crowd.  Such  instances,  seri¬ 
ous  as  they  are,  do  not  disentitle  the  nation  as  a  whole  to  the  credit 
of  law-abiding  habits.  It  is  the  best  result  that  can  be  ascribed 
to  the  direct  participation  of  the  people  in  their  government  that 
they  have  the  love  of  the  maker  for  his  work,  that  every  citizen 
looks  upon  a  statute  as  a  regulation  made  by  himself  for  his  own 
guidance  no  less  than  for  that  of  others,  every  official  as  a  person 
he  has  himself  chosen,  and  whom  it  is  therefore  his  interest,  with 
no  disparagement  to  his  personal  independence,  to  obey.  Plato 
thought  that  those  who  felt  their  own  sovereignty  would  be  im¬ 
patient  of  all  control :  nor  is  it  to  be  denied  that  the  principle  of 
equality  may  result  in  lowering  the  status  and  dignity  of  a 
magistrate.  But  as  regards  law  and  order  the  gain  much  ex¬ 
ceeds  the  loss,  for  every  one  feels  that  there  is  no  appeal  from 
the  law,  behind  which  there  stands  the  force  of  the  nation. 
Such  a  temper  can  exist  and  bear  these  fruits  only  where  minor- 


644 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


ities,  however  large,  have  learned  to  submit  patiently  to  major¬ 
ities,  however  small.  But  that  is  the  one  lesson  which  the 
American  government  through  every  grade  and  in  every  depart¬ 
ment  daily  teaches,  and  which  it  has  woven  into  the  texture 
of  every  citizen’s  mind.  The  habit  of  living  under  a  rigid  consti¬ 
tution  superior  to  ordinary  statutes  —  indeed  two  rigid  consti¬ 
tutions,  since  the  State  Constitution  is  a  fundamental  law  within 
its  own  sphere  no  less  than  is  the  Federal  —  intensifies  this 
legality  of  view,  since  it  may  turn  all  sorts  of  questions  which 
have  not  been  determined  by  a  direct  vote  of  the  people  into 
questions  of  legal  construction.  It  even  accustoms  people  to 
submit  to  see  their  direct  vote  given  in  the  enactment  of  a  State 
Constitution  nullified  by  the  decision  of  a  court  holding  that 
the  Federal  Constitution  has  been  contravened.  Every  page 
of  American  history  illustrates  the  wholesome  results.  The 
events  of  the  last  few  years  present  an  instance  of  the  con¬ 
straint  which  the  people  put  on  themselves  in  order  to  re¬ 
spect  every  form  of  law.  The  Mormons,  a  community  not 
exceeding  140,000  persons,  persistently  defied  all  the  efforts 
of  Congress  to  root  out  polygamy,  a  practice  eminently 
repulsive  to  American  notions.  If  they  had  inhabited  a  State, 
Congress  could  not  have  interfered  at  all,  but  as  Utah  was  then 
only  a  Territory,  Congress  had  not  only  a  power  of  legislating 
for  it  which  overrides  Territorial  ordinances  passed  by  the 
local  legislature,  but  the  right  to  apply  military  force  inde¬ 
pendent  of  local  authorities.  Thus  the  Mormons  were  really 
at  the  mercy  of  the  Federal  government,  had  it  chosen  to  em¬ 
ploy  violent  methods.  But  by  entrenching  themselves  behind 
the  letter  of  the  Constitution,  they  continued  for  many  years 
to  maintain  their  “ peculiar  institution”  by  evading  the  statutes 
passed  against  it  and  challenging  a  proof  which  under  the  com¬ 
mon  law  rules  of  evidence  it  was  usually  found  impossible  to 
give.  Declaimers  hounded  on  Congress  to  take  arbitrary  means 
for  the  suppression  of  the  practice,  but  Congress  and  the  Execu¬ 
tive  submitted  to  be  outwitted  rather  than  depart  from  the 
accustomed  principles  of  administration,  and  succeeded  at  last 
only  by  a  statute  whose  searching  but  strictly  constitutional 
provisions  the  recalcitrants  failed  to  evade.  The  same  spirit  of 
legality  shows  itself  in  misgoverned  cities.  Even  where  it  is 
notorious  that  officials  have  been  chosen  by  the  grossest  fraud 
and  that  they  are  robbing  the  city,  the  body  of  the  people, 


chap,  cii  STRENGTH  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


645 


however  indignant,  recognize  the  authority,  and  go  on  paying 
the  taxes  which  a  Ring  levies,  because  strict  legal  proof  of  the 
frauds  and  robberies  is  not  forthcoming.  Wrongdoing  supplies 
a  field  for  the  display  of  virtue. 

III.  There  is  a  broad  simplicity  about  the  political  ideas  of 
the  people,  and  a  courageous  consistency  in  carrying  them  out 
in  practice.  When  they  have  accepted  a  principle,  they  do  not 
shrink  from  applying  it  “right  along,”  however  disagreeable 
in  particular  cases  some  of  the  results  may  be.  I  am  far  from 
meaning  that  they  are  logical  in  the  French  sense  of  the  word. 
They  have  little  taste  either  for  assuming  abstract  propositions 
or  for  syllogistically  deducing  practical  conclusions  therefrom. 
But  when  they  have  adopted  a  general  maxim  of  policy  or  rule 
of  action  they  show  more  faith  in  it  than  the  English  for  in¬ 
stance  would  do,  they  adhere  to  it  where  the  English  would 
make  exceptions,  they  prefer  certainty  and  uniformity  to  the 
advantages  which  might  occasionally  be  gained  by  deviation.1. 
If  this  tendency  is  partly  the  result  of  obedience  to  a  rigid 
constitution,  it  is  no  less  due  to  the  democratic  dislike  of  ex¬ 
ceptions  and  complexities,  which  the  multitude  finds  not  only 
difficult  of  comprehension  but  disquieting  to  the  individual 
who  may  not  know  how  they  will  affect  him.  Take  for  instance 
the  boundless  freedom  of  the  press.  There  are  abuses  obviously 
incident  to  such  freedom,  and  these  abuses  have  not  failed  to 
appear.  But  the  Americans  deliberately  hold  that  in  view  of 
the  benefits  which  such  freedom  on  the  whole  promises,  abuses 
must  be  borne  with  and  left  to  the  sentiment  of  the  people 
and  the  private  law  of  libel  to  deal  with.  When  the  Ku  Klux 
outrages  disgraced  several  of  the  Southern  States  after  the 
military  occupation  of  those  States  had  ceased,  there  was  much 
to  be  said  for  sending  back  the  troops  to  protect  the  negroes 
and  Northern  immigrants.  But  the  general  judgment  that 
things  ought  to  be  allowed  to  take  their  natural  course  pre¬ 
vailed  ;  and  the  result  justified  this  policy,  for  the  outrages 
after  a  while  died  out,  when  ordinary  self-government  had  been 

1  What  has  been  said  (Chapters  XLIV  and  XLV)  of  special  and  local  legis¬ 
lation  by  the  State  legislatures  may  seem  an  exception  to  this  rule.  Such 
legislation,  however,  is  usually  procured  in  the  dark  and  by  questionable  means. 

Looking  both  to  the  National  and  to  the  State  governments,  it  may  be  said 
that,  with  a  few  exceptions,  no  people  has  shown  a  greater  regard  for  public 
obligations,  and  that  no  people  has  more  prudently  and  honourably  refrained 
from  legislation  bearing  hardly  upon  the  rich,  or  indeed  upon  any  class  what¬ 
ever. 


646 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


restored.  When  recently  a  gigantic  organization  of  unions  of 
working  men,  purporting  to  unite  the  whole  of  American 
labour,  attempted  to  enforce  its  sentences  against  particular 
firms  or  corporations  by  a  boycott  in  which  all  labourers  were 
urged  to  join,  there  was  displeasure,  but  no  panic,  no  call  for 
violent  remedies.  The  prevailing  faith  in  liberty  and  in  the 
good  sense  of  the  mass  was  unshaken ;  and  the  result  soon  jus¬ 
tified  this  tranquil  faith.  Such  a  tendency  is  not  an  unmixed 
blessing,  for  it  sometimes  allows  evils  to  go  too  long  unchecked. 
But  in  giving  equability  to  the  system  of  government  it  gives 
steadiness  and  strength.  It  teaches  the  people  patience,  accus¬ 
toming  them  to  expect  relief  only  by  constitutional  means. 
It  confirms  their  faith  in  their  institutions,  as  friends  value  one 
another  more  when  their  friendship  has  stood  the  test  of  a  jour¬ 
ney  full  of  hardships. 

IV.  American  government,  relying  very  little  on  officials, 
has  the  merit  of  arming  them  with  little  power  of  arbitrary 
interference.  The  reader  who  has  followed  the  description  of 
Federal  authorities,  State  authorities,  county  and  city  or  town¬ 
ship  authorities,  may  think  there  is  a  great  deal  of  administra¬ 
tion  ;  but  the  description  has  been  minute  j  ust  because  the 
powers  of  each  authority  are  so  carefully  and  closely  restricted. 
It  is  natural  to  fancy  that  a  government  of  the  people  and  by  the 
people  will  be  led  to  undertake  many  and  various  functions  for 
the  people,  and  in  the  confidence  of  its  strength  will  constitute 
itself  a  general  philanthropic  agency  for  their  social  and  economic 
benefit.  Of  late  years  a  current  has  begun  to  run  in  this  direc¬ 
tion.1  But  the  paternalism  of  America  differs  from  that  of 
Europe  in  acting  not  so  much  through  officials  as  through  the 
law.  That  is  to  say,  when  it  prescribes  to  a  citizen  a  particular 
course  of  action  it  relies  upon  the  ordinary  legal  sanctions, 
instead  of  investing  the  administrative  officers  with  inquisitorial 
duties  or  powers  that  might  prove  oppressive,  and  when  it  de¬ 
volves  active  functions  upon  officials,  they  are  functions  serving 
to  aid  the  individual  and  the  community  rather  than  to  interfere 
with  or  supersede  the  action  of  private  enterprise.  Having 
dwelt  on  the  evils  which  may  flow  from  the  undue  application 
of  the  doctrine  of  direct  popular  sovereignty,  I  must  remind  the 
European  reader  that  it  is  only  fair  to  place  to  the  credit  of  that 
doctrine  and  of  the  arrangements  it  has  dictated,  the  intelligence 


1  See  Chapter  XCV. 


chap,  cii  STRENGTH  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


647 


which  the  average  native  American  shows  in  his  political  judg¬ 
ments,  the  strong  sense  he  entertains  of  the  duty  of  giving  a 
vote,  the  spirit  of  alertness  and  enterprise,  which  has  made  him 
self-helpful  above  all  other  men. 

V.  There  are  no  struggles  between  privileged  and  unprivi¬ 
leged  orders,  not  even  that  perpetual  strife  of  rich  and  poor 
which  is  the  oldest  disease  of  civilized  states.  One  must  not 
pronounce  broadly  that  there  are  no  classes,  for  in  parts  of  the 
country  social  distinctions  have  begun  to  grow  up.  But  for 
political  purposes  classes  scarcely  exist.  No  one  of  the  questions 
which  now  agitate  the  nation  is  a  question  between  rich  and 
poor.  Instead  of  suspicion,  jealousy,  and  arrogance  embitter¬ 
ing  the  relations  of  classes,  good  feeling  and  kindliness  reign. 
Everything  that  government,  as  the  Americans  have  hitherto 
understood  the  term,  can  give  them,  the  poorer  class  have 
already,  political  power,  equal  civil  rights,  a  career  open  to  all 
citizens  alike,  not  to  speak  of  that  gratuitous  higher  as  well  as 
elementary  education  which  on  their  own  economic  principles 
the  United  States  might  have  abstained  from  giving,  but  which 
political  reasons  have  led  them  to  provide  with  so  unstinting 
a  hand.  Hence  the  poorer  have  had  little  to  fight  for,  no 
grounds  for  disliking  the  well-to-do,  few  complaints  to  make 
against  them.  The  agitation  of  the  last  few  years  has  been 
directed,  not  against  the  richer  sort  generally,  but  against  in¬ 
corporated  companies  and  a  few  wealthy  capitalists,  who  are 
deemed  to  have  abused  the  powers  which  the  privilege  of  incor¬ 
poration  conferred  upon  them,  or  employed  their  wealth  to 
procure  legislation  unfair  to  the  public.  Where  violent  language 
has  been  used  like  that  with  which  France  and  Germany  are 
familiar,  it  has  been  used,  not  by  native  Americans,  but  by  new¬ 
comers,  who  bring  their  Old  World  passions  with  them.  Prop¬ 
erty  is  safe,  because  those  who  hold  it  are  far  more  numerous 
than  those  who  do  not :  the  usual  motives  for  revolution  vanish  ; 
universal  suffrage,  even  when  vested  in  ignorant  new-comers, 
can  do  comparatively  little  harm,  because  the  masses  have  ob¬ 
tained  everything  which  they  could  hope  to  attain  except  by  a 
general  pillage.  And  the  native  Americans,  though  the  same 
cannot  be  said  of  some  of  the  recent  immigrants,  are  shrewd 
enough  to  see  that  the  poor  would  suffer  from  such  pillage  no 
less  than  the  rich. 

When  I  revised  in  1894  the  preceding  part  of  this  chapter, 


648 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


I  left  these  words,  which  were  written  in  1888,  to  stand  as  they 
were.  I  leave  them  still  in  1910,  because  they  seem  still  to 
express  the  view  which  the  most  judicious  Americans  themselves 
then  took  and  take  now  of  their  country.  Looking  at  the  labour 
troubles  which  have  more  than  once  occurred  since  1888,  includ¬ 
ing  the  great  railroad  strike  riots  of  July,  1894,  that  view  may 
seem  too  roseate.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  strike  riots 
are  largely  due  to  the  passion  of  recent  immigrants,  whom  Ameri¬ 
can  institutions  have  not  had  time  to  educate ;  and  it  must  also 
be  noted  that  the  opinion  of  the  native  Americans,  with  little 
distinction  of  class,  has  usually  approved  the  action,  however 
bold,  of  the  Executive,  Federal  or  State,  whenever  it  puts  forth 
all  its  legal  powers  to  repress  disorder.  It  is  not  wonderful 
that  over  the  immense  area  of  the  country  the  public  should  be 
now  and  then  disturbed,  and  that  the  force  to  preserve  it  should 
sometimes  be  wanting.  But  things,  so  far  from  getting  worse, 
seem  rather  to  be  mending. 

A  European  censor  may  make  two  reflections  on  the  state¬ 
ment  of  this  part  of  the  case.  He  will  observe  that,  after  all, 
it  is  no  more  than  saying  that  when  you  have  got  to  the  bot¬ 
tom  you  can  fall  no  farther.  And  he  will  ask  whether,  if  prop¬ 
erty  is  safe  and  contentment  reigns,  these  advantages  are 
not  due  to  the  economical  conditions  of  a  new  and  resourceful 
country,  with  an  abundance  of  unoccupied  land  and  mineral 
wealth,  rather  than  to  the  democratic  structure  of  the  govern¬ 
ment.  The  answer  to  the  first  objection  is,  that  the  descent 
towards  equality  and  democracy  has  involved  no  injury  to  the 
richer  or  better  educated  classes :  to  the  second,  that  although 
much  must  doubtless  be  ascribed  to  the  bounty  of  nature,  her 
favours  have  been  so  used  by  the  people  as  to  bring  about  a 
prosperity,  a  general  diffusion  of  property,  an  abundance  of 
freedom,  of  equality,  and  of  good  feeling  which  furnish  the 
best  security  against  the  recurrence  in  America  of  chronic  Old 
World  evils,  even  when  her  economic  state  shall  have  become 
less  auspicious  than  it  now  is.  Wealthy  and  powerful  such  a 
country  must  have  been  under  any  form  of  government,  and 
the  speed  with  which  she  has  advanced  has  been  no  unmixed 
good,  but  the  employment  of  the  sources  of  wealth  to  diffuse 
comfort  among  millions  of  families  may  be  placed  to  the  credit 
of  stimulative  freedom.  Wholesome  habits  have  been  estab¬ 
lished  among  the  people  whose  value  will  be  found  when  the 


chap,  cii  STRENGTH  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  ‘  649 


times  of  pressure  approach,  and  though  the  troubles  that  have 
arisen  between  labour  and  capital  may  not  soon  pass  away, 
the  sense  of  human  equality,  the  absence  of  offensive  privileges 
distinguishing  class  from  class,  will  make  those  troubles  less 
severe  than  in  Europe,  where  they  are  complicated  by  the  recol¬ 
lection  of  old  wrongs,  by  arrogance  on  the  one  side  and  envy  on 
the  other. 

Some  American  panegyrists  of  democracy  have  weakened 
their  own  case  by  claiming  for  a  form  of  government  all  the 
triumphs  which  modern  science  has  wrought  in  a  land  of  un¬ 
equalled  natural  resources.  An  active  European  race  would 
probably  have  made  America  rich  and  prosperous  under  any 
government.  But  the  volume  and  the  character  of  the  pros¬ 
perity  attained  may  be  in  large  measure  ascribed  to  the  insti¬ 
tutions  of  the  country.  As  Dr.  Charles  W.  Eliot  observes  in 
a  singularly  thoughtful  address  :  — 

“Sensible  and  righteous  government  ought  ultimately  to  make  a 
nation  rich  ;  and  although  this  proposition  cannot  he  directly  reversed, 
yet  diffused  well-being,  comfort,  and  material  prosperity  establish  a  fair 
presumption  in  favour  of  the  government  and  prevailing  social  con¬ 
ditions  under  which  these  blessings  have  been  secured.  .  .  . 

“The  successful  establishment  and  support  of  religious  institutions, 
—  churches,  seminaries,  and  religious  charities,  —  upon  a  purely  volun¬ 
tary  system,  is  an  unprecedented  achievement  of  the  American  democ¬ 
racy.  In  -  only  three  generations  American  democratic  society  has 
effected  the  complete  separation  of  Church  and  State,  a  reform  which 
no  other  people  has  ever  attempted.  Yet  religious  institutions  are  not 
stinted  in  the  United  States  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  abound  and  thrive, 
and  all  alike  are  protected  and  encouraged,  but  not  supported,  by  the 
State.  .  .  .  The  maintenance  of  churches,  seminaries,  and  charities  by 
voluntary  contributions  and  by  the  administrative  labours  of  volunteers, 
implies  an  enormous  and  incessant  expenditure  of  mental  and  moral 
force.  It  is  a  force  which  must  ever  be  renewed  from  generation  to 
generation  ;  for  it  is  a  personal  force,  constantly  expiring,  and  as  con¬ 
stantly  to  be  replaced.  Into  the  maintenance  of  the  voluntary  system 
in  religion  has  gone  a  good  part  of  the  moral  energy  which  three  genera¬ 
tions  have  been  able  to  spare  from  the  work  of  getting  a  living ;  but  it 
is  worth  the  sacrifice,  and  will  be  accounted  in  history  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  feats  of  American  public  spirit  and  faith  in  freedom. 

‘  ‘  A  similar  exhibition  of  diffused  mental  and  moral  energy  has  accom¬ 
panied  the  establishment  and  the  development  of  a  system  of  higher 
instruction  in  the  United  States,  with  no  inheritance  of  monastic  en¬ 
dowments,  and  no  gifts  from  royal  or  ecclesiastical  personages  disposing 
of  great  resources  derived  from  the  State,  and  with  but  scanty  help  from 
the  public  purse.  Whoever  is  familiar  with  the  colleges  and  universities 
of  the  United  States  knows  that  the  creation  of  these  democratic  institu- 


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PART  V 


tions  has  cost  the  life-work  of  thousands  of  devoted  men.  At  the  sacri¬ 
fice  of  other  aspirations,  and  under  heavy  discouragements  and  disap¬ 
pointments,  but  with  faith  and  hope,  these  teachers  and  trustees  have 
built  up  institutions,  which,  however  imperfect,  have  cherished  scientific 
enthusiasm,  fostered  piety,  literature,  and  art,  maintained  the  standards 
of  honour  and  public  duty,  and  steadily  kept  in  view  the  ethical  ideals 
which  democracy  cherishes.  It  has  been  a  popular  work,  to  which  large 
numbers  of  people  in  successive  generations  have  contributed  of  their 
substance  or  of  their  labour.  The  endowment  of  institutions  of  educa¬ 
tion,  including  libraries  and  museums,  by  private  persons  in  the  United 
States  is  a  phenomenon  without  precedent  or  parallel,  and  is  a  legiti¬ 
mate  effect  of  democratic  institutions.  Under  a  tyranny  —  were  it  that 
of  a  Marcus  Aurelius  —  or  an  oligarchy  —  were  it  as  enlightened  as 
that  which  now  rules  Germany  —  such  a  phenomenon  would  be  simply 
impossible.  Like  the  voluntary  system  in  religion,  the  voluntary  sys¬ 
tem  in  the  higher  education  buttresses  democracy  ;  each  demands  from 
the  community  a  large  outlay  of  intellectual  activity  and  moral  vigour.” 

VI.  The  government  of  the  Republic,  limited  and  languid 
in  ordinary  times,  is  capable  of  developing  immense  vigour. 
It  can  pull  itself  together  at  moments  of  danger,  can  put  forth 
unexpected  efforts,  can  venture  on  stretches  of  authority  trans¬ 
cending  not  only  ordinary  practice  but  even  ordinary  law. 
This  is  the  result  of  the  unity  of  the  nation.  A  divided  people 
is  a  weak  people,  even  if  it  obeys  a  monarch ;  a  united  people 
is  doubly  strong  when  it  is  democratic,  for  then  the  force  of 
each  individual  will  swells  the  collective  force  of  the  govern¬ 
ment,  encourages  it,  relieves  it  from  internal  embarrassments. 
Now  the  American  people  is  united  at  moments  of  national  con¬ 
cern  from  two  causes.  One  is  that  absence  of  class  divisions 
and  jealousies  which  has  been  already  described.  The  people 
are  homogeneous :  a  feeling  which  stirs  them  stirs  alike  rich 
and  poor,  farmers  and  traders,  Eastern  men  and  Western  men 
—  one  may  now  add,  Southern  men  also.  Their  patriotism  has 
ceased  to  be  defiant,  and  is  conceived  as  the  duty  of  promoting 
the  greatness  and  happiness  of  their  country,  a  greatness  which, 
as  it  does  not  look  to  war  or  aggression,  does  not  redound  spe¬ 
cially,  as  it  might  in  Europe,  to  the  glory  or  benefit  of  the  ruling 
caste  or  the  military  profession,  but  to  that  of  all  the  citizens. 
The  other  source  of  unity  is  the  tendency  in  democracies  for 
the  sentiment  of  the  majority  to  tell  upon  the  sentiment  of 
a  minority.  That  faith  in  the  popular  voice  whereof  I  have 
already  spoken  strengthens  every  feeling  which  has  once  be¬ 
come  strong,  and  makes  it  rush  like  a  wave  over  the*  country, 


chap,  cii  STRENGTH  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


651 


sweeping  everything  before  it.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  people 
become  wild  with  excitement,  for  beneath  their  noisy  demon¬ 
strations  they  retain  their  composure  and  shrewd  view  of  facts. 
I  mean  only  that  the  pervading  sympathy  stirs  them  to  un  wonted 
efforts.  The  steam  is  superheated,  but  the  effect  is  seen  only 
in  the  greater  expansive  force  which  it  exerts.  Hence  a  spirited 
executive  can  in  critical  times  go  forward  with  a  courage  and 
confidence  possible  only  to  those  who  know  that  they  have  a 
whole  nation  behind  them.  The  people  fall  into  rank  at  once. 
With  that  surprising  gift  for  organization  which  they  possess, 
they  concentrate  themselves  on  the  immediate  object ;  they  dis¬ 
pense  with  the  ordinary  constitutional  restrictions ;  they  make 
personal  sacrifices  which  remind  one  of  the  self-devotion  of 
Roman  citizens  in  the  earlier  days  of  Rome 

Speaking  thus,  I  am  thinking  chiefly  of  the  spirit  evolved  by 
the  Civil  War  in  both  the  North  and  the  South.  But  the  sort 
of  strength  which  a  democratic  government  derives  from  its 
direct  dependence  on  the  people  is  seen  in  many  smaller  in¬ 
stances.  In  1863,  when  on  the  making  of  a  draft  of  men  for 
the  war,  the  Irish  mob  rose  in  New  York  City,  excited  by  the 
advance  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee  into  Pennsylvania,  the  State 
governor  called  out  the  troops,  and  by  them  restored  order  with 
a  stern  vigour  which  would  have  done  credit  to  Radetzsky  or 
Cavaignac.  More  than  a  thousand  rioters  were  shot  down,  and 
public  opinion  entirely  approved  the  slaughter.  Years  after 
the  war,  when  the  Orangemen  of  New  York  purposed  to  have  a 
12th  of  July  procession  through  the  streets,  the  Irish  Catholics 
threatened  to  prevent  it.  The  feeling  of  the  native  Americans 
was  aroused  at  once;  young  men  of  wealth  came  back  from 
their  mountain  and  seaside  resorts  to  fill  the  militia  regiments 
which  were  called  out  to  guard  the  procession,  and  the  display 
of  force  was  so  overwhelming  that  no  disturbance  followed. 
These  Americans  had  no  sympathy  with  the  childish  and  mis¬ 
chievous  partisanship  which  leads  the  Orangemen  to  perpetuate 
Old  World  feuds  on  New  World  soil.  But  processions  were 
legal,  and  they  were  resolved  that  the  law  should  be  respected, 
and  the  spirit  of  disorder  repressed.  They  would  have  been 
equally  ready  to  protect  a  Roman  Catholic  procession. 

Given  an  adequate  occasion,  executive  authority  in  America 
can  better  venture  to  take  strong  measures,  and  feels  more  sure 
of  support  from  the  body  of  the  people,  than  is  the  case  in 


652 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


England.  When  there  is  a  failure  to  enforce  the  law,  the 
fault  lies  at  the  door,  not  of  the  people,  but  of  timid  or  time¬ 
serving  officials  who  fear  to  offend  some  interested  section  of  the 
voters. 

VII.  Democracy  has  not  only  taught  the  Americans  how  to 
use  liberty  without  abusing  it,  and  how  to  secure  equality :  it 
has  also  taught  them  fraternity.  That  word  has  gone  out  of 
fashion  in  the  Old  World,  and  no  wonder,  considering  what 
was  done  in  its  name  in  1793,  considering  also  that  it  still  fig¬ 
ures  in  the  programme  of  assassins.  Nevertheless,  there  is  in 
the  United  States  a  sort  of  kindliness,  a  sense  of  human  fellow¬ 
ship,  a  recognition  of  the  duty  of  mutual  help  owed  by  man  to 
man,  stronger  than  anywhere  in  the  Old  World,  and  certainly 
stronger  than  in  the  upper  or  middle  classes  of  England,  France, 
or  Germany.  The  natural  impulse  of  every  citizen  in  America 
is  to  respect  every  other  citizen,  and  to  feel  that  citizenship 
constitutes  a  certain  ground  of  respect.  The  idea  of  each  man’s 
equal  rights  is  so  fully  realized  that  the  rich  or  powerful  man 
feels  it  no  indignity  to  take  his  turn  among  the  crowd,  and  does 
not  expect  any  deference  from  the  poorest.  Whether  or  no  an 
employer  of  labour  has  any  stronger  sense  of  his  duty  to  those 
whom  he  employs  than  employers  have  in  continental  Europe,  he 
has  certainly  a  greater  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  use  of  his 
wealth.  The  number  of  gifts  for  benevolent  and  other  public 
purposes,  the  number  of  educational,  artistic,  literary,  and 
scientific  foundations,  is  larger  than  even  in  Britain,  the  wealth¬ 
iest  and  most  liberal  of  European  countries.  Wealth  is  generally 
felt  to  be  a  trust,  and  exclusiveness  condemned  not  merely  as 
indicative  of  selfishness,  but  as  a  sort  of  offence  against  the  public. 
No  one,  for  instance,  thinks  of  shutting  up  his  pleasure-grounds ; 
he  seldom  even  builds  a  wall  round  them,  but  puts  up  only  a 
low  railing,  so  that  the  sight  of  his  trees  and  shrubs  is  enjoyed 
by  passers-by.  That  any  one  should  be  permitted  either  by 
opinion  or  by  law  to  seal  up  many  square  miles  of  beautiful 
mountain  country  against  tourists  or  artists  is  to  the  ordinary 
American  almost  incredible.  Such  things  are  to  him  the  marks 
of  a  land  still  groaning  under  feudal  tyranny. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  those  who  know  how  difficult  Euro¬ 
pean  states  have  generally  found  it  to  conduct  negotiations 
with  the  government  of  the  United  States,  and  who  are  accus¬ 
tomed  to  read  in  European  newspapers  the  defiant  utterances 


chap,  cii  STRENGTH  OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


653 


which  American  politicians  address  from  Congress  to  the  effete 
monarchies  of  the  Old  World,  to  be  told  that  this  spirit  of 
fraternity  has  its  influence  on  international  relations  also. 
Nevertheless  if  we  look  not  at  the  irresponsible  orators,  who 
play  to  the  lower  feelings  of  a  section  of  the  people,  but  at  the 
general  sentiment  of  the  whole  people,  we  shall  recognize  that 
democracy  makes  both  for  peace  and  for  justice  as  between 
nations.  Despite  the  admiration  for  military  exploits  which 
the  Americans  have  sometimes  shown,  no  country  is  at  bottom 
more  pervaded  by  a  hatred  of  war,  and  a  sense  that  national 
honour  stands  rooted  in  national  fair  dealing.  The  nation 
has  been  often  misrepresented  by  its  statesmen,  but  although 
it  has  sometimes  allowed  them  to  say  irritating  things  and  ad¬ 
vance  unreasonable  claims,  it  has  seldom  permitted  them  to 
abuse  its  enormous  strength,  as  most  European  nations  possessed 
of  similar  strength  have  in  time  past  abused  theirs. 

The  characteristics  of  the  American  people  which  I  have 
passed  in  review,  though  not  all  due  to  democratic  government, 
have  been  strengthened  by  it,  and  contribute  to  its  solidity  and 
to  the  smoothness  of  its  working.  As  one  sometimes  sees  an 
individual  man  who  fails  in  life  because  the  different  parts  of 
his  nature  seem  unfitted  to  each  other,  so  that  his  action, 
swayed  by  contending  influences,  results  in  nothing  definite 
or  effective,  so  one  sees  nations  whose  political  institutions 
are  either  in  advance  of  or  lag  behind  their  social  conditions, 
so  that  the  unity  of  the  body  politic  suffers,  and  the  harmony 
of  its  movements  is  disturbed.  America  is  not  such  a  nation. 
There  have,  no  doubt,  been  two  diverse  influences  at  work  on 
the  minds  of  men.  One  is  the  conservative  English  spirit, 
brought  from  home,  expressed,  and  (if  one  may  say  so)  en¬ 
trenched  in  those  fastnesses  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  and 
(to  a  less  degree)  of  the  State  constitutions,  which  reveal  their 
English  origin.  The  other  is  the  devotion  to  democratic  equality 
and  popular  sovereignty,  due  partly  to  Puritanism,  partly  to 
abstract  theory,  partly  to  the  circumstances  of  the  Revolutionary 
struggle.  But  since  neither  of  these  two  streams  of  tendency 
has  been  able  to  overcome  the  other,  they  have  at  last  become 
so  blent  as  to  form  a  definite  type  of  political  habits,  and  a  self- 
consistent  body  of  political  ideas.  Thus  it  may  now  be  said  that 
the  country  is  made  all  of  a  piece.  Its  institutions  have  become 
adapted  to  its  economic  and  social  conditions  and  are  the  due 


654 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


expression  of  its  character.  The  new  wine  has  been  poured 
into  new  bottles :  or  to  adopt  a  metaphor  more  appropriate 
to  the  country,  the  vehicle  has  been  built  with  a  lightness, 
strength,  and  elasticity  which  fit  it  for  the  roads  it  has  to 
traverse. 


CHAPTER  CIII 


HOW  FAR  AMERICAN  EXPERIENCE  IS  AVAILABLE  FOR  EUROPE 

There  are  two  substantial  services  which  the  study  of  history 
may  render  to  politics.  The  one  is  to  correct  the  use,  which  is 
generally  the  abuse,  of  the  deductive  or  a  priori  method  of 
reasoning  in  politics.  The  other  is  to  save  the  politician  from 
being  misled  by  superficial  historical  analogies.  He  who  re¬ 
pudiates  the  a  priori  method  is  apt  to  fancy  himself  a  practical 
man,  when,  running  to  the  other  extreme,  he  argues  directly 
from  the  phenomena  of  one  age  or  country  to  those  of  another, 
and  finding  somewhat  similar  causes  or  conditions  bids  us  to 
expect  similar  results.  His  error  is  as  grave  as  that  of  the 
man  who  relies  on  abstract  reasonings ;  for  he  neglects  that 
critical  examination  of  the  premises  from  which  every  process 
of  reasoning  ought  to  start.  The  better  trained  any  historical 
inquirer  is,  so  much  the  more  cautious  will  he  be  in  the  employ¬ 
ment  of  what  are  called  historical  arguments  in  politics.  He 
knows  how  necessary  it  is  in  attempting  to  draw  any  conclusion 
of  practical  worth  for  one  country  from  the  political  experience 
of  another,  to  allow  for  the  points  in  which  the  countries  differ, 
because  among  these  points  there  are  usually  some  which  affect 
the  soundness  of  the  inference,  making  it  doubtful  whether  that 
which  holds  true  of  the  one  will  hold  true  of  the  other.  The 
value  of  history  for  students  of  politics  or  practical  statesmen 
lies  rather  in  its  power  of  quickening  their  insight,  in  its  giving 
them  a  larger  knowledge  of  the  phenomena  of  man’s  nature  as 
a  political  being  and  of  the  tendencies  that  move  groups  and 
communities  of  men,  and  thus  teaching  them  how  to  observe 
the  facts  that  come  under  their  own  eyes,  and  what  to  expect 
from  the  men  with  whom  they  have  to  deal.  A  thinker  duly 
exercised  in  historical  research  will  carry  his  stores  of  the  world’s 
political  experience  about  with  him,  not  as  a  book  of  pre¬ 
scriptions  or  recipes  from  which  he  can  select  one  to  apply  to 
a  given  case,  but  rather  as  a  physician  carries  a  treatise  on 
pathology  which  instructs  him  in  the  general  principles  to  be 

655 


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ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


followed  in  observing  the  symptoms  and  investigating  the 
causes  of  the  maladies  that  come  before  him.  So7  although  the 
character  of  democratic  government  in  the  United  States  is  full 
of  instruction  for  Europeans,  it  supplies  few  conclusions  directly 
bearing  on  the  present  politics  of  any  European  country,  be¬ 
cause  both  the  strong  and  the  weak  points  of  the  American  people 
are  not  exactly  repeated  anywhere  in  the  Old  World,  not  even  in 
such  countries  as  France,  Switzerland,  and  England.  The  pic¬ 
ture  given  of  the  phenomena  of  America  in  preceding  chapters 
has  probably  already  suggested  to  the  reader  the  inferences  to  be 
drawn  from  it,  and  such  application  as  they  may  have  to  Europe. 
I  shall  therefore  be  here  content  with  recapitulating  in  the  most 
concise  way  the  points  in  which  the  institutions  of  the  United 
States  and  the  methods  employed  in  working  them  seem,  if 
not  quite  directly,  yet  most  nearly,  to  touch  and  throw  light 
upon  European  problems.  America  has  in  some  respects  antici¬ 
pated  European  nations.  She  is  walking  before  them  along  a 
path  which  they  may  probably  follow.  She  carries  behind  her, 
to  adopt  a  famous  simile  of  Dante’s,  a  lamp  whose  light  helps 
those  who  come  after  her  more  than  it  always  does  herself, 
because  some  of  the  dangers  she  has  passed  through  may  not 
recur  at  any  other  point  in  her  path ;  whereas  they,  following 
in  her  footsteps,  may  stumble  in  the  same  stony  places,  or  be 
entangled  in  the  quagmires  into  which  she  slipped. 

I.  Manhood  Suffrage.  —  This  has  been  now  adopted  by  so 
many  peoples  of  Europe  that  they  have  the  less  occasion  to 
study  its  transatlantic  aspects.  The  wisest  Americans,  while 
appreciating  the  strength  which  it  gives  to  their  government, 
and  conceiving  that  they  could  hardly  have  stopped  short  of  it, 
hold  that  their  recent  experience  does  not  invite  imitation  by 
European  nations,  unless  at  least  Europeans  adopt  safeguards 
resembling  those  they  have  applied.  With  those  safeguards, 
the  abolition  of  property  qualifications  has,  so  far  as  the  bulk 
of  the  native  population  is  concerned,  proved  successful ;  but 
in  the  hands  of  the  negroes  at  the  South,  or  the  recent  immi¬ 
grants  of  the  larger  cities,  a  vote  is,  and  is  now  generally 
admitted  to  be,  a  dangerous  weapon. 

II.  The  Civil  Service .  —  To  keep  minor  administrative  offices 
out  of  politics,  to  make  them  tenable  for  life  and  obtainable  by 
merit  instead  of  by  private  patronage,  is  at  present  one  chief 
aim  of  American  reformers.  They  are  laboriously  striving  to 


CHAP,  cm  AMERICAN  EXPERIENCE  FOR  EUROPE 


657 


bring  their  civil  service  up  to  the  German  or  British  level.  If 
there  is  any  lesson  they  would  seek  to  impress  on  Europeans, 
it  is  the  danger  of  allowing  politics  to  get  into  the  hands  of 
men  who  seek  to  make  a  living  by  them,  and  of  suffering  public 
offices  to  become  the  reward  of  party  work.  Rather,  they 
would  say,  interdict  office-holders  from  participation  in  politics  : 
appoint  them  by  competition,  however  absurd  competition 
may  sometimes  appear,  choose  them  by  lot,  like  the  Athenians 
and  Florentines ;  only  do  not  let  offices  be  tenable  at  the  pleasure 
of  party  chiefs  and  lie  in  the  uncontrolled  patronage  of  persons 
who  can  use  them  to  strengthen  their  own  political  position.1 

III.  The  Judiciary.  — The  same  observation  applies  to  judi¬ 
cial  posts,  and  with  no  less  force.  The  American  State  Bench 
has  suffered  both  from  the  too  prevalent  system  of  popular 
election  and  from  the  scanty  remuneration  allotted.  To  pro¬ 
cure  men  of  character,  learning,  and  intellectual  power,  and 
to  secure  in  them  that  public  confidence  which  is  now  some¬ 
times  absent,  ample  remuneration  must  be  paid,  a  life  tenure 
secured,  and  the  appointments  placed  in  responsible  hands. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  English  frame  of  government  which 
thoughtful  Americans  so  much  admire  as  the  maintenance  of 
a  high  level  of  integrity  and  capacity  in  the  jud*ges;  and  they 
often  express  a  hope  that  nothing  will  be  done  to  lower  the 
position  of  officials  on  whose  excellence  the  well-being  and  com¬ 
mercial  credit  of  a  country  largely  depend.2 

IV.  Character  and  Working  of  Legislatures .3  Although  the 
rule  of  representative  chambers  has  been  deemed  the  most 
characteristic  feature  of  well-ordered  free  governments,  as  con¬ 
trasted  with  those  impetuous  democracies  of  antiquity  which 
legislated  by  primary  assemblies,  it  must  be  confessed  that  the 
legislative  bodies  of  the  United  States  have  done  something  to 
discredit  representative  government.  Whether  this  result  is 
mainly  due,  as  some  think,  to  the  disconnection  of  the  Executive 
from  the  legislature,  or  whether  it  must  be  traced  to  deeper 
sources  of  weakness,  it  is  not  without  instruction  for  those 
who  would  in  Europe  vest  in  legislatures,  and,  perhaps,  even  in 
one-chambered  legislatures,  still  wider  powers  of  interference 
with  administration  than  they  now  possess. 

1  See  Chapter  LXV. 

2  See  Chapters  XLII  and  CII. 

3  See  Chapters  XIV,  XIX,  XLI,  XLIV,  XLV. 

2  u 


658 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


V.  Second  Chambers.1  —  The  Americans  consider  the  divi¬ 
sion  of  every  political  legislature  into  two  co-ordinate  bodies 
to  be  absolutely  necessary ;  and  their  opinion,  in  this  respect, 
is  the  more  valuable  because  several  States  tried  for  a  time  to 
work  with  one  chamber,  and  because  they  are  fully  sensible 
of  the  inconveniences  which  the  frequent  collision  of  two  cham¬ 
bers  involves.  Their  view  is,  doubtless,  tinged  by  the  low  opin¬ 
ion  which  they  hold  of  the  quality  of  their  legislators.  Distrust¬ 
ing  these,  they  desire  to  place  every  possible  check  upon  their 
action.  In  cities  it  does  not  appear  that  either  the  two-cham¬ 
bered  or  the  one-chambered  system  shows  any  advantage  over 
the  other ;  but  it  is  now  beginning  to  be  seen  that  city  govern¬ 
ment  has  altogether  been  planned  too  much  on  political  lines, 
and  is  conducted  too  little  according  to  business  methods. 

VI.  Length  of  Legislative  Terms.2  —  The  gain  and  the  loss  in 
having  legislatures  elected  for  short  terms  are  sufficiently  obvi¬ 
ous.  To  a  European,  the  experience  of  Congress  seems  to  indi¬ 
cate  that  the  shortness  of  its  term  is  rather  to  be  avoided  than 
imitated.  It  is  not  needed  in  order  to  secure  the  obedience  of 
Congress  to  the  popular  will :  it  increases  the  cost  of  politics 
by  making  elections  more  frequent,  and  it  keeps  a  considerable 
proportion  of  The  legislators  employed  in  learning  a  business 
from  which  they  are  dismissed  as  soon  as  they  have  learnt  it. 

VII.  Indirect  Elections .3  —  American  experience  does  not 
commend  this  device,  which,  until  the  establishment  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  mode  of  choosing  the  French  Senate,  was  chiefly  known  from 
its  employment  in  the  Republic  of  Venice.  The  choice  of  the 
President  by  electors,  chosen  for  the  purpose,  has  wholly  failed 
to  attain  the  object  its  authors  desired.  The  election  of  sena¬ 
tors  by  State  legislatures  gives  no  better,  and  possibly  worse, 
men  to  the  Senate  than  direct  popular  election  would  give. 

VIII.  A  Rigid  Constitution .4  —  Although  several  European 
states  have  now  placed  themselves  under  constitutions  not 
alterable  by  their  legislatures  in  the  same  way  as  ordinary 
statutes  are  altered,  America  furnishes  in  her  State  govern¬ 
ments,  as  well  as  in  her  Federal  government,  by  far  the  most 
instructive  examples  of  the  working  of  a  system  under  which 


1  See  Chapters  XVIII,  XL,  and  L. 

2  See  Chapters  XIX  and  XL. 

3  See  Chapters  V,  X,  and  XII. 

4  See  Chapters  XXIII,  XXXI,  XXXV,  and  XXXVII. 


CHAP.  CHI  AMERICAN  EXPERIENCE  FOR  EUROPE 


659 


certain  laws  are  made  fundamental,  and  surrounded  not  only 
with  a  sort  of  consecration,  but  with  provisions  which  make 
change  comparatively  difficult.  There  is  nothing  in  their 
system  with  whose  results,  despite  some  obvious  drawbacks, 
the  multitude,  scarcely  less  than  the  wise,  are  so  well  satisfied  ; 
nothing  which  they  more  frequently  recommend  to  the  con¬ 
sideration  of  those  Europeans  who  are  alarmed  at  the  progress 
which  democracy  makes  in  the  Old  World. 

IX.  Direct  Legislation  by  the  People.1  —  In  this  respect  also 
the  example  of  the  several  States  —  for  the  Federal  government 
is  not  in  point  —  deserves  to  be  well  studied  by  English  and 
French  statesmen.  The  plan,  whose  merits  seem  to  me  in 
America  to  outweigh  its  defects,  could  hardly  work  as  well 
in  a  large  country  as  it  does  in  communities  of  the  size  of  the 
American  States,  and  in  the  new  form  of  Initiative  it  offers  an 
alluringly  easy  means  of  effecting  radical  changes.  The  method 
is  useful  less  by  its  own  merits  than  by  comparison  with  the 
faults  of  the  legislatures.  The  people  are  as  likely  to  be  right 
in  judgment  as  are  those  bodies ;  and  they  are  more  honest 
and  more  independent,  but  in  countries  which  have  capable 
and  trustworthy  legislatures  direct  legislation  might  work  ill  by 
lowering  the  dignity  and  importance  of  such  bodies.  It  would 
be  an  appeal  from  comparative  knowledge  to  comparative 
ignorance.  This  consideration  does  not  apply  to  its  use  in 
local  affairs,  where  it  stimulates  the  activity  of  the  citizen  with¬ 
out  superseding  the  administrative  body. 

X.  Local  Self-government .2  —  Nothing  has  more  contributed 
to  give  strength  and  flexibility  to  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  or  to  train  the  masses  of  the  people  to  work  their  demo¬ 
cratic  institutions,  than  the  existence  everywhere  in  the  Northern 
States  of  self-governing  administrative  units,  such  as  townships, 
small  enough  to  enlist  the  personal  interest  and  be  subject  to 
the  personal  watchfulness  and  control  of  the  ordinary  citizen. 
Abuses  have  indeed  sprung  up  in  the  cities,  and  in  the  case 
of  the  largest  among  them  have  become  formidable,  partly 
because  the  principle  of  local  control  has  not  been  sufficiently 
adhered  to.  Nevertheless  the  system  of  local  government  as  a 
whole  has  been  not  merely  beneficial,  but  indispensable,  and 
well  deserves  the  study  of  those  who  in  Europe  are  alive  to  the 
evils  of  centralization,  and  perceive  that  those  evils  will  not 


1  See  Chapter  XXXIX. 


2  See  Chapters  XLVIII-LII. 


660 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


necessarily  diminish  with  a  further  democratization  of  such 
countries  as  Britain,  Germany,  and  Italy.  I  do  not  say  that  in 
any  of  the  great  European  states  the  mass  of  the  rural  population 
is  equally  competent  with  the  American  to  work  such  a  system  : 
still  it  presents  a  model  towards  which  European  institutions 
ought  to  tend.  Very  different  is  the  lesson  which  the  American 
cities  teach.  It  is  a  lesson  of  what  to  avoid.  Nowhere  have 
the  conjoint  influences  of  false  theory,  party  cohesion,  and  the 
apathy  of  good  citizens,  together  with  a  recklessly  granted  suf¬ 
frage,  rendered  municipal  government  so  wasteful,  inefficient, 
and  impure. 

XI.  The  Absence  of  a  Church  Establishment.  —  As  the  dis¬ 
cussion  of  ecclesiastical  matters  belongs  to  a  later  part  of  this 
book,1  I  must  be  content  with  observing  that  in  America  every¬ 
body,  to  whatever  religious  communion  he  belongs,  professes 
satisfaction  with  the  complete  separation  of  Church  and  State. 
This  separation  has  not  tended  to  make  religion  less  of  a  force 
in  America  as  respects  either  political  or  social  reform,  nor  does 
it  prevent  the  people  from  considering  Christianity  to  be  the 
national  religion,  and  their  commonwealth  an  object  of  the 
Divine  care. 

XII.  Party  Machinery.2  —  The  tremendous  power  of  party 
organization  has  been  described.  It  enslaves  local  officials,  it 
increases  the  tendency  to  regard  members  of  Congress  as  mere 
delegates,  it  keeps  men  of  independent  character  out  of  local 
and  national  politics,  it  puts  bad  men  into  place,  it  perverts 
the  wishes  of  the  people,  it  has  in  some  places  set  up  a  tyranny 
under  the  forms  of  democracy.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  see  how  free 
government  can  go  on  without  parties,  and  certain  that  the 
strenuous  rivalry  of  parties  will  not  dispense  with  machinery. 
The  moral  seems  to  be  the  old  one  that  “  Perpetual  vigilance 
is  the  price  of  freedom,”  that  the  best  citizens  must,  as  the 
Americans  say,  “take  hold,”  must  by  themselves  accepting 
posts  in  the  organization  keep  it  from  falling  into  the  hands 
of  professionals,  must  entrust  as  few  lucrative  places  as  pos¬ 
sible  to  popular  election  or  political  patronage,  must  leave 
reasonable  discretion  to  their  representatives  in  the  national 
councils,  must  endeavour  to  maintain  in  politics  the  same 
standard  of  honour  which  guides  them  in  private  life.  These 
are  moral  rather  than  political  precepts,  but  party  organization 

2  See  Chapters  LIX-LXV. 


1  See  Chapters  CVI  and  CVII. 


CHAP,  cm  AMERICAN  EXPERIENCE  FOR  EUROPE 


661 


is  one  of  those  things  which  is  good  or  bad  according  to  the 
spirit  with  which  it  is  worked. 

XIII.  The  Unattractiveness  of  Politics.1  —  Partly  from  the 
influence  of  party  machinery,  partly  from  peculiarities  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  partly  from  social  and  economical  causes, 
the  American  system  has  but  imperfectly  succeeded  in  bringing 
the  best  men  to  the  top.  Yet  in  democracy  more  perhaps  than 
in  other  governments,  seeing  it  is  the  most  delicate  and  difficult 
of  governments,  it  is  essential  that  the  best  men  should  come  to 
the  top.  There  is  in  this  fact  matter  for  Europeans  to  reflect 
upon,  for  they  have  assumed  that  political  success  will  always 
attract  ambition,  and  that  public  life  will  draw  to  itself  at 
least  enough  of  the  highest  ability.  America  disproves  the 
assumption.  Her  example  does  not,  however,  throw  much  light 
on  the  way  to  keep  politics  attractive,  for  her  conditions  are 
dissimilar  to  those  of  European  countries,  where  ambition  finds 
less  scope  for  distinction  in  the  field  of  industrial  enterprise, 
and  rank  is  less  disjoined  from  political  eminence. 

XIV.  The  Power  of  Wealth.  —  Plutocracy  used  to  be  consid¬ 
ered  a  form  of  oligarchy,  and  opposed  to  democracy.  But 
there  is  a  strong  plutocratic  element  infused  into  American 
democracy ;  and  the  fact  that  constitutions  ignore  differences 
of  property,  treating  all  voters  alike,  makes  it  neither  less  potent 
nor  less  ischievous.  Of  the  power  of  wealth  democracies  may 
say,  with  Dante,  Here  wTe  find  the  great  enemy.2  Though  it 
has  afflicted  all  forms  of  government,  it  seems  specially  per¬ 
nicious  in  a  popular  government,  because  when  the  disease  ap¬ 
peared  under  despotisms  and  oligarchies,  freedom  was  deemed 
the  only  and  sufficient  antidote.  Experience,  however,  shows 
that  in  democracies  it  is  no  less  menacing,  for  the  personal 
interest  of  the  average  man  in  good  government  —  and  in  a  large 
democracy  he  feels  himself  insignificant  —  is  overborne  by  the 
inducements  which  wealth,  skilfully  employed,  can  offer  him ; 
and  when  once  the  average  man’s  standard  of  public  virtue  has 
been  lowered  by  the  sight  of  numerous  deflections  from  virtue 
in  others,  great  is  the  difficulty  of  raising  it.  In  the  United 
States  the  money  power  acts  by  corrupting  sometimes  the  voter, 
sometimes  the' juror,  sometimes  the  legislator,  sometimes  a  whole 
party;  for  large  subscriptions  and  promises  of  political  support 

1  See  Chapters  LVIII  and  LXXIV. 

2  Quivi  trovammo  Pluto  il  gran  nemico  :  Inf.  VI,  115. 


662 


ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  REFLECTIONS 


PART  V 


have  been  known  to  influence  a  party  to  procure  or  refrain  from 
such  legislation  as  wealth  desires  or  fears.  The  rich,  and  espe¬ 
cially  great  corporations,  have  not  only  enterprises  to  promote 
but  dangers  to  escape  from  at  the  hands  of  unscrupulous 
demagogues  or  legislators.  But  whether  their  action  has  this 
palliation  or  not,  the  belief,  often  well  grounded,  that  they 
exercise  a  secret  power  in  their  own  interests,  exasperates  other 
sections  of  the  community,  and  has  been  a  factor  in  producing 
not  only  unwise  legislation  directed  against  them,  but  also 
outbreaks  of  lawless  violence. 

To  these  scattered  observations,  which  I  have  made  abrupt  in 
order  to  avoid  being  led  into  repetitions,  I  need  hardly  add  the 
general  moral  which  the  United  States  teach,  that  the  masses 
of  the  people  are  more  reasonable,  and  more  temperate  in 
any  matter  to  which  they  can  be  induced  to  bend  their  minds 
than  most  European  philosophers  have  believed  it  possible  for 
the  masses  of  the  people  to  be ;  because  this  is  the  moral  which 
the  preceding  chapters  on  Public  Opinion  have  been  intended 
to  make  clear.  But  the  reader  is  again  to  be  reminded  that 
while  the  foregoing  points  are  those  in  which  American  expe¬ 
rience  seems  most  directly  available  for  European  states,  he 
must  not  expect  the  problems  America  has  dealt  with  to 
reappear  in  Europe  in  thfe  same  forms.  Such  facts  —  to  men¬ 
tion  two  only  out  of  many  —  as  the  abundance  of  land  and 
the  absence  of  menace  from  other  Powers  show  how  dissimilar 
are  the  conditions  under  which  popular  government  works  in 
the  Eastern  and  in  the  Western  hemisphere.  Instructive  as 
American  experience  may  be  if  discreetly  used,  nothing  will 
be  more  misleading  to  one  who  tries  to  apply  it  without  allow¬ 
ing  for  the  differences  of  economic  and  social  environment. 


PART  VI 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


\ 


CHAPTER  CIV 


THE  BAR 

Among  the  organized  institutions  of  a  country  which,  while 
not  directly  a  part  of  the  government,  influence  politics  as  well 
as  society,  the  Bar  has  in  England,  Scotland,  and  France  played 
a  part  only  second  to  that  played  by  the  Church.  Certainly 
no  English  institution  is  more  curiously  and  distinctively 
English  than  this  body,  with  its  venerable  traditions,  its  aristo¬ 
cratic  sympathies,  its  strong,  though  now  declining,  corporate 
spirit,  its  affinity  for  certain  forms  of  literature,  its  singular 
relation,  half  of  dependence,  half  of  condescension,  to  the  solici¬ 
tors,  its  friendly  control  over  its  official  superiors,  the  judges. 
To  see  how  such  an  institution  has  shaped  itself  and  thriven 
in  a  new  country  is  to  secure  an  excellent  means  of  estimating 
the  ideas,  conditions,  and  habits  which  affect  and  colour  the 
social  system  of  that  country,  as  well  as  to  examine  one  of  the 
chief  among  the  secondary  forces  of  public  life.  It  is  therefore 
not  merely  for  the  sake  of  satisfying  the  curiosity  of  English 
lawyers  that  I  propose  to  sketch  some  of  the  salient  features  of 
the  legal  profession  as  it  exists  in  the  United  States,  and  to  show 
how  it  has  developed  apart  from  the  restrictions  imposed  on  it 
in  England  by  ancient  custom,  and  under  the  unchecked  opera¬ 
tion  of  the  laws  of  demand  and  supply. 

When  England  sent  out  her  colonies,  the  Bar,  like  most  of 
her  other  institutions,  reappeared  upon  the  new  soil,  and  had 
gained  before  the  revolution  of  1776  a  position  similar  to  that 
it  held  at  home,  not  owing  to  any  deliberate  purpose  on  the 
part  of  those  who  led  and  ruled  the  new  communities  (for  the 
Puritan  settlers  at  least  held  lawyers  in  slight  esteem),  but  be¬ 
cause  the  conditions  of  a  progressive  society  required  its  exist¬ 
ence.  That  disposition  to  simplify  and  popularize  law,  to 
make  it  less  of  a  mystery  and  bring  it  more  within  the  reach 
of  an  average  citizen,  which  is  strong  in  modern  Europe,  is 
of  course  still  stronger  in  a  colony,  and  naturally  tended  in 

665 


666 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  YI 


America  to  lessen  the  corporate  exclusiveness  of  the  legal  pro¬ 
fession,  and  do  away  with  the  antiquated  rules  which  had  gov¬ 
erned  it  in  England.  On  the  other  hand,  the  increasing  complexity 
of  relations  in  modern  society,  and  the  development  of  many  new 
arts  and  departments  of  applied  science,  bring  into  an  always 
clearer  light  the  importance  of  a  division  of  labour,  and,  by  at¬ 
taching  greater  value  to  special  knowledge  and  skill,  tend  to 
limit  and  define  the  activity  of  every  profession.  In  spite, 
therefore,  of  the  democratic  aversion  to  exclusive  organizations, 
the  lawyers  in  America  soon  acquired  professional  habits  and 
a  corporate  spirit  similar  to  that  of  their  brethren  in  England ; 
and  early  last  century  they  had  reached  a  power  and  social 
consideration  relatively  greater  than  the  Bar  has  ever  held  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

But  the  most  characteristic  peculiarity  of  the  English  system 
disappeared.  In  the  United  States,  as  in  some  parts  of  Europe, 
and  most  British  colonies,  there  is  no  distinction  between 
barristers  and  attorneys.  Every  lawyer,  or  “counsel,”  is  per¬ 
mitted  to  take  every  kind  of  business :  he  may  argue  a  cause 
in  the  Supreme  Federal  court  at  Washington,  or  write  six-and- 
eight  penny  letters  from  a  shopkeeper  to  an  obstinate  debtor. 
He  may  himself  conduct  all  the  proceedings  in  a  cause,  confer 
with  the  client,  issue  the  writ,  draw  the  declaration,  get  together 
the  evidence,  prepare  the  brief,  and  conduct  the  case  when  it 
comes  on  in  court.  He  is  employed,  not  like  the  English  bar¬ 
rister,  by  another  professional  man,  but  by  the  client  himself, 
who  seeks  him  out  and  makes  his  bargain  directly  with  him, 
just  as  in  England  people  call  in  a  physician  or  make  their 
bargain  with  an  architect.  In  spite,  however,  of  this  union  of 
all  a  lawyer’s  functions  in  the  same  person,  considerations  of 
practical  convenience  have  in  many  places  established  a  divi¬ 
sion  of  labour  similar  to  that  existing  in  England.  Where  two 
or  more  lawyers  are  in  partnership,  it  often  happens  that  one 
member  undertakes  the  court  work  and  the  duties  of  the  advo¬ 
cate,  while  another  or  others  transact  the  rest  of  the  business, 
see  the  clients,  conduct  correspondence,  hunt  up  evidence, 
prepare  witnesses  for  examination,  and  manage  the  thousand 
little  things  for  which  a  man  goes  to  his  attorney.  The  merits 
of  the  plan  are  obvious.  It  saves  the  senior  member  from 
drudgery,  and  from  being  distracted  by  petty  details ;  it  intro¬ 
duces  the  juniors  to  business,  and  enables  them  to  profit  by 


CHAP.  CIV 


THE  BAR 


667 


the  experience  and  knowledge  of  the  mature  practitioner;  it 
secures  to  the  client  the  benefit  of  a  closer  attention  to  details 
than  a  leading  counsel  could  be  expected  to  give,  while  yet 
the  whole  of  his  suit  is  managed  in  the  same  office,  and  the 
responsibility  is  not  divided,  as  in  England,  between  two  inde¬ 
pendent  personages.  However,  the  custom  of  forming  legal 
partnerships  is  one  which  prevails  much  more  extensively  in 
some  parts  of  the  Union  than  in  others.  In  Boston  and  New 
York,  for  instance,  it  is  common,  and  I  think  in  the  Western 
cities;  in  the  towns  of  Connecticut  and  in  Philadelphia  one 
is  told  that  it  is  rather  the  exception.  Even  apart  from  the 
arrangement  which  distributes  the  various  kinds  of  business 
among  the  members  of  a  firm,  there  is  a  certain  tendency 
for  work  of  a  different  character  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  dif¬ 
ferent  men.  A  beginner  is  of  course  glad  enough  to  be  employed 
in  any  way,  and  takes  willingly  the  smaller  jobs ;  he  will  conduct 
a  defence  in  a  police-court,  or  manage  the  recovery  of  a  trades¬ 
man’s  petty  debt.  I  remember  having  been  told  by  a  very 
eminent  counsel  that  when  an  old  apple-woman  applied  to  his 
son  to  have  her  market  licence  renewed,  which  for  some  reason 
had  been  withdrawn,  he  had  insisted  on  the  young  man’s  taking 
up  the  case.  As  he  rises,  it  becomes  easier  for  him  to  select 
his  business,  and  when  he  has  attained  real  eminence  he  may 
confine  himself  entirely  to  the  higher  walks,  arguing  cases  and 
giving  opinions,  but  leaving  most  of  the  preparatory  work  and 
all  the  communications  with  the  client  to  be  done  by  the  juniors 
who  are  retained  along  with  him.  He  is,  in  fact,  with  the  impor¬ 
tant  difference  that  he  is  liable  for  any  negligence,  very  much  in 
the  position  of  an  English  leader  or  King’s  counsel,  and  his  ser¬ 
vices  are  sought,  not  only  by  the  client,  but  by  another  counsel, 
or  firm  of  counsel,  who  have  an  important  suit  in  hand,  to  which 
they  feel  themselves  unequal.  He  may  however  be,  and  often  is, 
retained  directly  by  the  client ;  and  in  that  case  he  is  allowed  to 
retain  a  junior  to  aid  him,  or  to  desire  the  client  to  do  so,  naming 
the  man  he  wishes  for,  a  thing  which  the  etiquette  of  the  English 
bar  is  supposed  to  forbid.  In  every  great  city  there  are  several 
practitioners  of  this  kind,  men  who  only  undertake  the  weightiest 
business  at  the  largest  fees ;  and  even  in  the  minor  towns  court 
practice  is  in  the  hands  of  a  comparatively  small  group.  In  one 
New  England  city,  for  instance,  whose  population  is  about 
50,000,  there  are,  I  was  told,  some  sixty  or  seventy  practising 


668 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


lawyers,  of  whom  not  more  than  ten  or  twelve  ever  conduct  a 
case  in  court,  the  remainder  doing  what  Englishmen  would 
call  attorney’s  and  conveyancer’s  work. 

Whatever  disadvantages  this  system  of  one  undivided  legal 
profession  has,  it  has  one  conspicuous  merit,  on  which  any  one 
who  is  accustomed  to  watch  the  career  of  the  swarm  of  young 
men  who  annually  press  into  the  Temple  or  Lincoln’s  Inn  full 
of  bright  hopes,  may  be  pardoned  for  dwelling.  It  affords  a 
far  better  prospect  of  speedy  employment  and  an  active  pro¬ 
fessional  life,  than  the  beginner  who  is  not  “strongly  backed” 
can  look  forward  to  in  England.  Private  friends  can  do  much 
more  to  help  a  young  man,  since  he  gets  business  direct  from 
the  client  instead  of  from  a  solicitor ;  he  may  pick  up  little 
bits  of  work  which  his  prosperous  seniors  do  not  care  to  have, 
may  thereby  learn  those  details  of  practice  of  which  in  Eng¬ 
land  a  barrister  often  remains  ignorant,  may  gain  experience 
and  confidence  in  his  own  powers,  may  teach  himself  how  to 
speak  and  how  to  deal  with  men,  may  gradually  form  a  con¬ 
nection  among  those  for  whom  he  has  managed  trifling  matters, 
may  commend  himself  to  the  good  opinion  of  older  lawyers, 
who  will  be  glad  to  retain  him  as  their  junior  when  they  have 
a  brief  to  give  away.  So  far  he  is  better  off  than  the  young 
barrister  in  England.  He  is  also,  in  another  way,  more  favour¬ 
ably  placed  than  the  young  English  solicitor.  He  is  not  taught  to 
rely  in  cases  of  legal  difficulty  upon  the  opinion  of  another  person. 
He  does  not  see  the  path  of  an  honourable  ambition,  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  forensic  oratory,  the  access  to  the  judicial  bench, 
definitely  closed  against  him,  but  has  the  fullest  freedom  to 
choose  whatever  line  his  talents  fit  him  for.  Every  English 
lawyer’s  experience,  as  it  furnishes  him  with  cases  where  a  man 
was  obliged  to  remain  an  attorney  who  would  have  shone  as  a 
counsel,  so  also  suggests  cases  of  persons  who  were  believed,  and 
with  reason  believed,  by  their  friends  to  possess  the  highest 
forensic  abilities,  but  literally  never  had  the  chance  of  displaying 
them,  and  languished  on  in  obscurity,  while  others  in  every  way 
inferior  to  them  became,  by  mere  dint  of  practice,  fitter  for 
ultimate  success.  Quite  otherwise  in  America.  There,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  universal  witness  of  laymen  and  lawyers,  no  man 
who  combines  fair  talents  with  reasonable  industry  fails  to 
earn  a  competence,  and  to  have,  within  the  first  six  or  seven  years 
of  his  career,  an  opportunity  of  showing  whether  he  has  in  him 


CHAP.  CIV 


THE  BAR 


669 


the  makings  of  something  great.  This  is  not  due,  as  might  be 
supposed,  merely  to  the  greater  opportunities  which  every¬ 
body  has  in  a  new  country,  and  which  make  America  the  working 
man's  paradise,  for,  in  the  Eastern  States  at  least,  the  profes¬ 
sions  are  nearly  as  crowded  as  they  are  in  England.  It  is  owing 
to  the  greater  variety  of  practice  which  lies  open  to  a  young  man, 
and  to  the  fact  that  his  patrons  are  the  general  public,  and  not, 
as  in  England,  a  limited  class  who  have  their  own  friends  and 
connections  to  push.  Certain  it  is  that  American  lawyers  profess 
themselves  unable  to  understand  how  it  can  happen  that  deserv¬ 
ing  men  remain  briefless  for  the  best  years  of  their  life,  and  are  at 
last  obliged  to  quit  the  profession  in  disgust. 

A  further  result  of  the  more  free  and  open  character  of  the 
profession  may  be  seen  in  the  absence  of  many  of  those  rules 
of  etiquette  which  are,  in  theory  at  least,  observed  by  the  Eng¬ 
lish  lawyer.  It  is  not  thought  undignified,  except  in  the  great 
cities  of  the  Eastern  States,  for  a  counsel  to  advertise  himself 
in  the  newspapers.1  He  is  allowed  to  make  whatever  bargain  he 
pleases  with  his  client :  he  may  do  work  for  nothing,  or  may 
stipulate  for  a  commission  on  the  result  of  the  suit  or  a  share 
in  whatever  the  verdict  produces  —  a  practice  which  is  open  to 
grave  objections,  and  which,  in  the  opinion  of  more  than  one 
eminent  American  lawyer,  has  produced  a  good  deal  of  the  mis¬ 
chief  which  caused  it  to  be  seventeen  centuries  ago  prohibited 
at  Rome.  However,  in  some  cities  the  sentiment  of  the  Bar 
seems  to  be  opposed  to  the  practice,  and  in  some  States  there 
are  rules  limiting  it.  A  counsel  can,  except  in  New  Jersey 
(a  State  curiously  conservative  in  some  points),  bring  an  action 
for  the  recovery  of  his  fees,  and,  pari  ratione,  can  be  sued  for 
negligence  in  the  conduct  of  a  cause. 

A  lawyer  can  readily  gain  admission  to  practise  in  the  Fed¬ 
eral  courts,  and  may  by  courtesy  practise  in  the  courts  of 
every  State.  But  each  State  has  its  own  Bar,  that  is  to  say, 
there  is  no  general  or  national  organization  of  the  legal  pro¬ 
fession,  the  laws  regulating  which  are  State  laws,  differing  in 
each  of  the  forty-eight  commonwealths.  In  no  State  does  there 
exist  any  body  resembling  the  English  Inns  of  Court,  with 
the  right  of  admitting  to  the  practice  of  public  advocacy  and 
of  exercising  a  disciplinary  jurisdiction :  and  in  few  have 

1  California  has  passed  a  statute  forbidding  counsel  to  advertise  for  divorce 
cases. 


670 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


any  professional  associations  resembling  the  English  Incorpo¬ 
rated  Law  Society  obtained  statutory  recognition.  State  law 
generally  vests  in  the  courts  the  duty  of  admitting  persons 
as  attorneys,  and  of  excluding  them  if  guilty  of  any  serious 
offence.  But  the  oversight  of  the  judges  is  necessarily  so  lax 
that  in  many  States  and  cities  voluntary  Bar  Associations  have 
been  formed  with  the  view  of  exercising  a  sort  of  censorship  over 
the  profession.  Such  associations  can  blackball  bad  candidates 
for  admission,  and  expel  offenders  against  professional  honour; 
and  they  are  said  to  accomplish  some  good  in  this  way.  More 
rarely  they  institute  proceedings  to  have  black  sheep  removed 
from  practice.  Being  virtually  an  open  profession,  like  stock¬ 
broking  or  engineering,  the  profession  has  less  of  a  distinctive 
character  and  corporate  feeling  than  the  barristers  of  England 
or  France  have,  and  perhaps  less  than  the  solicitors  of  Eng¬ 
land  have.  Neither  wig,  bands,  gown,  cap,  nor  any  other  pro¬ 
fessional  costume  is  worn,  and  this  circumstance,  trivial  as  it 
may  seem,  no  doubt  contributes  to  weaken  the  sentiment  of 
professional  privilege  and  dignity,  and  to  obscure  the  distinction 
between  the  advocate  in  his  individual  capacity  and  the  advocate 
as  an  advocate,  not  deemed  to  be  pledging  himself  to  the  truth 
of  any  fact  or  the  soundness  of  any  argument,  but  simply  present¬ 
ing  his  client’s  case  as  it  is  presented  to  him. 

In  most  States  the  judges  impose  some  sort  of  examination 
on  persons  seeking  to  be  admitted  to  practice,  often  delegating 
the  duty  of  questioning  the  candidate  to  two  or  three  counsel 
named  for  the  purpose.  Candidates  are  sometimes  required 
to  have  read  for  a  certain  period  in  a  lawyer’s  office,  but  this 
condition  is  easily  evaded,  and  the  examination,  nowhere  strict, 
is  often  little  better  than  a  form  or  a  farce.  Notwithstanding 
this  laxity,  the  level  of  legal  attainment  is  in  some  cities  as 
high  or  higher  than  among  either  the  barristers  or  the  solicitors 
of  London.  This  is  due  to  the  extraordinary  excellence  of  many 
of  the  law  schools.  I  do  not  know  if  there  is  anything  in  which 
America  has  advanced  more  beyond  the  mother  country  than  in 
the  provision  she  makes  for  legal  education.1  As  far  back  as  1860, 
when  there  was  nothing  that  could  be  called  a  scientific  school 

1  Modern  England  seems  to  stand  alone  in  her  comparative  neglect  of  the 
theoretic  study  of  law  as  a  preparation  for  legal  practice.  Other  countries, 
from  Germany  at  the  one  end  of  the  scale  of  civilization  to  the  Mohammedan 
East  at  the  other  end,  exact  three,  four,  five,  or  even  more  years  spent  in  this 
study  before  the  aspirant  begins  his  practical  work. 


CHAP.  CIV 


THE  BAR 


671 


of  law  in  England,  the  Inns  of  Court  having  practically  ceased 
to  teach  law,  and  the  universities  having  allowed  their  two  or 
three  old  chairs  to  fall  into  neglect  and  provided  scarce  any 
new  ones,  several  American  universities  possessed  well-equipped 
law  departments,  giving  a  highly  efficient  instruction.  Even 
now,  when  England  has  bestirred  herself  to  make  a  more  ade¬ 
quate  provision  for  the  professional  training  of  both  barristers 
and  solicitors,  this  provision  seems  insignificant  beside  that  which 
we  find  in  the  United  States,  where,  not  to  speak  of  minor  insti¬ 
tutions,  all  the  leading  universities  possess  law  schools,  in  each 
of  which  every  branch  of  Anglo-American  law,  i.e.  common 
law  and  equity  as  modified  by  Federal  and  State  constitutions 
and  statutes,  is  taught  by  a  strong  staff  of  able  men,  sometimes 
including  the  most  eminent  lawyers  of  the  State.1  Flere  at 
least  the  principle  of  demand  and  supply  works  to  perfection. 
No  one  is  obliged  to  attend  these  courses  in  order  to  obtain 
admission  to  practice,  and  the  examinations  are  generally  too 
lax  to  require  elaborate  preparation.  But  the  instruction  is 
found  so  valuable,  so  helpful  for  professional  success,  that  young- 
men  throng  the  lecture  halls,  willingly  spending  two  or  three 
years  in  the  scientific  study  of  the  law  which  they  might  have 
spent  in  the  chambers  of  a  practising  lawyer  as  pupils  or  as 
junior  partners.  The  indirect  results  of  this  theoretic  study  in 
maintaining  a  philosophical  interest  in  the  law  among  the  higher 
class  of  practitioners,  and  a  higher  sense  of  the  dignity  of  their 
profession,  are  doubly  valuable  in  that  absence  of  corporate 
organizations  on  which  I  have  already  commented.2 

In  what  may  be  called  habits  of  legal  thought,  their  way  of 
regarding  legal  questions,  their  attitude  towards  changes  in 
the  form  or  substance  of  the  law,  American  practitioners,  while 


1  This  instruction  is  in  most  of  the  law  schools  confined  to  Anglo-American 
law,  omitting  theoretic  jurisprudence,  Roman  law  (except,  of  course,  in  Louisi¬ 
ana,  where  the  Civil  Law  is  the  basis  of  the  code)  and  international  law. 
The  latter  subjects  are,  however,  now  beginning  to  be  more  frequently  taught, 
though  sometimes  placed  in  the  historical  curriculum.  In  some  few  law  schools 
educational  value  is  attributed  to  the  moot  courts  in  which  the  students  are 
set  to  argue  cases,  a  method  much  in  vogue  in  England  two  centuries  ago. 

2  Some  of  the  best  American  law-books,  as,  for  instance,  that  admirable 
series  which  made  Justice  Story  famous,  have  been  produced  as  lectures  given 
to  students.  Story  was  professor  at  Harvard  while  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  used  to  travel  to  and  from  Washington  to  give  his  lectures.  A  few 
years  ago  there  were  several  men  in  large  practice  who  used  to  teach  in  the 
law  schools  out  of  public  spirit  and  from  their  love  of  the  subject,  rather  thap 
in  respect  of  the  comparatively  small  payment  they  received. 


672 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


closely  resembling  their  English  brethren,  seem  on  the  whole 
more  conservative.  Such  law  reforms  as  have  been  effected  in 
England  during  the  last  century  have  mostly  come  from  the 
profession  itself.  They  have  been  carried  through  Parliament 
by  attorneys-general  or  lord-chancellors,  usually  with  the  tacit 
approval  of  the  bar  and  the  solicitors.  The  masses  and  their 
leaders  have  seldom  ventured  to  lay  profane  fingers  on  the  law, 
either  in  despair  of  understanding  it  or  because  they  saw  nearer 
and  more  important  work  to  be  done.  Hence  the  profession  has 
in  England  been  seldom  roused  to  oppose  projects  of  change; 
and  its  division  into  two  branches,  with  interests  sometimes 
divergent,  weakens  its  political  influence.  In  the  United  States, 
although  the  legislatures  are  largely  composed  of  lawyers,  many 
of  these  have  little  practice,  little  knowledge,  comparatively 
little  professional  feeling.  Hence  there  is  usually  a  latent  and 
sometimes  an  open  hostility  between  the  better  kind  of  lawyers 
and  the  impulses  of  the  masses,  seeking  probably  at  the  instiga¬ 
tion  of  some  lawyer  of  a  demagogic  turn  to  carry  through  legal 
changes.  The  defensive  attitude  which  the  upper  part  of  the 
profession  is  thus  led  to  assume  fosters  those  conservative 
instincts  which  a  system  of  case  law  engenders,  and  which  are 
further  stimulated  by  the  habit  of  constantly  recurring  to  a 
fundamental  instrument,  the  Federal  Constitution.  Thus  one 
finds  the  same  dislike  to  theory,  the  same  attachment  to  old 
forms,  the  same  unwillingness  to  be  committed  to  any  broad 
principle  which  distinguished  the  orthodox  type  of  English 
lawyers  in  the  first  half  of  last  century.  Prejudices  survive  on 
the  shores  of  the  Mississippi  which  Bentham  assailed  when 
those  shores  were  inhabited  only  by  Indians  and  beavers ; 
and  in  Chicago,  a  place  which  living  men  remember  as  a  lonely 
swamp,  special  demurrers,  replications  de  injuria,  and  various 
elaborate  formalities  of  pleading  which  were  swept  away  by 
the  English  Common  Law  Procedure  Acts  of  1850  and  1852, 
flourish  and  abound  to  this  day. 

Is  the  American  lawyer  more  like  an  English  barrister  or 
an  English  solicitor?  This  depends  on  the  position  he  holds. 
The  leading  counsel  of  a  city  recall  the  former  class,  the  aver¬ 
age  practitioners  of  the  smaller  places  and  rural  districts  the 
latter.  But  as  every  American  lawyer  has  the  right  of  advo¬ 
cacy  in  the  highest  courts,  and  is  accustomed  to  advise  clients 
himself  instead  of  sending  a  case  for  opinion  to  a  counsel  of 


CHAP.  CIV 


THE  BAR 


673 


eminence,  the  level  of  legal  knowledge  —  that  is  to  say,  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  principles  and  substance  of  the  law,  and  not  merely 
of  the  rules  of  practice — is  somewhat  higher  than  among  English 
solicitors,  while  the  familiarity  with  details  of  practice  is  more 
certain  to  be  found  than  among  English  barristers.  Neither 
an  average  barrister  nor  an  average  solicitor  is  so  likely  to  have 
a  good  working  all-round  knowledge  of  the  whole  field  of  common 
law,  equity,  admiralty  law,  probate  law,  patent  law,  as  an 
American  city  practitioner,  nor  to  be  so  smart  and  quick  in 
applying  his  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  England  possesses  more  men  eminent  as  draftsmen,  though 
perhaps  fewer  eminent  in  patent  cases,  and  that  much  American 
business,  especially  in  State  courts,  is  done  in  a  way  which  Euro¬ 
pean  critics  might  call  lax  and  slovenly. 

I  have  already  observed  that  both  in  Congress  and  in  most 
of  the  State  legislatures  the  lawyers  outnumber  the  persons 
belonging  to  any  one  other  walk  of  life.  Nevertheless,  they  have 
not  that  hold  on  politics  now  which  they  had  in  the  first  and 
second  generations  after  1783.  Politics  have,  in  falling  so  com¬ 
pletely  into  the  hands  of  party  organizations,  become  more 
distinctly  a  separate  profession,  and  an  engrossing  profession, 
which  a  man  occupied  with  his  clients  cannot  follow.  Thus 
among  the  leading  lawyers,  the  men  who  win  wealth  and  honour 
by  advocacy,  comparatively  few  enter  a  legislative  body  or 
become  candidates  for  public  office.  Their  influence  is  still 
great  when  any  question  arises  on  which  the  profession,  or  the 
more  respectable  part  of  it,  stands  together.  Many  bad  meas¬ 
ures  have  been  defeated  in  State  legislatures  by  the  action  of  the 
Bar,  many  bad  judicial  appointments  averted.  Their  influence 
strengthens  the  respect  of  the  people  for  the  Constitution,  and 
is  felt  by  the  judges  when  they  are  called  to  deal  with  consti¬ 
tutional  questions.  But  taking  a  general  survey  of  the  facts  of 
to-day,  as  compared  with  those  of  the  middle  of  last  century, 
it  is  clear  that  the  Bar  counts  for  less  as  a  guiding  and  restrain¬ 
ing  power,  tempering  the  crudity  or  haste  of  democracy  by  its 
attachment  to  rule  and  precedent,  than  it  did  then. 

A  similar  decline,  due  partly  to  this  diminished  political 
authority,  may  be  observed  in  its  social  position.  In  a  country 
where  there  is  no  titled  class,  no  landed  class,  no  military  class, 
the  chief  distinction  which  popular  sentiment  can  lay  hold 
of  as  raising  one  set  of  persons  above  another  is  the  character 
2  x 


674 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


of  their  occupation,  the  degree  of  culture  it  implies,  the  extent 
to  which  it  gives  them  an  honourable  prominence.  Such 
distinctions  carried  great  weight  in  the  early  days  of  the  Republic, 
when  society  was  smaller  and  simpler  than  it  has  now  become. 
But  of  late  years  not  only  has  the  practice  of  public  speaking 
ceased  to  be,  as  it  once  was,  almost  their  monopoly,  not  only 
has  the  direction  of  politics  slipped  in  great  measure  from  their 
hands,  but  the  growth  of  huge  mercantile  fortunes  and  of  a  finan¬ 
cial  class  has,  as  in  France  and  England,  lowered  the  relative 
importance  and  dignity  of  the  Bar.  An  individual  merchant 
holds  perhaps  no  better  place  compared  with  an  average  individ¬ 
ual  lawyer  than  he  did  forty  years  ago ;  but  the  millionaire  is  a 
much  more  frequent  and  potent  personage  than  he  was  then, 
and  outshines  everybody  in  the  country.  Now  and  then  a 
brilliant  orator  or  writer  achieves  fame  of  a  different  and  higher 
kind ;  but  in  the  main  it  is  the  glory  of  successful  commerce 
which  in  America  and  Europe  now  draws  wondering  eyes. 
Wealth,  it  is  true,  is  by  no  means  out  of  the  reach  of  the  leading 
lawyers :  yet  still  not  such  wealth  as  may  be  and  constantly  is 
amassed  by  contractors,  railwaymen,  financial  speculators, 
hotel  proprietors,  newspaper  owners,  and  retail  storekeepers. 
The  incomes  of  the  first  counsel  in  cities  like  New  York  are 
probably  as  large  as  those  of  the  great  English  leaders.  I  have 
heard  firms  mentioned  as  dividing  sums  of  $300,000  a  year,  and 
individual  lawyers  as  earning  $200,000  or  more.  It  is,  however, 
only  in  two  or  three  of  the  greatest  cities  that  such  incomes 
can  be  made,  and  possibly  not  more  than  thirty  counsel  in  the 
whole  country  make  by  their  profession  more  than  $100,000 
a  year.  Next  after  wealth,  education  may  be  taken  to  be  the 
element  or  quality  on  which  social  standing  in  a  purely  demo¬ 
cratic  country  depends.  In  this  respect  the  Bar  ranks  high.  Most 
lawyers  have  had  a  college  training,  and  are,  by  the  necessity 
of  their  employment,  persons  of  some  mental  cultivation ;  in 
the  older  towns  they,  with  the  leading  clergy,  form  the  intel¬ 
lectual  elite  of  the  place,  and  maintain  worthily  the  literary  tra¬ 
ditions  of  the  Roman,  French,  English,  and  Scottish  Bars. 
But  education  is  so  much  more  diffused  than  formerly,  and  cheap 
literature  so  much  more  abundant,  that  they  do  not  stand  so 
high  above  the  multitude  as  they  once  did.  It  may,  however, 
still  be  said  that  the  law  is  the  profession  which  an  active  youth 
of  intellectual  tastes  naturally  takes  to,  that  a  large  proportion 


CHAP.  CIV 


THE  BAR 


675 


of  the  highest  talent  of  the  country  may  be  found  in  its  ranks, 
and  that  almost  all  the  first  statesmen  of  the  present  and  the  last 
generation  have  belonged  to  it,  though  many  soon  resigned  its 
practice.  It  is  also  one  of  the  links  which  best  serves  to  bind  the 
United  States  to  England.  The  interest  of  the  higher  class  of 
American  lawyers  in  the  English  law,  Bar,  and  judges,  is  wonder¬ 
fully  fresh  and  keen.  An  English  barrister,  if  properly  authen¬ 
ticated,  is  welcomed  as  a  brother  of  the  art,  and  finds  the  law 
reports  of  his  own  country  as  sedulously  read  and  as  acutely 
criticised  as  he  would  in  the  Temple.1 

I  have  left  to  the  last  the  question  which  a  stranger  finds  it 
most  difficult  to  answer.  The  legal  profession  has  in  every 
country,  apart  from  its  relation  to  politics,  very  important  func¬ 
tions  to  discharge  in  connection  with  the  administration  of 
justice.  Its  members  are  the  confidential  advisers  of  private 
persons,  and  the  depositaries  of  their  secrets.  They  have  it  in 
their  power  to  promote  or  to  restrain  vexatious  litigation,  to 
become  accomplices  in  chicane,  or  to  check  the  abuse  of  legal 
rights  in  cases  where  morality  may  require  men  to  abstain  from 
exacting  all  that  the  letter  of  the  law  allows.  They  can  exercise 
a  powerful  influence  upon  the  magistracy  by  shaming  an  unjust 
judge,  or  by  misusing  the  ascendency  which  they  may  happen 
to  possess  over  a  weak  judge,  or  a  judge  who  has  something 
to  hope  for  from  them.  Eoes  the  profession  in  the  United  States 
rise  to  the  height  of  these  functions,  and  in  maintaining  its  own 
tone,  help  to  maintain  the  tone  of  the  community,  especially 
of  the  mercantile  community,  which,  under  the  pressure  of  com¬ 
petition,  seldom  observes  a  higher  moral  standard  than  that 
which  the  law  exacts  ?  So  far  as  my  limited  opportunities  for 
observation  enable  me  to  answer  this  question,  I  should  answer 
it  by  saying  that  the  profession,  taken  as  a  whole,  seems  to  have 
stood  on  a  level  with  the  profession,  also  taken  as  a  whole,  in 
England.  But  I  am  bound  to  add  that  some  judicious  Ameri¬ 
can  observers  hold  that  since  the  Civil  War  there  has  been  a 
certain  decadence  in  the  Bar  of  the  greater  cities.  Ihey  say 
that  the  growth  of  enormously  rich  and  powerful  corporations, 


1  American  lawyers  remark  that  the  English  Law  Reports  have  become  less 
useful  since  the  number  of  decisions  upon  the  construction  of  statutes  has  so 
greatly  increased.  They  complain  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  keeping  abreast 
of  the  vast  multitude  of  cases  reported  in  their  own  country,  from  the  courts 
of  all  the  States  as  well  as  Federal  courts. 


676 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


willing  to  pay  vast  sums  for  questionable  services,  has  seduced 
the  virtue  of  some  counsel  whose  eminence  makes  their  ex¬ 
ample  important,  and  that  in  a  few  States  the  degradation 
of  the  Bench  has  led  to  secret  understandings  between  judges 
and  counsel  for  the  perversion  of  justice.  Strenuous  efforts 
have  of  late  been  made  by  the  Bar  Associations  to  establish 
codes  of  legal  ethics  and  etiquette,  and  much  good  is  expected 
from  their  action. 

As  the  question  of  fusing  the  two  branches  of  the  legal  pro¬ 
fession  into  one  body  has  been  of  late  much  canvassed  in  Eng¬ 
land,  a  few  words  may  be  expected  as  to  the  light  which  Ameri¬ 
can  experience  throws  upon  it. 

There  are  two  sets  of  persons  in  England  who  complain  of 
the  present  arrangements  —  a  section  of  the  solicitors,  who  are 
debarred  from  the  exercise  of  advocacy,  and  therefore  from  the 
great  prizes  of  the  profession;  and  a  section  of  the  junior  bar, 
whose  members,  depending  entirely  on  the  patronage  of  the 
solicitors,  find  themselves,  if  they  happen  to  have  no  private 
connections  among  that  branch  of  the  profession,  unable  to  get 
employment,  since  a  code  of  etiquette  forbids  them  to  under¬ 
take  certain  sorts  of  work,  or  to  do  work  except  on  a  fixed  scale 
of  fees,  or  to  take  court  work  directly  from  a  client,  or  to  form 
partnerships  with  other  counsel.  Attempts  have  also  been  made 
to  enlist  the  general  public  in  favour  of  a  change,  by  the  argu¬ 
ment  that  law  would  be  cheapened  if  the  attorney  were  allowed 
to  argue  and  carry  through  the  courts  a  cause  which  he  has 
prepared  for  trial. 

There  are  three  points  of  view  from  which  the  merits  or  de¬ 
merits  of  a  change  may  be  regarded.  These  are  the  interests 
respectively  of  the  profession,  of  the  client,  and  of  the  community 
at  large. 

As  far  as  the  advantage  of  the  individual  members  of  the 
profession  is  concerned,  the  example  of  the  United  States 
seems  to  show  that  the  balance  of  advantage  is  in  favour  of 
uniting  barristers  and  attorneys  in  one  body.  The  attorney 
would  have  a  wider  field,  greater  opportunities  of  distinguish¬ 
ing  himself,  and  the  legitimate  satisfaction  of  seeing  his  cause 
through  all  its  stages.  The  junior  barrister  would  find  it  easier 
to  get  on,  even  as  an  advocate,  and,  if  he  discovered  that  advo¬ 
cacy  was  not  his  line,  could  subside  into  the  perhaps  not  less 
profitable  function  of  a  solicitor.  The  senior  barrister  or  leader 


CHAP.  CIV 


THE  BAR 


677 


might,  however,  suffer,  for  his  attention  would  be  more  distracted 
by  calls  of  different  kinds. 

The  gain  to  the  client  is  still  clearer ;  and  even  those  (very 
few)  American  counsel  who  say  that  for  their  own  sake  they 
would  prefer  the  English  plan,  admit  that  the  litigant  is  more 
expeditiously  and  effectively  served  where  he  has  but  one 
person  to  look  to  and  deal  with  throughout.  It  does  not  suit 
him,  say  the  Americans,  to  be  lathered  in  one  shop  and  shaved 
in  another ;  he  likes  to  go  to  his  lawyer,  tell  him  the  facts, 
get  an  off-hand  opinion,  if  the  case  be  a  simple  one  (as  it  is  nine 
times  out  of  ten),  and  issue  his  writ  with  some  confidence: 
whereas  under  the  English  system  he  might  either  have  to  wait 
till  a  regular  case  for  the  opinion  of  counsel  was  drawn,  sent  to  a 
barrister,  and  returned,  written  on,  after  some  days,  or  else  take 
the  risk  of  bringing  an  action  which  turned  out  to  be  ill-founded. 
It  may  also  be  believed  that  a  case  is,  on  the  whole,  better  dealt 
with  when  it  is  kept  in  one  office  from  first  to  last,  and  managed 
by  one  person,  or  by  partners  who  are  in  constant  communication. 
Mistakes  and  oversights  are  less  likely  to  occur,  since  the  advo¬ 
cate  knows  the  facts  better,  and  has  almost  invariably  seen  and 
questioned  the  witnesses  before  he  comes  into  court.  It  may 
indeed  be  said  that  an  advocate  does  his  work  with  more  ease  of 
conscience,  and  perhaps  more  sang-froid ,  when  he  knows  nothing 
but  his  instructions.  But  American  practitioners  are  all  clear 
that  they  are  able  to  serve  their  clients  better  than  they  could  if 
the  responsibility  were  divided  between  the  man  who  prepares 
the  case  and  the  man  who  argues  or  addresses  the  jury.  Indeed, 
I  have  often  heard  them  say  that  they  could  not  understand 
how  English  counsel,  who  rarely  see  the  witnesses  beforehand, 
were  able  to  conduct  witness  causes  satisfactorily. 

The  English  plan  is  more  conducive  to  the  despatch  of  business, 
because  in  England  the  few  leading  counsel  know  the  judges,  and 
the  judges  know  them,  whereas  in  America,  the  absence  of  a  small 
class  to  whom  advocacy  is  restricted  brings  into  court  a  number 
proportionately  much  larger  of  lawyers  handling  causes.  Where 
the  counsel  and  the  judges  are  in  constant  contact,  cases  are 
more  promptly  dealt  with.  The  counsel  knows  when  he  has 
said  enough  to  the  judge.  The  judge  knows  how  far  he  can 
trust  the  counsel. 

If  we  ask  whether  the  community  has  gained  by  the  disappear¬ 
ance  of  a  distinction  between  the  small  body  of  advocates  and 


678 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


the  large  body  of  attorneys,  we  may  find  grounds  for  doubting 
whether,  if  it  has,  Society  is  interested  in  the  maintenance 
of  a  high  tone  among  those  who  can  powerfully  influence 
the  administration  of  justice  and  the  standard  of  commercial 
morality.  It  is  easier  to  maintain  such  a  tone  in  a  small  body, 
which  can  be  kept  under  a  comparatively  strict  control  and  cul¬ 
tivate  a  warm  professional  feeling,  than  in  a  large  body,  many  of 
whose -members  are  practically  just  as  much  men  of  business  as 
lawyers.  And  it  may  well  be  thought  that  the  conscience  or 
honour  of  a  member  of  either  branch  of  the  profession  is  exposed 
to  less  strain  where  the  two  branches  are  kept  distinct.  The 
counsel  is  under  less  temptation  to  win  his  cause  by  doubtful 
means,  since  he  is  removed  from  the  client  by  the  interposition  of 
the  attorney,  and  therefore  less  personally  identified  with  the 
client’s  success.  He  probably  has  not  that  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  client’s  affairs  which  he  must  have  if  he  had  prepared  the 
whole  case,  and  is  therefore  less  likely  to  be  drawn  into  speculat¬ 
ing,  to  take  an  obvious  instance,  in  the  shares  of  a  client  com¬ 
pany,  or  otherwise  playing  a  double  and  disloyal  game.  Simi¬ 
larly  it  may  be  thought  that  the  attorney  also  is  less  tempted 
than  if  he  appeared  himself  in  court,  and  were  not  obliged,  in 
carrying  out  the  schemes  of  a  fraudulent  client,  to  call  in  the 
aid  of  another  practitioner,  amenable  to  a  strict  professional 
discipline.  Where  the  advocate  is  also  the  attorney,  he  may  be 
more  apt,  when  he  sees  the  witnesses,  to  lead  them,  perhaps 
unconsciously,  to  stretch  their  recollection ;  and  it  is  harder  to 
check  the  practice  of  paying  for  legal  services  by  a  share  of  the 
proceeds  of  the  action. 

Looking  at  the  question  as  a  whole,  I  doubt  whether  a  study 
of  the  American  arrangements  is  calculated  to  commend  them 
for  imitation,  or  to  induce  England  to  allow  her  historic  bar 
to  be  swallowed  up  and  vanish  in  the  more  numerous  branch  of 
the  profession.  Those  arrangements,  however,  suggest  some  use¬ 
ful  minor  changes  in  the  present  English  rules.  The  passage 
from  each  branch  to  the  other  might  be  made  easier ;  barristers 
might  be  permitted  to  form  open  (as  they  now  sometimes  do 
covert)  partnerships  among  themselves ;  students  of  both 
branches  might  be  educated  and  examined  together  in  the  pro¬ 
fessional  law  schools  as  they  now  are,  with  admittedly  good 
results,  in  the  universities. 


CHAPTER  CV 


THE  BENCH 

So  much  has  already  been  said  regarding  the  constitution 
and  jurisdiction  of  the  various  courts,  Federal  and  State,  that 
what  remains  to  be  stated  regarding  the  judicial  Bench  need 
refer  only  to  its  personal  and  social  side.  What  is  the  social 
standing  of  the  judges,  the  average  standard  of  their  learning 
and  capacity,  their  integrity  and  fidelity  in  the  discharge  of 
functions  whose  gravity  seems  to  increase  with  the  growth  of 
wealth  and  the  complexity  of  society  ? 

The  English  reader  who  wishes  to  understand  the  American 
judiciary  ought  to  begin  by  realizing  the  fact  that  his  concep¬ 
tion  of  a  judge  is  purely  English,  not  applicable  to  any  other 
country.  For  some  centuries  Englishmen  have  associated  the 
ideas  of  power,  dignity,  and  intellectual  eminence  with  the 
judicial  office ;  while  a  tradition,  shorter  no  doubt,  but  still  of 
respectable  length,  has  made  them  regard  it  as  incorruptible. 
The  judges  are  among  the  greatest  permanent  officials  of  the 
State.  They  have  earned  their  place  by  success,  more  or  less 
brilliant,  but  generally  considerable,  in  the  struggles  of  the 
Bar ;  they  are  removable  by  the  Crown  only  upon  an  address 
of  both  Houses  of  Parliament;  they  enjoy  large  incomes  and 
great  social  respect.  Some  of  them  sit  in  the  House  of  Lords; 
some  are  members  of  the  Privy  Council.  When  they  traverse 
the  country  on  their  circuits,  they  are  received  by  the  High 
Sheriff  of  each  county  with  the  ceremonious  pomp  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Ages,  and  followed  hither  and  thither  by  admiring  crowds. 
The  criticisms  of  an  outspoken  press  rarely  assail  their  ability, 
hardly  ever  their  fairness.  Even  the  Bar,  which  watches 
them  daily,  which  knows  all  their  ins  and  outs  (to  use  an 
American  phrase)  both  before  and  after  their  elevation,  treats 
them  with  more  respect  than  is  commonly  shown  by  the 
clergy  to  the  bishops.  Thus  the  English  form  their  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  judge  as  a  personage  necessarily  and  naturally 

679 


680 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


dignified  and  upright ;  and,  having  formed  it,  they  carry  it 
abroad  with  them  like  their  notions  of  land  tenure  and  other 
insular  conceptions,  and  are  astonished  when  they  find  that  it 
does  not  hold  in  other  countries.  It  is  a  fine  and  fruitful  concep¬ 
tion,  and  one  which  one  might  desire  to  see  accepted  every¬ 
where,  though  it  has  been  secured  at  the  cost  of  compelling 
litigants  to  carry  to  London  much  business  which  in  other  coun¬ 
tries  would  have  been  dealt  with  in  local  courts.  But  it  is 
peculiar  to  Britain;  the  British  judge  is  as  abnormal  as  the 
British  Constitution,  and  owes  his  character  to  a  not  less  curious 
and  complex  combination  of  conditions.  In  most  parts  of 
the  Continent  the  judge,  even  of  the  superior  courts,  does  not 
hold  a  very  high  social  position.  He  is  not  chosen  from  the 
ranks  of  the  Bar,  and  has  not  that  community  of  feeling  with 
it  which  England  has  found  so  valuable.  Its  leaders  outshine 
him  in  France  ;  the  famous  professors  of  law  often  exert  a  greater 
authority  in  Germany.  His  independence,  and  even  his  purity, 
are  not  always  above  suspicion.  In  no  part  of  Europe  do  his 
wishes  and  opinions  carry  the  same  weight,  or  does  he  command 
the  same  deference  as  in  England.  The  English  ought  not, 
therefore,  to  be  surprised  at  finding  him  in  America  different 
from  what  they  expect,  for  it  is  not  so  much  his  inferiority  there 
that  is  exceptional  as  his  excellence  in  England. 

In  America,  the  nine  Federal  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
retain  much  of  the  dignity  which  surrounds  the  English  Su¬ 
preme  Court  of  Judicature.  They  are  almost  the  only  officials 
who  are  appointed  for  life,  and  their  functions  are  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  the  smooth  working  of  the  Constitution.  Ac¬ 
cordingly  great  public  interest  is  felt  in  the  choice  of  a  judge, 
and  the  post  is  an  object  of  ambition.  Though  now  and  then 
an  eminent  lawyer  declines  it  because  he  is  already  making  by 
practice  ten  times  as  much  as  the  salary  it  carries,  still  there  has 
been  no  difficulty  in  finding  first-rate  men  to  fill  the  court. 
The  minor  Federal  judges  are  usually  persons  of  ability  and 
experience.  They  are  inadequately  paid,  but  the  life  tenure 
makes  the  place  desired  and  it  is  usually  respected. 

Of  the  State  judges  it  is  hard  to  speak  generally,  because 
there  are  great  differences  between  State  and  State.  In  six  or 
seven  commonwealths,  of  which  Massachusetts  is  the  best  ex¬ 
ample  among  Eastern  and  Michigan  among  Western  States,  they 
stand  high  —  that  is  to  say,  the  post  attracts  a  prosperous  bar- 


CHAP.  CV 


THE  BENCH 


681 


rister  though  he  will  lose  in  income,  or  a  law  professor  though 
he  must  sacrifice  his  leisure.  But  in  some  States  it  is  otherwise. 
A  place  on  the  Bench  of  the  superior  courts  carries  little  honour, 
and  commands  but  slight  social  consideration.  It  is  lower  than 
that  of  an  English  county  court  judge  or  stipendiary  magistrate, 
or  of  a  Scotch  sheriff-substitute.  It  raises  no  presumption  that 
its  holder  is  able  or  cultivated  or  trusted  by  his  fellowr-citizens. 
He  may  be  all  of  these,  but  if  so,  it  is  in  respect  of  his  personal 
merits  that  he  will  be  valued,  not  for  his  official  position.  Often 
he  stands  below  the  leading  members  of  the  State  or  city  bar 
in  all  these  points  and  does  not  move  in  the  best  society.1 
Hence  a  leading  counsel  seldom  accepts  the  post,  and  men  often 
resign  a  judgeship,  or  when  their  term  of  office  expires  do  not 
seek  re-election,  but  return  to  practice  at  the  bar.2  Hence,  too, 
a  judge  is  not  expected  to  set  an  example  of  conformity  to  the 
conventional  standards  of  decorum.  No  one  is  surprised  to  see 
him  in  low  company,  or  to  hear,  in  the  ruder  parts  of  the  South 
and  West,  that  he  took  part  in  a  shooting  affray.  He  is  as  wel¬ 
come  to  be  “a  child  of  nature  and  of  freedom”  as  any  private 
citizen. 

The  European  reader  may  think  that  these  facts  not  only 
betoken  but  tend  to  perpetuate  a  low  standard  of  learning  and 
capacity  among  the  State  judges,  and  from  this  low  standard 
he  will  go  on  to  conclude  that  justice  must  be  badly  administered, 
and  will  ask  with  surprise  why  an  intelligent  and  practical 
people  allow  this  very  important  part  of  their  public  wrork  to  be 
ill  discharged.  I  shrink  from  making  positive  statements  on 
so  large  a  matter  as  the  administration  of  justice  over  a  vast 
country  whose  States  differ  in  many  respects.  But  so  far  as  I 
could  ascertain,  civil  justice  is  better  administered  than  might 
be  expected  from  the  character  which  the  Bench  bears  in  most 
of  the  States.  In  the  Federal  courts  and  in  the  superior  courts 
of  the  six  or  seven  States  just  mentioned  it  is  equal  to  the  justice 
dispensed  in  the  superior  courts  of  England,  France,  and  Ger- 

1  Years  ago  a  prominent  New  Yorker  said  to  me,  speaking  of  one  of  the  chief 
judges  of  the  city,  “I  don’t  think  him  such  a  bad  fellow;  he  has  always  been 
very  friendly  to  me,  and  would  give  me  a  midnight  injunction  or  do  anything 
else  for  me  at  a  moment’s  notice.  And  he’s  not  an  ill-natured  man.  But,  of 
course,  he’s  the  last  person  I  should  dream  of  asking  to  my  house.” 

2  Most  States  are  full  of  ex-judges  practising  at  the  Bar,  the  title  being  con¬ 
tinued  as  a  matter  of  courtesy  to  the  person  who  has  formerly  enjoyed  it,  and 
sometimes  even  extended  to  an  elderly  counsel  who  has  never  sat  on  the  Bench. 
For  social  purposes,  once  a  judge,  always  a  judge. 


682 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


many.  In  the  remainder  it  is  inferior,  that  is  to  say,  civil  trials, 
whether  the  issue  be  of  law  or  of  fact,  more  frequently  give  an 
unsatisfactory  result;  the  opinions  delivered  by  the  judges  are 
wanting  in  scientific  accuracy,  and  the  law  becomes  loose  and 
uncertain.1  This  inferiority  is  more  or  less  marked  according  to 
the  general  tone  of  the  State.  That  it  is  everywhere  less  marked 
than  a  priori  reasonings  would  have  suggested,  may  be  ascribed 
partly  to  the  way  shrewd  juries  have  of  rendering  substantially 
just  verdicts,  partly  to  the  ability  of  the  Bar,  whose  arguments 
make  up  for  a  judge’s  want  of  learning,  by  giving  him  the  means 
of  reaching  a  sound  decision,  partly  to  that  native  acuteness  of 
Americans  which  enables  them  to  handle  any  sort  of  practical 
work,  roughly  perhaps,  but  well  enough  for  the  absolute  needs 
of  the  case.  The  injury  to  the  quality  of  State  law  is  mitigated 
by  the  fact  that  abundance  of  good  law  is  produced  by  the  Federal 
courts,  by  the  highest  courts  of  the  best  States,  and  by  the 
judges  of  England,  whose  reported  decisions  are  frequently  re¬ 
ferred  to.  Commercial  men  complain  less  of  the  inefficiency 
than  of  the  delays  of  State  tribunals,  while  the  leading  lawyers, 
whose  interest  in  the  scientific  character  of  law  makes  them 
severe  critics  of  current  legislation,  and  opponents  of  these 
schemes  for  codifying  the  common  law  which  have  been  dangled 
before  the  multitude  in  several  States,  blame  the  legislatures 
more  than  the  judges  for  such  faults  as  they  discover. 

Whatever  the  defects  of  civil  justice,  those  of  criminal  justice 
are  much  more  serious.  It  is  accused  of  being  slow,  overtech- 
nical,  uncertain,  and  unduly  lenient  both  to  crimes  of  violence 
and  to  commercial  frauds.  Yet  the  blame  is  laid  less  on  the 
judges  than  on  the  weakness  of  juries,2  and  on  the  facilities  for 
escape  which  a  cumbrous  and  highly  technical  procedure,  allow¬ 
ing  numerous  opportunities  for  interposing  delays  and  raising 
points  of  law,  provides  for  prisoners.3  Indulgence  to  prisoners 


1  State  Constitutions  sometimes  require  the  judges  of  the  higher  courts  to 
give  their  decisions  in  writing  and  this  seems  to  be  the  practice  everywhere. 

2  There  are  places  where  the  purity  of  juries  is  not  above  suspicion.  New 
York  has  recently  created  a  new  office,  that  of  Warden  of  the  Grand  Jury. 
As  a  distinguished  lawyer  observed  in  mentioning  this,  Quis  custodiet  ipsum 
custodem  ? 

3  Even  judges  suffer  from  this  misplaced  leniency.  Here  is  a  case  which 
happened  in  Kentucky.  A  decree  of  foreclosure  was  pronounced  by  a  respected 
judge  against  a  defendant  of  good  local  family  connections.  As  the  judge  was 
walking  from  the  court  to  the  railway  station  the  same  afternoon  the  defendant 
shot  him  dead.  It  wras  hard  to  avoid  arresting  and  trying  a  man  guilty  of  so 


CHAP.  CV 


THE  BENCH 


683 


is  now  as  marked  as  harshness  to  them  was  in  England  before 
the  days  of  Bentham  and  Romilly.  Legislation  is  chiefly  to 
blame  for  this  procedure,  though  stronger  men  on  the  Bench 
would  more  often  overrule  trivial  points  of  law  and  expedite 
convictions.1 

The  European  traveller  must  own  his  surprise  that  stronger 
and  more  persistent  efforts  have  not  been  made  long  ago  to 
secure  the  needed  improvements  in  the  administration  of  jus¬ 
tice  in  State  Courts. 

The  causes  which  have  lowered  the  quality  of  the  State 
judges  have  been  referred  to  in  previous  chapters.  Shortly 
stated  they  are :  the  smallness  of  the  salaries  paid,  the  limited 
tenure  of  office,  often  for  seven  years  only,  and  the  method  of 
appointment,  nominally  by  popular  election,  practically  by  the 
agency  of  party  wirepullers.  The  first  two  causes  have  pre¬ 
vented,  the  ablest  lawyers,  the  last  often  prevents  the  most  hon¬ 
ourable  men,  from  seeking  the  post.  All  are  the  result  of  demo¬ 
cratic  theory,  of  the  belief  in  equality  and  popular  sovereignty 
pushed  to  extremes.  And  this  theory  has  aggravated  the  mis¬ 
chief  in  withdrawing  from  the  judge,  when  it  has  appointed  him, 
those  external  badges  of  dignity  which,  childish  as  they  may 
appear  to  the  philosopher,  have  power  over  the  imagination 
of  the  mass  of  mankind,  and  are  not  without  a  useful  reflex 
influence  on  the  person  whom  they  surround,  raising  his  sense 
of  his  position,  and  reminding  him  of  its  responsibilities.  No 
American  magistrate,  except  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
when  sitting  at  Washington,  and  those  of  th^  Intermediate 
Federal  Courts  of  Appeal,  the  judges  of  the  New  York  Court 
of  Appeals  at  Albany,  and  those  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Penn- 


flagrant  an  offence,  so  arrested  he  was,  tried,  and  convicted  ;  but  on  an  alle¬ 
gation  of  lunacy  being  put  forward,  the  Court  of  Appeals  ordered  a  new  trial ; 
he  was  acquitted  on  the  ground  of  insanity,  under  instructions  based  on  the 
opinion  of  an  appellate  court,  and  presently  allowed  to  escape  into  Ohio  from 
the  asylum  to  which  he  had  been  consigned.  There  was,  I  was  told,  a  good  deal 
of  sympathy  for  him. 

1  The  message  of  President  Taft  of  December,  1909,  in  referring  to  “the  de¬ 
plorable  delays  in  the  administration  of  civil  and  criminal  law’’  proceeded  as 
follows:  “A  change  in  judicial  procedure,  with  a  view  to  reducing  its  expense 
to  private  litigants  in  civil  cases  and  facilitating  the  despatch  of  business  and 
final  decision  in  both  civil  and  criminal  cases,  constitutes  the  greatest  need  in 
our  American  institutions.  Much  of  the  lawless  violence  and  cruelty  exhibited 
in  lynchings  is  directly  due  to  the  uncertainties  and  injustice  growing  out  of  the 
delays  in  trials,  judgments  and  the  execution  thereof  by  our  courts.”  See  also 
a  note  to  Chapter  C. 


684 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


sylvania,  wears  any  robe  of  office,  or  other  distinctive  dress, 
or  has  any  attendant  to  escort  him,1  or  is  in  any  respect  treated 
differently  from  an  ordinary  citizen.  Popular  sentiment  toler¬ 
ates  nothing  that  seems  to  elevate  a  man  above  his  fellows,  even 
when  his  dignity  is  really  the  dignity  of  the  people  who  have  put 
him  where  he  is.  I  remember  in  New  York  under  the  reign  of 
Boss  Tweed  to  have  been  taken  into  one  of  the  courts.  An  ill- 
omened-looking  man,  flashily  dressed,  and  rude  in  demeanour, 
was  sitting  behind  a  table,  two  men  in  front  were  addressing  him, 
the  rest  of  the  room  was  given  up  to  disorder.  Had  one  not 
been  told  that  he  was  a  judge  of  the  highest  court  of  the  city, 
one  might  have  taken  him  for  a  criminal.  His  jurisdiction  was 
unlimited  in  amount,  and  though  an  appeal  lay  from  him  to  the 
Court  of  Appeals  of  the  State,  his  power  of  issuing  injunctions 
put  all  the  property  in  the  district  at  his  mercy.  This  was  what 
democratic  theory  had  brought  New  York  to.  For  the  change 
which  that  State  made  in  1846  was  a  perfectly  wanton  change. 
No  practical  object  was  to  be  gained  by  it.  There  had  been  an 
excellent  Bench,  adorned,  as  it  happened,  by  one  of  the  greatest 
judges  of  modern  times,  the  illustrious  Chancellor  Kent.  But 
the  Convention  of  1846  thought  that  the  power  of  the  people  was 
insufficiently  recognized  while  judges  were  named  by  the  Gov¬ 
ernor  and  Council,  and  held  office  for  life,  so  theory  was  obeyed. 
The  Convention  in  its  circular  address  announced  in  proposing 
the  election  of  judges  for  five  years  by  the  voters  of  the  dis¬ 
trict,  that  “the  happiness  of  the  people  of  this  State  will  hence¬ 
forth,  under  God,  be  in  their  own  hands/7  But  the  quest  of  a 
more  perfect  freedom  and  equality  on  which  the  Convention 
started  the  people  gave  them  in  twenty-five  years  Judge  Bar¬ 
nard  instead  of  Chancellor  Kent. 

The  limited  attainments  of  the  Bench  in  many  States,  and 
its  conspicuous  inferiority  to  the  counsel  who  practise  before 
it,  are,  however,  less  serious  evils  than  the  corruption  with 
which  it  is  often  charged.  Nothing  has  done  so  much  to  dis¬ 
credit  American  institutions  in  Europe  as  the  belief  that  the 
fountains  of  justice  are  there  generally  polluted ;  nor  is  there 
any  point  on  which  a  writer  treating  of  the  United  States 
would  more  desire  to  be  able  to  set  forth  incontrovertible  facts. 

1  Save  that  in  the  rural  counties  of  Massachusetts  and  possibly  of  some  other 
New  England  States,  the  sheriff,  as  in  England,  escorts  the  judges  to  and  from 
the  court-house. 


CHAP.  CV 


THE  BENCH 


685 


Unluckily,  this  is  just  what  from  the  nature  of  the  case  cannot 
be  done  as  regards  some  parts  of  the  country.  There  is  no 
doubt  as  to  the  purity  of  most  States,  but  as  to  others  it  is 
extremely  hard  to  test  the  rumours  that  are  current.  I  give 
such  results  as  careful  inquiries  in  many  districts  have  enabled 
me  to  reach. 

The  higher  Federal  judges  are  above  suspicion.  I  do  not  know 
that  any  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  or  any  Circuit  judge  has 
been  ever  accused  of  corruption  ;  and  though  the  appointments 
made  to  District  judgeships  are  sometimes  freely  criticised,  the 
allegations  made  against  these  persons  have  not  been,  except  in 
one  instance,  seriously  pressed. 

The  State  judges  have  been  and  are  deemed  honest  and  im¬ 
partial  in  most  parts  of  the  Union.  In  a  few  States,  such  as 
Massachusetts,  Vermont,  Pennsylvania,  and  Michigan,  the 
Bench  has  within  the  last  or  the  present  generation  included 
men  who  would  do  credit  to  any  court  in  any  country.  Even 
in  other  States  an  eminent  man  is  occasionally  found,  as  in 
England  there  are  some  County  Court  judges  who  are  sounder 
lawyers  and  abler  men  than  some  of  the  persons  whom  po¬ 
litical  favour  has  occasionally  raised  to  the  Bench  of  the  High 
Court. 

In  some  States,  perhaps  six  or  seven  in  all,  suspicions  have 
at  one  time  or  another  since  the  Civil  War  attached  to  one  or 
more  of  the  superior  judges  and  in  a  few  other  States  they 
are  deemed  to  be,  although  personally  honest,  subservient  to 
powerful  local  influences.  Sometimes  these  suspicions  may  have 
been  ill-founded.1  But  though  I  know  of  very  few  cases  in  which 
they  have  been  substantiated,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
some  improprieties  have  been  committed.  The  judge  may  not 


1  An  instance  told  me  in  the  West  shows  how  suspicions  may  arise.  A  person 
living  in  the  capital  of  the  State  used  his  intimacy  with  the  superior  judges, 
most  of  whom  were  in  the  habit  of  occasionally  dining  with  him,  to  lead  liti¬ 
gants  to  believe  that  his  influence  with  the  Bench  would  procure  for  them 
favourable  decisions.  Considerable  sums  were  accordingly  given  him  to  secure 
his  good  word.  When  the  litigant  obtained  the  decision  he  desired,  the  money 
given  was  retained.  When  the  case  went  against  him,  the  confidant  of  the 
Bench  was  delicately  scrupulous  in  handing  it  back,  saying  that  as  his  influ¬ 
ence  had  failed  to  prevail,  he  could  not  possibly  think  of  keeping  the  money. 
Everything  was  done  in  the  most  secret  and  confidential  way,  and  it  was  not 
till  after  the  death  of  this  judicious  dinner-giver  that  it  was  discovered  that 
he  had  never  spoken  to  the  judges  about  law-suits  at  all,  and  that  they 
had  lain  under  a  groundless  suspicion  of  sharing  the  gains  their  friend  had 
made. 


686 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


have  taken  a  bribe,  but  he  has  perverted  justice  at  the  instance 
of  some  person  or  persons  who  either  gave  him  a  consideration 
or  exercised  an  undue  influence  over  him.  It  would  not  follow 
that  in  such  instances  the  whole  Bench  was  tainted ;  indeed  I 
have  never  heard  of  a  State  in  which  more  than  two  or  three 
of  the  superior  judges  were  the  objects  of  distrust  at  the  same 
time.1 

In  one  State,  viz.  New  York,  in  1869-71,  there  were  flagrant 
scandals  which  led  to  the  disappearance  of  three  justices  of  the 
superior  courts  who  had  unquestionably  both  sold  and  denied 
justice.  The  Tweed  Ring,  when  masters  of  New  York  City 
and  engaged  in  plundering  its  treasury,  found  it  convenient  to 
have  in  the  seat  of  justice  accomplices  who  might  check  inquiry 
into  their  misdeeds.  This  the  system  of  popular  elections  for 
very  short  terms  enabled  them  to  do ;  and  men  where  accord¬ 
ingly  placed  on  the  Bench  whom  one  might  rather  have  expected 
to  see  in  the  dock  —  bar-room  loafers,  broken-down  Tombs  2  at¬ 
torneys,  needy  adventurers  whose  want  of  character  made  them 
absolutely  dependent  on  their  patrons.  Being  elected  for  eight 
years  only,  these  fellows  were  obliged  to  purchase  re-election 
by  constant  subservience  to  the  party  managers.  They  did 
not  regard  social  censure,  for  they  were  already  excluded  from 
decent  society;  impeachment  had  no  terrors  for  them,  since 
the  State  legislature,  as  well  as  the  executive  machinery  of  the 
city,  was  in  the  hands  of  their  masters.  It  would  have  been 
vain  to  expect  such  people,  without  fear  of  God  or  man  before 
their  eyes,  to  resist  the  influence  politicians  could  exert  or  the 
temptations  which  capitalists  could  offer. 

To  what  precise  point  of  infamy  they  descended  I  cannot  at¬ 
tempt,  among  so  many  discordant  stories  and  rumours,  to 
determine.  It  is,  however,  beyond  a  doubt  that  they  made 
orders  in  defiance  of  the  plainest  rules  of  practice ;  issued,  in 


1  For  instance,  there  is  a  Western  State  in  which  not  long  ago  there  was 
one,  but  only  one,  of  the  superior  judges  whose  integrity  was  doubted.  So 
little  secret  was  made  of  the  matter,  that  when  a  very  distinguished  English 
lawyer  visited  the  city,  and  was  taken  to  see  the  courts  sitting,  the  newspapers 
announced  the  fact  next  day  as  follows  :  — 

“Lord  X.  in  the  city, 

He  has  seen  Judge  Y.” 

A  statute  of  Arizona  prescribes  a  change  of  venue  where  an  affidavit  is 
made  alleging  that  a  judge  is  biassed. 

2  The  Tombs  is  the  name  of  the  city  prison  of  New  York,  round  which  law¬ 
yers  of  the  lowest  class  hover  in  the  hope  of  picking  up  defences. 


CHAP.  CV 


THE  BENCH 


687 


rum-shops,  injunctions  which  they  had  not  even  read  over; 
appointed  notorious  vagabonds  receivers  of  valuable  property ; 1 
turned  over  important  cases  to  a  friend  of  their  own  stamp, 
and  gave  whatever  decision  he  suggested.  There  were  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Bar  who  could  obtain  from  these  magistrates  what¬ 
ever  order  or  decree  they  chose  to  ask  for.  A  leading  lawyer 
and  man  of  high  character  said  to  me  in  1870,  “When  a  client 

brings  me  a  suit  which  is  before - (naming  a  judge),  I  feel 

myself  bound  to  tell  him  that  though  I  will  take  it  if  he  pleases, 
he  had  much  better  give  it  to  So-and-So  (naming  a  lawyer), 
for  we  all  know  that  he  owns  that  judge.”  A  system  of  client 
robbery  had  sprung  up,  by  which  each  judge  enriched  the  knot 
of  disreputable  lawyers  who  surrounded  him ;  he  referred  cases 
to  them,  granted  them  monstrous  allowances  in  the  name  of 
costs,  gave  them  receiverships  with  a  large  percentage,  and  so 
forth ;  they  in  turn  either  at  the  time  sharing  the  booty  with 
him,  or  undertaking  to  do  the  same  for  him  when  he  should 
have  descended  to  the  Bar  and  they  have  climbed  to  the  Bench. 
Nor  is  there  any  doubt  that  criminals  who  had  any  claim  on 
their  party  often  managed  to  elude  punishment.  The  police, 
it  was  said,  would  not  arrest  such  an  offender  if  they  could 
help  it ;  the  District  Attorney  would  avoid  prosecuting ;  the 
court  officials,  if  public  opinion  had  forced  the  attorney  to  act, 
would  try  to  pack  the  jury;  the  judge,  if  the  jury  seemed 
honest,  would  do  his  best  to  procure  an  acquittal ;  and  if,  in 
spite  of  police,  attorney,  officials,  and  judge,  the  criminal  was 
convicted  and  sentenced,  he  might  still  hope  that  the  influence 
of  his  party  would  procure  a  pardon  from  the  governor  of  the 
State,  or  enable  him  in  some  other  way  to  slip  out  of  the  grasp 
of  justice.  For  governor,  judge,  attorney,  officials,  and  police 
were  all  of  them  party  nominees ;  and  if  a  man  cannot  count  on 
being  helped  by  his  party  at  a  pinch,  who  will  be  faithful  to  his 
party  ? 


1  “In  the  minds  of  certain  New  York  judges,”  said  Mr.  Charles  F.  Adams 
at  that  time,  “the  old-fashioned  distinction  between  a  receiver  of  property  in  a 
Court  of  Equity  and  a  receiver  of  stolen  goods  at  common  law  may  be  said  to 
have  been  lost.”  The  abuses  of  judicial  authority  were  mostly  perpetrated  in 
the  exercise  of  equitable  jurisdiction,  which  is  no  doubt  the  most  delicate  part 
of  a  judge’s  work,  not  only  because  there  is  no  jury,  but  because  the  effect  of 
an  injunction  may  be  irremediable,  whereas  a  decision  on  the  main  question 
may  be  reversed  on  appeal.  In  Scotland  some  of  the  local  courts  have  a  juris¬ 
diction  unlimited  in  amount,  but  no  action  can  be  taken  on  an  interdict  issued 
by  such  a  court  if  an  appeal  is  made  with  due  promptness  to  the  Court  of  Session. 


688 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Although  these  malpractices  diverted  a  good  deal  of  business 
from  the  courts  to  private  arbitration,  the  damage  to  the  regular 
course  of  civil  justice  was  much  less  than  might  have  been 
expected.  The  guilty  judges  were  but  three  in  number,  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  even  they  decided  unjustly 
in  an  ordinary  commercial  suit  between  man  and  man,  or  took 
direct  money  bribes  from  one  of  the  parties  to  such  a  suit.  The 
better  opinion  seems  to  be  that  it  was  only  where  the  influence 
of  a  political  party  or  of  some  particular  persons  came  in  that 
injustice  was  perpetrated,  and  the  truth,  I  believe,  was  spoken 
by  another  judge,  an  honest  and  worthy  man,  who  in  talking 
to  me  at  the  time  of  the  most  unblushing  among  these  offenders, 

said,  “Well,  I  don’t  much  like - ;  he  is  certainly  a  bad  fellow, 

with  very  little  .delicacy  of  mind.  He’ll  give  you  an  injunction 
without  hearing  what  it’s  about.  But  I  don’t  think  he  takes 
money  down  from  everybody.”  In  the  instance  which  made 
most  noise  in  Europe,  that  of  the  Erie  Railroad  suits,  there  was 
no  need  to  give  bribes.  The  gang  of  thieves  who  had  gained 
control  of  the  line  and  were  “watering”  its  stock  were  leagued 
with  the  political  “ringsters”  who  ruled  the  city  and  nominated 
the  j  udges ;  and  nobody  doubts  that  the  monstrous  decisions 
in  these  suits  were  obtained  by  the  influence  of  the  Tammany 
leaders  over  their  judicial  minions. 

The  fall  of  the  Tammany  Ring  was  swiftly  followed  by  the 
impeachment  or  resignation  of  these  judges,  and  no  similar 
scandal  has  since  disgraced  the  Empire  State,  though  it  must 
be  confessed  that  some  of  the  criminal  courts  of  the  city  would 
be  more  worthily  presided  over  if  they  were  “taken  out  of 
politics.”  At  present  New  York  appoints  her  chief  city  judges 
for  fourteen  years  and  pays  them  a  large  salary,  so  she  gets 
fairly  good  if  not  first-rate  men.  Unhappily  the  magnitude  of 
this  one  judicial  scandal,  happening  in  the  greatest  city  of  the 
Union,  and  the  one  which  Europeans  hear  most  of,  has  thrown 
over  the  integrity  of  the  American  Bench  a  shadow  which  does 
great  injustice  to  it  as  a  whole. 

Although  judicial  purity  has  of  late  years  come  to  be  deemed 
an  indispensable  accompaniment  of  high  civilization,  it  is  one 
which  has  been  realized  in  very  few  times  and  countries.  Hesiod 
complained  that  the  kings  who  heard  the  cause  between  himself 
and  his  brother  received  gifts  to  decide  against  him.  Felix 
expected  to  get  money  for  loosing  St.  Paul.  Among  Orientals 


CHAP.  CV 


THE  BENCH 


689 


to  this  day  an  incorruptible  magistrate  is  a  rare  exception.1 
In  England  a  lord  chancellor  was  removed  for  taking  bribes  as 
late  as  the  time  of  George  I.  In  Spain,  Portugal,  Russia,  parts 
of  the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy,  and  even  in  Italy,  the 
judges,  except  perhaps  those  of  the  highest  court,  are  not  as¬ 
sumed  by  general  opinion  to  be  above  suspicion.  Many  are 
trusted  individually,  but  the  office  is  not  deemed  to.  guarantee 
the  honour  of  its  occupant.  Yet  in  all  these  countries  the  judges 
are  appointed  by  the  government,  and  hold  either  for  life  or  at 
its  pleasure,2  whereas  in  America  suspicion  has  arisen  only  in 
States  where  popular  election  prevails ;  that  is  to  say,  where  the 
responsibility  for  a  bad  appointment  cannot  be  fixed  on  any  one 
person.  The  shortcomings  of  the  Bench  in  these  States  do  not 
therefore  indicate  unsoundness  in  the  tone  either  of  the  people 
or  of  the  profession  from  whom  the  offenders  have  been  taken, 
but  are  the  natural  result  of  a  system  which,  so  far  from  taking 
precautions  to  place  worthy  persons  on  the  seat  of  justice,  has 
left  the  choice  of  them  in  four  cases  out  of  five  to  a  secret  com¬ 
bination  of  wirepullers.  When  this  system  has  been  got  rid  of, 
—  and  the  current  seems  to  be  flowing  against  it,  —  the  quality  of 
the  Bench  wall  doubtless  improve. 

1  In  Egypt  I  was  told  in  1888  that  there  might  be  here  and  there  among  the 
native  judges  a  man  who  did  not  take  bribes,  but  probably  not  more  than 
two  or  three  in  the  whole  country.  Things  have,  however,  mended  since  then. 

2  There  is  the  important  difference  between  these  countries  and  England 
that  in  all  of  them  not  only  is  little  or  no  use  made  of  the  civil  jury,  but  public 
opinion  is  less  active  and  justice  more  localized,  i.e.  a  smaller  proportion  of 
important  suits  are  brought  before  the  supreme  courts  of  the  capital.  The 
centralization  of  English  justice,  costly  to  suitors,  has  contributed  to  make 
law  more  pure  as  well  as  more  scientific. 


CHAPTER  CVI 


RAILROADS 

No  one  will  expect  to  find  in  a  book  like  this  a  description 
of  that  prodigy  of  labour,  wealth,  and  skill  —  the  American 
railway  system.  Of  its  management,  its  finance,  its  commercial 
prospects,  I  do  not  attempt  to  speak.  But  railroads,  and  those 
who  own  and  control  them,  occupy  a  place  in  the  political  and 
social  life  of  the  country  which  requires  some  passing  words, 
for  it  is  a  place  far  more  significant  than  similar  enterprises  have 
obtained  in  the  Old  World. 

The  United  States  are  so  much  larger,  and  have  a  population 
so  much  more  scattered  than  any  European  state  that  they 
depend  even  more  upon  means  of  internal  communication.  It 
is  these  communications  that  hold  the  country  together,  and 
render  it  one  for  all  social  and  political  purposes  as  well  as  for 
commerce.  They  may  indeed  be  said  to  have  made  the  West, 
for  it  is  along  the  lines  of  railway  that  the  West  has  been  set¬ 
tled,  and  population  still  follows  the  rails,  stretching  out  to 
south  and  north  of  the  great  trunk  lines  wherever  they  send 
off  a  branch.  The  Americans  are  an  eminently  locomotive 
people.  Were  statistics  on  such  a  point  attainable,  they  would 
probably  show  that  the  average  man  travels  over  thrice  as  many 
miles  by  steam  in  a  year  as  the  average  Englishman,  six  times 
as  many  as  the  average  Frenchman  or  German.  The  New 
Yorker  thinks  of  a  journey  to  Chicago  (900  miles)  as  a  Londoner 
of  a  journey  to  Glasgow  (400  miles) ;  and  a  family  at  St.  Louis 
will  go  for  sea-bathing  to  Cape  May,  a  journey  of  thirty-five 
or  forty  hours,  as  readily  as  a  Birmingham  family  goes  to  Scar¬ 
borough.  The  movements  of  goods  traffic  are  on  a  gigantic 
scale.  The  greatest  branch  of  heavy  freight  transportation  in 
England,  that  of  coal  from  the  north  and  west  to  London,  is 
not  to  be  compared  to  the  weight  of  cotton,  grain,  bacon,  cattle, 
fruit,  and  ores  which  come  from  the  inland  regions  to  the  Atlantic 
coast.  This  traffic  does  not  merely  give  to  the  trunk  lines  an 

690 


CHAP.  CVI 


RAILROADS 


691 


enormous  yearly  turnover,  —  it  interests  all  classes,  I  might 
almost  say  all  individuals,  in  railway  operations,  seeing  that  every 
branch  of  industry  and  every  profession  except  divinity  and  medi¬ 
cine  is  more  or  less  directly  connected  with  the  movements  of 
commerce,  and  prospers  in  proportion  to  its  prosperity.  Conse¬ 
quently,  railroads  and  their  receipts,  railroad  directors  and  their 
doings,  occupy  men’s  tongues  and  pens  to  a  far  greater  extent 
than  in  Europe. 

Some  of  the  great  railway  companies  possess  yet  another 
source  of  wealth  and  power.  At  the  time  when  they  were 
formed,  the  enterprise  of  laying  down  rails  in  thinly-peopled, 
or  perhaps  quite  uninhabited  regions,  in  some  instances  over 
deserts  or  across  lofty  mountains,  seemed  likely  to  prove  so 
unremunerative  to  the  first  shareholders,  yet  so  beneficial  to 
the  country  at  large,  that  Congress  was  induced  to  encourage 
the  promoters  by  vast  grants  of  unoccupied  land,  the  property 
of  the  United  States,  lying  along  the^projected  line.1  The  grants 
were  often  improvident,  and  they  gave  rise  to  endless  lobbying 
and  intrigue,  first  to  secure  them,  then  to  keep  them  from  being 
declared  forfeited  in  respect  of  some  breach  of  the  conditions 
imposed  by  Congress  on  the  company.  However,  the  lines 
were  made,  colonists  came,  much  of  the  lands  was  sold  to 
speculators  as  well  as  to  individual  settlers ;  but  much  long 
remained  in  the  hands  of  two  or  three  companies.  These 
gifts  made  the  railroads  great  landowners,  gave  them  a  local 
influence  and  divers  local  interests  besides  those  arising  from  their 
proper  business  of  carriers,  and  brought  them  into  intimate 
and  often  perilously  delicate  relations  with  leading  politicians. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  the  railroads,  even  those  that  held  no 
land  beyond  that  on  which  their  rails  ran,  acquired  immense 
power  in  the  districts  they  traversed.  In  a  new  and  thinly- 
peopled  State  the  companies  were  by  far  the  wealthiest  bodies, 
and  able  by  their  wealth  to  exert  all  sorts  of  influence.  A  city 
or  a  district  of  country  might  depend  entirely  upon  them  for 
its  progress.  If  they  ran  a  line  into  it  or  through  it,  emigrants 


1  These  grants  usually  consisted  of  alternate  sections,  in  the  earlier  cases 
of  five  to  the  mile  along  the  line.  The  total  grant  made  to  the  Union  Pacific 
Railway  was  13,000,100  acres  ;  to  the  Kansas  Pacific,  6,000,000  ;  to  the  Central 
Pacific,  12,100,100;  to  the  Northern  Pacific,  47,000,000;  to  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific,  42,000,000  ;  to  the  Southern  Pacific,  9,620,000.  Enormous  money  sub¬ 
sidies,  exceeding  $60,000,000,  were  also  granted  by  Congress  to  the  first  trans¬ 
continental  lines. 


692 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


followed,  the  value  of  fixed  property  rose,  trade  became  brisk : 
if  they  passed  it  by,  and  bestowed  transportation  facilities  on 
some  other  district,  it  saw  itself  outstripped  and  began  to  lan¬ 
guish.  If  a  company  owned  a  trunk  line  it  could,  by  raising 
or  lowering  the  rates  of  freight  on  that  line  through  which  the 
products  of  the  district  or  State  passed  towards  the  sea,  stimu¬ 
late  or  retard  the  prosperity  of  the  agricultural  population,  or 
the  miners,  or  the  lumbermen.  That  is  to  say,  the  great  com¬ 
panies  held  in  their  hands  the  fortunes  of  cities,  of  counties, 
even  sometimes  of  States  and  Territories.1  California  was  for 
many  years  practically  at  the  mercy  of  the  Central  Pacific  Rail¬ 
way,  then  her  only  road  to  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the 
Atlantic.  Oregon  and  Washington  were  almost  equally  de¬ 
pendent  upon  the  Oregon  Railroad  and  Navigation  Company, 
and  afterwards  upon  the  Northern  Pacific.  What  made  the 
position  more  singular  was  that,  although  these  railroads  had 
been  built  under  statutes  passed  by  the  State  they  traversed 
(or,  in  the  case  of  Territories,  wholly  or  partially  under  Federal 
statutes),  they  were  built  with  Eastern  capital,  and  were  owned 
by  a  number,  often  a  small  number,  of  rich  men  living  in  New 
York,  Boston,  or  Philadelphia,  unamenable  to  local  influences, 
and  caring  no  more  about  the  wishes  and  feelings  of  the  State 
whence  their  profits  came  than  an  English  bondholder  cares 
about  the  feelings  of  Paraguay.  Moreover,  although  the  rail¬ 
roads  held  a  fuller  sway  in  the  newer  States,  they  were  sometimes 
potent  political  factors  in  the  older  ones.  In  1870  I  often  heard 
men  say,  “  Camden  and  Amboy  (the  Camden  and  Amboy 
Railroad)  rules  New  Jersey/ ’  In  New  York  the  great  New 
York  Central  Railroad,  in  Pennsylvania  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  under  its  able  chiefs,  exerted  immense  influence  with 
the  legislature,  partly  by  their  wealth,  partly  by  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  bestowing  favours  on  individuals  and  localities 
which  they  possessed,  including  the  gift  of  free  passes,  and 
possibly  influence  exercised  on  the  votes  of  their  employees. 
Sometimes,  at  least  in  Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  they  even 
threw  their  weight  into  the  scale  of  a  political  party,  giving 
it  money  as  well  as  votes.  But  more  commonly  they  have 

1  This  was  of  course  especially  the  case  with  the  newer  Western  States  ;  yet 
even  in  the  older  parts  of  the  country  any  very  large  railway  system  had  great 
power,  for  it  might  have  a  monopoly  of  communication  ;  or  if  there  were  two 
lines  they  might  have  agreed  to  “pool,”  as  it  is  called,  their  traffic  receipts  and 
work  in  harmony. 


CHAP.  CVI 


RAILROADS 


693 


confined  themselves  to  securing  their  own  interests,  and  obliged, 
or  threatened  and  used,  the  State  leaders  of  both  parties  alike 
for  that  purpose.  The  same  sort  of  power  was  at  one  time 
exerted  over  some  of  the  cantons  of  Switzerland  by  the  greater 
Swiss  railway  companies ;  though,  since  the  Constitution  of 
1874,  it  is  said  to  have  quite  disappeared.1 

In  such  circumstances  conflicts  between  the  railroads  and 
the  State  governments  were  inevitable.  The  companies  might 
succeed  in  “ capturing”  individual  legislators  or  committees 
of  either  or  both  Houses,  but  they  could  not  silence  the  dis¬ 
contented  cities  or  counties  who  complained  of  the  way  in  which 
they  were  neglected  while  some  other  city  obtained  better 
facilities,  still  less  the  farmers  who  denounced  the  unduly  high 
rates  they  were  forced  to  pay  for  the  carriage  of  their  produce. 
Thus  a  duel  began  between  the  companies  and  the  peoples 
of  some  of  the  States,  which  has  gone  on  with  varying  fortune 
in  the  halls  of  the  legislatures  and  in  the  courts  of  law.  The 
farmers  of  the  North-West  formed  agricultural  associations  called 
“  Patrons  of  Husbandry,”  or  popularly  “  Granges,”  and  passed 
a  number  of  laws  imposing  various  restrictions  on  the  railroads, 
and  providing  for  the  fixing  of  a  maximum  scale  of  charges. 
But  although  the  railroad  companies  had  been  formed  under, 
and  derived  their  powers  of  taking  land  and  making  bye-laws 
from,  State  statutes,  these  statutes  had  in  some  cases  omitted  to 
reserve  the  right  to  deal  freely  with  the  lines  by  subsequent  legisla¬ 
tion  ;  and  the  companies  therefore  attempted  to  resist  the 
“  Granger  laws  ”  as  being  unconstitutional.  They  were  defeated 
by  two  famous  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Federal  Court  in  1876, 2 
establishing  the  right  of  a  State  to  impose  restrictions  on 
public  undertakings  in  the  nature  of  monopolies.  But  in  other 
directions  they  had  better  luck.  The  Granger  laws  proved 
in  many  respects  unworkable.  The  companies,  alleging  that 
they  could  not  carry  goods  at  a  loss,  vexed  the  people  by  refusing 
to  construct  branches  and  other  new  lines,  and  in  various 
ways  contrived  to  make  the  laws  difficult  of  execution.  Thus 
they  procured  (in  most  States)  the  repeal  of  the  first  set  of 
Granger  laws ;  and  when  further  legislation  was  projected,  secret 
engines  of  influence  were  made  to  play  upon  the  legislatures, 


1  The  Swiss  railways  are  now  the  property  of  the  Federal  Government. 

2  See  Munn  v.  Illinois,  and  Peake  v.  Chicago,  Burlington,  and  Quincy  Rail¬ 
road,  94  U.  S.  Reports. 


694 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


influences  which,  since  the  first  wave  of  popular  impulse  had  now 
spent  itself,  often  proved  efficacious  in  averting  further  restric¬ 
tions  or  impeding  the  enforcement  of  those  imposed.  Those 
who  profited  most  by  the  strife  were  the  less  scrupulous  among 
the  legislators,  who,  if  they  did  not  receive  some  favour  from 
a  railroad,  could  levy  blackmail  upon  it  by  bringing  in  a  threaten¬ 
ing  bill.1 

The  contest,  however,  was  not  confined  to  the  several  States. 
It  passed  to  Congress.  Congress  was  supposed  to  have  no  au¬ 
thority  under  the  Constitution  to  deal  with  a  railway  lying  entirely 
within  one  State,  because  it  carried  intra-state  commerce  only, 
but  to  be  entitled  to  legislate,  under  its  power  of  regulating  com¬ 
merce  between  different  States,  for  all  lines  (including  connect¬ 
ing  lines  which  are  worked  together  as  a  through  line)  which 
traverse  more  than  one  State  there  being  agencies  of  inter-state 
commerce.  And  of  course  it  has  always  had  power  over  rail¬ 
ways  situate  in  the  Territories.  As  the  Federal  courts  decided 
some  time  ago  that  no  State  could  legislate  against  a  railway 
lying  partly  outside  its  own  limits,  because  this  would  trench 
on  Federal  competence,  the  need  for  Federal  legislation,  long 
pressed  upon  Congress,  became  urgent ;  and  after  much  debate 
an  Act  was  passed  in  1887  establishing  an  Inter-State  Com¬ 
merce  Commission,  with  power  to  regulate  railroad  transporta¬ 
tion  and  charges  in  many  material  respects.  The  companies 
had  opposed  it ;  but  after  its  passage  they  discovered  that  it 
hurt  them  less  than  they  had  feared,  and  in  some  points  even 
benefited  them ;  for  the  prohibition  of  all  discriminations  and 
secret  rebates,  and  the  requirement  to  adhere  to  their  published 
list  of  charges,  although  they  could  not  “  take  care  ”  of  the 
commissioners  as  they  often  had  State  legislatures,  gave  them 
a  ready  answer  to  demands  for  exceptional  privileges.2  This 
momentous  statute,  which  forbade  the  exaction  of  unreasonable 
charges  and  all  discriminations  between  persons  and  places 
gave  rise  to  a  swarm  of  difficult  legal  questions,  and  while 


1  Some  time  ago  the  legislature  of  Iowa  passed  a  statute  giving  the  State 
Railway  Commission  full  powers  to  fix  charges  ;  and  injunctions  were  obtained 
from  the  courts  restraining  the  Commission  from  imposing,  as  they  were 
proceeding  to  do,  rates  so  low  as  to  be  destructive  of  reasonable  profits. 

2  Subsequent  statutes  have  enlarged  the  functions  of  this  Commission  and 
have,  among  other  things,  put  an  end  to  the  bestowal  of  free  passes  for  passen¬ 
gers,  a  form  of  preference  which  had  assumed  large  proportions  and  given  rise 
(especially  where  legislators  were  concerned)  to  some  abuses. 


CHAP.  CVI 


RAILROADS 


695 


hampering  the  railroads  did  not  at  first  do  much  to  lessen  the 
complaints  of  the  farming  and  commercial  classes.  It  has,  how¬ 
ever,  been  amended,  and  the  Act  of  1906,  while  strengthening 
the  Commission  in  its  numbers  and  its  powers,  provided  for 
it  a  more  efficient  procedure.  The  Act  of  1910  has  still  further 
extended  its  powers,  which  now  cover  telegraph  and  telephone 
companies  so  far  as  relates  to  inter-state  business,  and  also 
pipe-lines  carrying  oil.  A  Court  of  Commerce  was  also  created, 
consisting  of  five  judges  to  be  selected  from  the  Federal  Circuit 
judges. 

That  the  railroads  had  exercised  autocratic  and  irresponsible 
power  over  some  regions  of  the  country,  and  had  occasionally 
abused  this  power,  especially  by  imposing  discriminations  in 
their  freight  charges,  is  not  to  be  denied.1  They  had  become 
extremely  unpopular,  a  constant  theme  for  demagogic  denun¬ 
ciations  ;  and  their  success  during  many  years  in  resisting  public 
clamour  by  their  secret  control  of  legislatures,  or  even  of  the 
State  commissioners  appointed  to  deal  with  them,  increased 
the  irritation.  All  corporations  are  at  present  unpopular  in 
America,  and  especially  corporations  possessed  of  monopolies. 
The  agitation  may  continue,  though  the  confidence  felt  in  the 
honesty  of  the  Commission  has  done  something  to  allay  it, 
and  attempts  be  made  to  carry  still  more  stringent  legislation. 
Some  have  proposed  that  all  railways,  as  well  as  telegraphs, 
should  be  taken  over  by  the  nation,  and  that  not  merely  for 
revenue  purposes,  but  to  make  them  serve  more  perfectly  the 
public  convenience.  Apart  from  the  question  of  amending  the 
Constitution  for  this  end,  the  objection  which  to  most  men 
seems  decisive  against  any  such  arrangement  is  that  it  would 
not  only  encumber  government  with  most  difficult  rate-problems, 
affecting  local  interests,  and  therefore  involving  the  certainty  of 
local  political  pressure,  but  would  also  throw  a  stupendous  mass 
of  patronage  and  power  into  the  hands  of  the  party  for  the 
time  being  holding  office.  Considering  what  a  perennial  spring 
of  bitterness  partisan  patronage  has  been,  and  how  liable  to 
perversion  under  the  best  regulations  patronage  always  must 
be,  he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  would  toss  an  immense  number 

1  It  would  appear  that  the  freight  charges  on  American  railways  were, 
before  1887,  generally  lower  than  those  in  England  and  in  Western  Europe 
generally.  They  are  now  lower,  and  in  some  cases  very  much  lower,  than  those 
of  British  railways.  English  third-class  passenger  fares  are,  however,  as  a  rule 
slightly  lower  than  those  in  the  ordinary  American  cars. 


696 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  Vi 


of  places  —  the  railroads  employed  in  1907,  1,672,000  persons 
and  were  paying  them  $1,072,386,427  —  into  the  lap  of  a  party 
minister.  Economic  gain,  assuming  that  such  gain  could  be 
secured,  would  be  dearly  bought  by  political  danger. 

Their  strife  with  the  State  governments  has  not  been  enough 
to  occupy  the  pugnacity  of  the  companies.  They  must  needs 
fight  with  one  another;  and  their  wars  have  been  long  and 
fierce,  involving  immense  pecuniary  interests,  not  only  to  the 
shareholders  in  the  combatant  lines,  but  also  to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  districts  which  they  served.  Such  conflicts  have  been 
most  frequent  between  the  trunk  lines  competing  for  the  car¬ 
riage  of  goods  from  the  West  to  the  Atlantic  cities,  and  have 
been  conducted  not  only  by  lowering  charges  so  as  to  starve 
out  the  weaker  line,1  but  by  attacks  upon  its  stocks  in  the  great 
share  markets,  by  efforts  to  defeat  its  bills  in  the  State  legisla¬ 
tures,  and  by  law-suits  with  applications  for  injunctions  in  the 
courts.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  famous  case  of  the  struggle 
of  the  Atchison  Topeka  and  Santa  Fe  railway  with  the  Denver 
and  Rio  Grande  for  the  possession  of  the  great  canon  of  the 
Arkansas  River,2  the  easiest  route  into  an  important  group  of 
Rocky  Mountain  valleys,  the  navvies  of  the  two  companies 
fought  with  shovels  and  pickaxes  on  the  spot,  while  their  coun¬ 
sel  were  fighting  in  the  law  courts  sixteen  hundred  miles  away. 
A  well-established  company  has  sometimes  had  to  meet  a 
peculiarly  annoying  form  of  attack  at  the  hands  of  audacious 
adventurers,  who  construct  a  competing  line  where  the  traffic 
is  only  sufficient  to  enable  the  existing  one  to  pay  a  dividend 
on  the  capital  it  has  expended,  aiming,  not  at  the  creation  of  a 
profitable  undertaking,  but  at  levying  blackmail  on  one  which 
exists,  and  obtaining  an  opportunity  of  manipulating  bonds 
and  stocks  for  their  own  benefit.  In  such  a  case  the  railway 
company  in  possession  has  its  choice  between  two  courses :  it 
may  allow  the  new  enterprise  to  go  on,  then  lower  its  own  rates, 
and  so  destroy  all  possibility  of  profits ;  or  it  may  buy  up  the 
rival  line,  perhaps  at  a  heavy  price.  Sometimes  it  tries  the  first 


1  In  one  of  these  contests,  one  railway  having  lowered  its  rates  for  cattle 
to  a  figure  below  paying  point,  the  manager  of  the  other  promptly  bought  up 
all  the  cattle  he  could  find  at  the  inland  terminus,  and  sent  them  to  the  coast 
by  the  enemy’s  line,  a  costly  lesson  to  the  latter. 

2  This  so-called  “Royal  Gorge”  of  the  Arkansas  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
pieces  of  scenery  on  the  North  American  continent,  not  unlike  the  grandest 
part  of  the  famous  Dariel  Pass  in  the  Caucasus. 


CHAP.  CVI 


RAILROADS 


697 


course  long  enough  to  beat  clown  the  already  small  prospects  of 
the  new  line  and  then  buys  it ;  but  although  this  may  ruin 
the  “pirates”  who  have  built  the  new  line,  it  involves  a  hideous 
waste  of  the  money  spent  in  construction,  and  the  shareholders 
of  the  old  company  as  well  as  the  bondholders  of  the  new  one 
suffer.  This  is  a  form  of  raid  upon  property  which  evidently 
ought  to  be  prevented  by  a  greater  care  on  the  part  of  State 
legislatures  in  refusing  to  pass  special  Acts  for  unnecessary  rail¬ 
roads,  or  in  so  modifying  their  law  as  to  prevent  a  group  of 
promoters  from  using,  for  purposes  of  blackmail,  the  powers  of 
taking  land  and  constructing  railroads,  which  general  statutes 
confer.1 

This  atmosphere  of  strife  has  had  something  to  do  with  the 
feature  of  railway  management  which  a  European  finds  most 
remarkable;  I  mean  its  autocratic  character.  Nearly  all  the 
great  lines  are  controlled  and  managed  either  by  a  small  knot  of 
persons  or  by  a  single  man.  Sometimes  one  man,  or  a  knot  of 
three  or  four  capitalists  acting  as  one  man,  holds  an  actual  ma¬ 
jority  of  the  shares,  and  then  he  can  of  course  do  exactly  what 
he  pleases.  Sometimes  the  interest  of  the  ruling  man  (or  knot) 
comes  so  near  to  being  a  controlling  interest  that  he  may  safely 
assume  that  no  majority  can  be  brought  against  him,  the  ten¬ 
dencies  of  many  shareholders  being  to  support  “the  administra¬ 
tion”  in  all  its  policy.  This  accumulation  of  voting  power  in 
a  few  hands  seems  to  be  due  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  shares 
of  new  lines  do  not,  in  the  first  instance,  get  scattered  through 
the  general  public  as  in  England,  but  are  commonly  allotted  in 
masses  to  a  few  persons,  often  as  a  sort  of  bonus  upon  their  sub¬ 
scribing  for,  or  undertaking  to  place,  the  bonds  of  the  company. 

i  “ It  is  an  extraordinary  fact,”  says  Mr.  Hitchcock,  ‘‘that  the  power  of 
eminent  domain  which  the  State  itself  confessedly  ought  never  to  use  save  on 
grounds  of  public  necessity  should  be  at  the  command  of  irresponsible  indi¬ 
viduals  for  purposes  of  private  gain,  not  only  without  any  guarantee  that'  the 
public  interest  will  be  promoted  thereby,  but  when  it  is  perfectly  well  known 
that  it  may  be,  and  has  been,  deliberately  availed  of  for  merely  speculative 
purposes.  The  facility  with  which,  under  loosely  drawn  railroad  laws,  purely 
speculative  railroad  charters  can  be  obtained  has  contributed  not  a  little  to 
develop  the  law  of  receiverships.  In  Missouri  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  any 
five  men  whose  combined  capital  would  not  enable  them  to  build  five  miles 
of  track  on  a  level  prairie  from  forming  a  railroad  corporation  with  power  to 
construct  a  road  five  hundred  miles  long,  and  to  condemn  private  property  for 
that  purpose,  for  a  line  whose  construction  no  public  interest  demands,  and  from 
which  no  experienced  man  could  expect  dividends  to  accrue.” — Address  to 
the  American  Bar  Association,  1887. 


698 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


In  the  United  States  shares  do  not  usually  represent  a  cash  sub¬ 
scription,  the  practice  being  to  construct  a  railway  with  the 
proceeds  of  the  bonds  and  to  regard  the  shares  as  the  materials 
for  future  profit,  things  which  may,  if  the  line  be  of  a  speculative 
character,  be  run  up  in  price  and  sold  off  by  the  promoters ; 
or,  if  it  be  likely  to  prosper,  be  held  by  them  for  the  purpose 
of  controlling  as  well  as  gaining  profits  from  the  undertaking, 
the  profits  including  those  derivable  from  watering  the  stock.1 
It  is  partly  also  to  be  ascribed  to  the  splendid  boldness  with  which 
financial  operations  are  conducted  in  America,  where  the  leaders 
of  Wall  Street  do  not  hesitate  to  buy  up  enormous  masses  of 
shares  of  stock  for  the  purpose  of  some  coup.  Having  once  got 
into  a  single  hand,  or  a  few  hands,  these  stock  masses  stay  there, 
and  give  their  possessors  the  control  of  the  line.  But  the  power 
of  the  railways,  and  the  position  they  hold  towards  local  govern¬ 
ments-,  State  legislatures,  and  one  another,  have  also  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  the  phenomenon.  War  used  for  a  time  to  be,  and 
in  some  parts  of  the  country  is  still,  the  natural  state  of  an  Ameri¬ 
can  railway  towards  all  other  authorities  and  its  own  fellows, 
just  as  war  was  the  natural  state  of  cities  towards  one  another 
*  in  the  ancient  world.  And  as  an  army  in  the  field  must  be  com¬ 
manded  by  one  general,  so  must  this  latest  militant  product  of  an 
eminently  peaceful  civilization.  The  president  of  a  great  rail¬ 
road  needs  gifts  for  strategical  combinations  scarcely  inferior  to 
those,  if  not  of  a  great  general,  yet  of  a  great  war  minister  — 
a  Chatham  or  a  Carnot.  If  his  line  extends  into  a  new  coun¬ 
try,  he  must  be  quick  to  seize  the  best  routes,  —  the  best  physi¬ 
cally,  because  they  will  be  cheaper  to  operate,  the  best  in  agri¬ 
cultural  or  mineral  resources,  because  they  will  offer  a  greater 
prospect  of  traffic.  He  must  so  throw  out  his  branches  as  not 
only  to  occupy  promising  tracts,  but  keep  his  competing  enemies 
at  a  distance;  he  must  annex  small  lines  when  he  sees  a  good 
chance,  first  “ bearing”  their  stocks  so  as  to  get  them  cheaper; 

1  The  great  Central  Pacific  Railway  was  constructed  by  four  men,  two  of 
whom  were,  when  they  began,  storekeepers  in  a  small  way  in  San  Francisco, 
and  none  of  whom  could  be  called  capitalists.  Their  united  funds  -when  they 
began  in  1860  were  only  1120,000  (£24,000).  They  went  on  issuing  bonds  and 
building  the  line  bit  by  bit  as  the  bonds  put  them  in  funds,  retaining  the  con¬ 
trol  of  the  company  through  the  shares.  This  Central  Pacific  Company  ulti¬ 
mately  built  the  Southern  Pacific  and  numerous  branches,  and  became  by  far 
the  greatest  power  in  the  West,  owning  nearly  all  the  railways  in  California 
and  Nevada.  When  one  of  the  four  died  in  1878,  his  estate  was  worth  $30,000,000, 
a  vast  sum  for  those  days. 


CHAP.  CVI 


RAILROADS 


699 


he  must  make  a  close  alliance  with  at  least  one  other  great  line, 
which  completes  his  communications  with  the  East  or  with  the 
farther  West,  and  be  prepared  to  join  this  ally  in  a  conflict 
with  some  threatening  competitor.  He  must  know  the  Govern¬ 
ors  and  watch  the  legislatures  of  the  States  through  which 
his  line  runs;  must  have  adroit  agents  at  the  State  capitals, 
well  supplied  with  the  sinews  of  war,  ready  to  “see”  leading 
legislators  and  to  defeat  any  legislative  attacks  that  may  be 
made  by  blackmailers  or  the  tools  of  rival  presidents.  And  all 
the  while  he  must  not  only  keep  his  eye  upon  the  markets  of  New 
York,  prepared  for  the  onslaught  which  may  be  made  upon  his 
own  stock  by  some  other  railroad  or  by  speculators  desiring  to 
make  a  profit  as  “bears,”  and  maintaining  friendly  relations 
with  the  capitalists  whose  help  he  wall  need  when  he  brings  out 
a  new  loan,  but  must  supervise  the  whole  administrative  system 
of  the  railroad  —  its  stations,  permanent  way,  locomotives,  rolling 
stock,  engineering  shops,  freight  and  passenger  rates,  perhaps 
also  the  sale  of  its  land  grants  and  their  defence  against  the  cabals 
of  Washington.  No  talents  of  the  practical  order  can  be  too 
high  for  such  a  position  as  this;  and  even  the  highest  talents 
would  fail  to  fill  it  properly  except  with  a  free  hand.  Concen¬ 
tration  of  power  and  an  almost  uncontrolled  discretion  are 
needed ;  and  in  America  whatever  commercial  success  needs 
is  sure  to  be  yielded.  Hence,  when  a  group  of  capitalists  own 
a  railway,  they  commit  its  management  to  a  very  small  com¬ 
mittee  among  themselves,  or  even  to  a  single  man ;  and  when 
the  shares  are  more  widely  distributed,  the  shareholders,  recog¬ 
nizing  the  necessary  conditions  of  prosperity,  not  to  say  of  sur¬ 
vival  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  leave  themselves  in  the  hands 
of  the  president,  who  has  little  to  fear  except  from  the  shares 
being  quietly  bought  up  by  some  syndicate  of  enemies  seeking 
to  dethrone  him. 

Of  these  great  railway  chieftains,  some  come  to  the  top 
gradually,  by  the  display  in  subordinate  posts  of  brilliant  ad¬ 
ministrative  gifts.  Some  begin  as  financiers,  and  spring  into 
the  presidential  saddle  at  a  bound  by  forming  a  combina¬ 
tion  which  captures  the  railway  by  buying  up  its  stock.  Oc¬ 
casionally  a  great  capitalist  will  seize  a  railroad  only  for  the 
sake  of  manipulating  its  stock,  clearing  a  profit,  and  throwing 
it  away.  But  more  frequently,  when  a  really  important  line 
has  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  man  or  group,  it  is  held  fast  and 


700 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


developed  into  a  higher  efficiency  by  means  of  the  capital  he  or 
they  command. 

These  railway  kings  are  among  the  greatest  men,  perhaps  I 
may  say  are  the  greatest  men,  in  America.  They  have  wealth, 
else  they  could  not  hold  the  position.  They  have  fame,  for 
every  one  has  heard  of  their  achievements ;  every  newspaper 
chronicles  their  movements.  They  have  power,  more  power  — 
that  is,  more  opportunity  of  making  their  personal  will  prevail 
—  than  perhaps  any  one  in  political  life,  except  the  President 
and  the  Speaker,  who  after  all  hold  theirs  only  for  four  years 
and  two  years,  while  the  railroad  monarch  may  keep  his  for 
life.  When  the  master  of  one  of  the  greatest  Western  lines 
travels  towards  the  Pacific  on  his  palace  car,  his  journey  is 
like  a  royal  progress.  Governors  of  States  bow  before  him ; 
legislatures  receive  him  in  solemn  session ;  cities  seek  to  pro¬ 
pitiate  him,  for  has  he  not  the  means  of  making  or  marring  a 
city’s  fortunes?  Although  the  railroad  companies  are  un¬ 
popular,  and  although  this  autocratic  sway  from  a  distance 
contributes  to  their  unpopularity,  I  do  not  think  that  the 
ruling  magnates  are  themselves  generally  disliked.  On  the 
contrary,  they  receive  that  tribute  of  admiration  which  the 
American  gladly  pays  to  whoever  has  done  best  what  every 
one  desires  to  do.  Probably  no  career  draws  to  it  or  unfolds 
and  develops  so  much  of  the  characteristic  ability  of  the 
nation.  Not  even  legislation  can  greatly  reduce  the  command¬ 
ing  positions  which  these  potentates  hold  as  the  masters  of 
enterprises  whose  wealth,  geographical  extension,  and  influence 
upon  the  growth  of  the  country  and  the  fortunes  of  individuals, 
find  no  parallel  in  the  Old  World. 

It  has  already  been  shown  how  the  task  of  regulating  rail¬ 
roads  by  law,  nowhere  an  easy  one,  is  in  the  United  States  ren¬ 
dered  more  perplexing  by  the  division  of  jurisdiction  between  the 
National  government  and  the  States,  the  control  of  the  former 
having  been  deemed  to  be  confined  to  traffic  between  the  States. 
To  adhere  to  and  apply  this  distinction  has  become  in  practice 
more  and  more  difficult  with  the  increase  not  only  of  inter-state 
traffic  but  of  the  demands  made  for  regulating  matters  formerly 
untouched  by  legislation.  Thus  the  tendency  to  enlarge  the 
scope  of  national  control  is  inevitable,  and  likely  to  go  further. 
Little  as  the  railroads  relish  regulation  from  either  quarter,  they 
prefer  that  which  proceeds  from  Congress,  because  it  is  uniform,  it 


CHAP.  CVI 


RAILROADS 


701 


hampers  them  less,  it  is  less  subject  to  frequent  change,  and  it  is 
exerted  through  a  body,  the  inter-state  Commerce  Commission, 
whose  members  possess  capacity  and  experience.  People  already 
ask  whether  the  ultimate  issue  will  not  be  the  assumption  by  the 
National  government  of  the  sole  power  of  controlling  an  agency 
of  transportation  of  national  magnitude  which  ought  to  be  dealt 
with  as  a  whole  and  which  would,  one  can  hardly  doubt,  have  been 
assigned  to  that  Government  by  the  framers  of  the  Consti¬ 
tution  had  it  existed  in  their  day. 

It  may  be  thought  that  some  of  the  phenomena  I  have 
described  belong  to  an  era  of  colonization,  and  that  when  the 
West  has  been  filled  up,  and  all  the  arterial  railways  made, 
when,  in  fact,  the  United  States  have  become  even  as  England 
or  France,  the  power  of  railroads  and  their  presidents  will 
decline.  No  doubt  there  will  be  less  room  for  certain  bold 
ventures  and  feats  of  constructive  strategy ;  and  as  the  network 
of  railways  grows  closer,  States  and  districts  may  come  to  depend 
less  upon  one  particular  company.  At  the  same  time  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  more  populous  and  wealthy  the  country, 
so  much  the  larger  the  business  of  a  trunk  line,  and  the  number 
of  its  branches  and  its  employees ;  while  the  consolidation  of  small 
lines,  or  their  absorption  by  large  ones,  is  a  process  evidently 
destined  to  continue.  In  1910  six  or  seven  financial  groups  con¬ 
trolled  more  than  four-fifths  of  all  the  250,000  miles  of  railroad 
in  the  United  States ;  and  it  seemed  probable  that  some  of  these 
groups  might  unite  or  make  arrangements  with  one  another, 
under  which  the  vast  systems  which  each  group  administered 
might  be  worked  as  one  system.  It  may  therefore  be  conjectured 
that  the  railroad  will  long  stand  forth  as  a  great  and  perplexing- 
force  in  the  economico-political  life  of  the  country.  It  cannot  be 
left  to  itself  —  the  most  extreme  advocate  of  laissez  faire  would 
not  contend  for  that,  for  to  leave  it  to  itself  would  be  to  make  it  a 
tyrant.  It  can  hardly  be  taken  over  and  worked  by  the  National 
government  as  are  the  railways  of  Switzerland  and  many  of 
those  in  Germany  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy.  Only 
the  most  sanguine  state  socialist  would  propose  to  impose  so 
terrible  a  strain  on  the  virtue  of  American  politicians,  not  to 
speak  of  the  effect  upon  the  constitutional  balance  between  the 
States  and  the  Federal  authority.  Many  experiments  may  be 
needed  before  the  true  mean  course  between  these  extremes  is 
discovered.  Meanwhile,  the  railroads  illustrate  two  tendencies 


702 


SOCIAL^  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


specially  conspicuous  in  America,  —  the  power  of  the  principle 
of  association,  which  makes  commercial  corporations,  skilfully 
handled,  formidable  to  individual  men ;  and  the  way  in  which  the 
principle  of  monarchy,  banished  from  the  field  of  government, 
creeps  back  again  and  asserts  its  strength  in  the  scarcely  less 
momentous  contests  of  industry  and  finance. 


CHAPTER  CVII 


WALL  STREET 

No  invention  of  modern  times,  not  even  that  of  negotiable 
paper,  has  so  changed  the  face  of  commerce  and  delighted  law¬ 
yers  with  a  variety  of  new  and  intricate  problems  as  the  creation 
of  incorporated  joint-stock  companies.  America,  though  she 
came  latest  into  the  field,  has  developed  these  on  a  grander 
scale  and  with  a  more  refined  skill  than  the  countries  of  the 
Old  World.  Nowhere  do  trading  corporations  play  so  great  a 
part  in  trade  and  industry;  nowhere  are  so  many  huge  under¬ 
takings  in  their  hands;  nowhere  else  has  the  method  of  con¬ 
trolling  them  become  a  political  problem  of  the  first  magnitude. 
So  vigorous,  indeed,  is  the  inventive  genius  of  American  com¬ 
merce  that,  not  satisfied  with  the  new  applications  it  has  found 
for  the  principles  of  the  joint-stock  corporation,  it  subsequently 
attempted  a  further  development  of  the  arts  of  combination 
by  creating  those  anomalous  giants  called  Trusts,  groups  of 
individuals  and  corporations  concerned  in  one  branch  of  trade 
or  manufacture,  which  are  placed  under  the  irresponsible  man¬ 
agement  of  a  small  knot  of  persons,  who,  through  their  com¬ 
mand  of  all  the  main  producing  or  distributing  agencies,  intend 
and  expect  to  dominate  the  market,  force  manufacturers  or 
dealers  to  submit,  and  hold  the  consumer  at  their  mercy.1 

Here,  however,  I  am  concerned  with  the  amazing  expansion 
of  joint-stock  companies  in  America,  only  as  the  cause  of  the 
not  less  amazing  activity  in  buying  and  selling  shares  which 
the  people  display.  This  is  almost  the  first  thing  that  strikes 
a  European  visitor,  and  the  longer  he  remains  the  more  deeply 
is  he  impressed  by  it  as  something  to  which  his  own  country, 
be  it  England,  France,  or  Germany,  furnishes  no  parallel.  In 

1  The  question  what  is  the  legal  status  (if  any)  of  these  Trusts,  the  first  of 
which  was  created  in  1869,  has  been  much  discussed  by  American  jurists. 
When  Congress  legislated  against  them  in  1890  there  existed  at  least  thirty,  and 
their  power  grew  thereafter. 


703 


704 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Europe,  speculation  in  bonds,  shares,  and  stocks  is  confined  to 
a  section  of  the  commercial  world,  with  a  few  stragglers  from 
other  walks  of  business,  or  from  the  professions,  who  flutter 
near  the  flame  and  burn  their  wings.  Ordinary  steady-going 
people,  even  people  in  business,  know  little  or  nothing  about 
the  matter,  and  seldom  think  of  reading  the  share  lists.  When 
they  have  savings  to  invest  they  do  as  they  are  bidden  by  their 
banker  or  stockbroker,  if  indeed  they  have  a  stockbroker, 
and  do  not  get  their  banker  to  engage  one.1'  In  the  United 
States  a  much  larger  part  of  the  population,  including  profes¬ 
sional  men  as  well  as  business  men,  seem  conversant  with  the 
subject,  and  there  are  times  when  the  whole  community,  not 
merely  city  people  but  also  storekeepers  in  country  towns,  even 
farmers,  even  domestic  servants,  interest  themselves  actively  in 
share  speculations.  At  such  times  they  watch  the  fluctuations 
of  price  in  the  stocks  of  the  great  railroads,  telegraph  compa¬ 
nies  (or  rather  the  Telegraph  Company,  since  one  overshadows 
all  others),  and  other  leading  undertakings;  they  discuss  the 
prospects  of  a  rise  or  fall,  and  the  probable  policy  of  the  great 
operators ;  they  buy  and  sell  bonds  or  stocks  on  a  scale  not 
always  commensurate  with  their  own  means.2  In  the  great 
cities  the  number  of  persons  exclusively  devoted  to  this  occu¬ 
pation  is  very  large,  and  naturally  so,  because,  while  the  under¬ 
takings  lie  all  over  a  vast  extent  of  country,  the  capital  which 
owns  them  is  mostly  situate  in  the  cities,  and,  indeed,  six- 
sevenths  of  it  (so  far  as  it  is  held  in  America)  in  four  or  five  of  the 
greatest  Eastern  cities.  It  is  chiefly  in  railroads  that  these 
Easterns  speculate.  But  in  the  Far  West  mines  are  an  even 
more  exciting  and  pervasive  interest.  In  San  Francisco  every 
one  gambles  in  mining  stocks,  even  the  nursemaids  and  the 
Chinese.  The  share  lists  showing  the  oscillations  of  prices 
are  hung  up  outside  the  newspaper  offices,  and  fixed  on  posts 
in  the  streets,  and  are  changed  every  hour  or  two  during  the  day. 
In  the  silver  districts  of  Colorado  and  New  Mexico,  the  same 


1  There  are,  of  course,  simple  folk  in  England  who  take  shares  on  the  faith 
of  prospectuses  of  new  companies  sent  to  them  ;  but  the  fact  that  it  pays  to 
send  such  prospectuses  is  the  best  proof  of  the  general  ignorance,  in  such  matters, 
of  laymen  (including  the  clergy)  and  women  in  that  country. 

2  In  many  country  towns  there  are  small  offices,  commonly  called  “bucket 
shops,”  to  which  farmers  and  tradesmen  resort  to  effect  their  purchases  and 
sales  in  the  stock  markets  of  the  great  cities.  Not  a  few  ruin  themselves. 
Some  States  have  endeavoured  to  extinguish  them  by  penal  legislation. 


CHAP.  CVII 


WALL  STREET 


705 


kind  of  thing  goes  on.1  It  is  naturally  in  such  spots  that  the 
fire  burns  hottest.  But  go  where  you  will  in  the  Union,  except, 
be  sure,  in  the  more  stagnant  and  impecunious  parts  of  the 
South,  you  feel  bonds,  stocks,  and  shares  in  the  atmosphere  all 
round  you.  Te  veniente  die  —  they  begin  the  day  with  the  news¬ 
paper  at  breakfast :  they  end  it  with  the  chat  over  the  nocturnal 
cigar.2 

This  eager  interest  centres  itself  in  New  York,  for  finance, 
more  perhaps  than  any  other  kind  of  business,  draws  to  few 
points,  and  New  York,  which  has  as  little  claim  to  be  the  social 
or  intellectual  as  to  be  the  political  capital  of  the  country,  is 
emphatically  its  financial  capital.  And  as  the  centre  of  America 
is  New  York,  so  the  centre  of  New  York  is  Wall  Street.  This 
famous  thoroughfare  is  hardly  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long,  a  little 
longer  than  Lombard  Street  in  London.  It  contains  the  Sub- 
Treasury  of  the  United  States,  and  the  Stock  Exchange  (which 
used  to  be  in  it)  is  quite  close  to  it.  In  it  and  the  three 
or  four  streets  that  open  into  it  are  situated  the  Produce  Ex¬ 
change,  the  offices  of  the  great  railways,  and  the  places  of 
business  of  the  financiers  and  stockbrokers,  together  represent¬ 
ing  an  accumulation  of  capital  and  intellect  comparable  to 
the  capital  and  intellect  of  London,  and  destined  before  many 
years  to  surpass  every  similar  spot  in  either  hemisphere.3  Wall 
Street  is  the  great  nerve  centre  of  all  American  business;  for 
finance  and  transportation,  the  two  determining  powers  in 
business,  have  here  their  headquarters.  It  is  also  the  financial 
barometer  of  the  country,  which  every  man  engaged  in  large 
affairs  must  constantly  consult,  and  whose  only  fault  is  that  it  is 
too  sensitive  to  slight  and  transient  variations  of  pressure. 

The  share  market  of  New  York,  or  rather  of  the  whole  Union, 
at  “the  Street,”  as  it  is  fondly  named,  is  the  most  remarkable 

1  In  a  mining  town  in  Colorado  the  landlady  of  an  inn  in  which  I  stayed  for 
a  night  pressed  me  to  bring  out  in  London  a  company  to  work  a  mining  claim 
which  she  had  acquired,  offering  me  what  is  called  an  option.  I  inquired  how 
much  money  it  would  take  to  begin  to  work  the  claim  and  get  out  the  ore. 
“Less  than  thirty  thousand  dollars”  (£6000).  (The  carbonates  are  in  that 
part  of  Colorado  very  near  the  surface.)  “And  what  is  to  be  the  capital  of 
your  company?”  “Five  millions  of  dollars”  (£1,000,000)  ! 

2  Of  course  I  am  speaking  of  the  man  you  meet  in  travelling,  who  is  a  sample 
of  the  ordinary  citizen.  In  polite  society  one’s  entertainer  would  no  more 
bring  up  such  a  subject,  unless  you  drew  him  on  to  do  so,  than  he  w'ould  think 
of  talking  politics. 

3  The  balances  settled  in  the  New  York  Clearing  House  each  day  are  two- 
thirds  of  all  the  clearings  in  the  United  States. 


706 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


sight  in  the  country  after  Niagara  and  the  Yellowstone  Geysers. 
It  is  not  unlike  those  geysers  in  the  violence  of  its  explosions,  and 
in  the  rapid  rise  and  equally  rapid  subsidence  of  its  active  parox¬ 
ysms.  And  as  the  sparkling  column  of  the  geyser  is  girt  about 
and  often  half  concealed  by  volumes  of  steam,  so  are  the  rise 
and  fall  of  stocks  mostly  surrounded  by  mists  and  clouds  of 
rumour,  some  purposely  created,  some  self-generated  in  the 
atmosphere  of  excitement,  curiosity,  credulity,  and  suspicion 
which  the  denizens  of  Wall  Street  breathe.  Opinions  change 
from  moment  to  moment ;  hope  and  fear  are  equally  vehement 
and  equally  irrational ;  men  are  constant  only  in  inconstancy, 
superstitious  because  they  are  sceptical,  distrustful  of  patent 
probabilities,  and  therefore  ready  to  trust  their  own  fancies  or 
some  unfathered  tale.  As  the  eagerness  and  passion  of  New 
York  leave  European  stock  markets  far  behind,  for  what 
the  Paris  and  London  exchanges  are  at  rare  moments  Wall 
Street  is  for  weeks,  or  perhaps,  with  a  few  intermissions,  for 
months  together,  so  the  operations  of  Wall  Street  are  vaster, 
more  boldly  conceived,  executed  with  a  steadier  precision,  than 
those  of  European  speculators.  It  is  not  only  their  bearing  on 
the  prosperity  of  railroads  or  other  great  undertakings  that  is 
eagerly  watched  all  over  the  country,  but  also  their  personal  and 
dramatic  aspects.  The  various  careers  and  characters  of  the 
leading  operators  are  familiar  to  every  one  who  reads  a  news¬ 
paper  ;  his  schemes  and  exploits  are  followed  as  Europe  followed 
the  fortunes  of  Prince  Alexander  of  Battenberg  or  the  Dreyfus 
trial.  A  great  “corner,”  for  instance,  is  one  of  the  exciting 
events  of  the  year,  not  merely  to  those  concerned  with  the  stock 
or  species  of  produce  in  which  it  is  attempted,  but  to  the  public 
at  large. 

How  far  is  this  state  of  things  transitory,  due  to  temporary 
causes  arising  out  of  the  swift  material  development  of  the 
United  States  ?  During  the  Civil  War  the  creation  of  a  paper 
currency,  which  rapidly  depreciated,  produced  a  wild  specula¬ 
tion  in  gold,  lasting  for  several  years,  whose  slightest  fluctua¬ 
tions  were  followed  with  keen  interest,  because  in  indicating 
the  value  of  the  paper  currency  they  indicated  the  credit  of 
the  nation,  and  the  view  taken  by  the  financial  community  of 
the  prospects  of  the  war.  The  re-establishment  of  peace  brought 
with  it  a  burst  of  industrial  activity,  specially  directed  to  the 
making  of  new  railroads  and  general  opening  up  of  the  West. 


CHAP.  CVII 


WALL  STREET 


707 


Thus  the  eyes  that  had  been  accustomed  to  watch  Wall  Street 
did  not  cease  to  watch  it,  for  these  new  enterprises  involved  many 
fortunes,  had  drawn  much  capital  from  small  investors,  and 
were  really  of  great  consequence — the  transcontinental  railways 
most  of  all  —  to  the  welfare  of  the  country.  From  time  to  time 
the  work  of  railway  construction  slackens,  when  trade  is  de¬ 
pressed  and  loans  are  less  easily  raised,  but  it  presently  revives. 
In  the  five  years  from  1903  to  1907  inclusive  the  average  num¬ 
ber  of  miles  annually  added  exceeded  6000.  Silver  mines  have 
been  less  profitable  since  the  heavy  fall  in  that  metal :  copper 
mines,  however,  continue  subject  to  rapid  variations,  their 
value  having  greatly  increased  with  the  new  applications  of 
electricity.  The  price  of  United  States  bonds  fluctuates,  in 
ordinary  times,  less  than  does  that  of  the  public  securities  of 
the  great  European  countries.  Times  of  commercial  depression 
are  comparatively  quiet,  yet  even  when  transactions  are  fewer, 
the  interest  of  the  public  in  the  stock  markets  does  not  greatly 
diminish.  Trade  and  manufactures  cover  the  whole  horizon 
of  American  life  far  more  than  they  do  anywhere  in  Europe. 
They  —  I  include  agriculture,  because  it  has  been,  in  America, 
commercialized,  and  become  really  a  branch  of  trade  —  are  the 
main  concern  of  the  country,  to  which  all  others  are  subordinate. 
So  large  a  part  of  the  whole  capital  employed  is  in  the  hands 
of  joint  stock  companies,1  so  easy  a  method  do  these  com¬ 
panies  furnish  by  which  the  smallest  investor  may  take  part  in 
commercial  ventures  and  increase  his  pile,  so  general  is  the 
diffusion  of  information  (of  course  often  incorrect)  regarding 
their  state  and  prospects,  so  vehement  and  pervading  is  the 
passion  for  wealth,  so  seductive  are  the  examples  of  a  few  men 
who  have  realized  stupendous  fortunes  by  clever  or  merely  lucky 
hits  when  there  came  a  sharp  rise  or  fall  in  the  stock  market, 
so  vast,  and  therefore  so  impressive  to  the  imagination,  is  the 
scale  on  which  these  oscillations  take  place,2  that  the  universal 
attention  given  to  stocks  and  shares,  and  the  tendency  to  specu¬ 
lation  among  the  non-financial  classes  which  reveals  itself  from 
time  to  time,  seem  amply  accounted  for  by  permanent  causes, 


1  The  wealth  of  corporations  has  been  estimated  by  high  authorities  at  one- 
fourth  of  the  total  value  of  all  property  in  the  United  States. 

2  The  great  rebound  of  trade  in  1879-83  trebled  within  those  years  the  value 
of  many  railroad  bonds  and  stocks,  and  raised  at  a  still  more  rapid  rate  the 
value  of  lands  in  many  parts  of  the  West. 


708 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


and  therefore  likely  to  prove  normal.  Even  admitting  that 
neither  such  stimulations  as  were  present  during  the  war  period 
nor  those  that  belonged  to  the  era  of  inflated  prosperity  which 
followed  are  likely  to  recur,  it  must  be  observed  that  habits 
formed  under  transitory  conditions  do  not  always  pass  away 
with  those  conditions,  but  may  become  a  permanent  and,  so  to 
speak,  hereditary  element  in  national  life. 

So  far  as  politics  are  concerned,  I  do  not  know  that  Wall 
Street  does  any  harm.  There  is  hardly  any  speculation  in 
foreign  securities,  because  capital  finds  ample  employment  in 
domestic  undertakings ;  and  the  United  States  are  so  little  likely 
to  be  involved  in  foreign  complications  that  neither  the  action 
of  European  powers  nor  that  of  the  Federal  government  bears 
directly  enough  upon  the  stock  markets  to  bring  politics  into 
stock  or  stocks  into  politics.1  Hence  one  source  of  evil  which 
poisons  public  life  in  Europe,  and  is  believed  to  have  proved 
specially  pernicious  in  France  —  the  influence  of  financial  specu¬ 
lators  or  holders  of  foreign  bonds  upon  the  foreign  policy  of 
a  government  —  is  wholly  absent.  An  American  Secretary  of 
State,  supposing  him  base  enough  to  use  his  official  knowledge 
for  stock-jobbing  operations,  would  have  little  advantage  over 
the  meanest  broker  in  Wall  Street.2  Even  as  regards  domestic 
politics,  the  division  of  power  between  Congress  and  the  State 
legislatures  reduces  the  power  of  the  former  over  industrial 
undertakings,  and  leaves  comparatively  few  occasions  on  which 
the  action  of  the  Federal  government  tends  to  affect  the  market 
for  most  kinds  of  stocks,  though  of  course  changes  in  legislation 
regarding  railroads  and  corporations  generally,  as  well  as  in 
matters  relating  to  the  public  debt  and  the  currency,  affect 
by  sympathy  every  part  of  the  machinery  of'  commerce.  The 
shares  of  railroad  companies  owning  land  grants  used  to  be 
depressed  and  raised  by  the  greater  or  slighter  prospects  of 
legislative  interference ;  but  this  point  of  contact  between 
speculators  and  politicians,  which,  like  the  meeting-point  of 

1  Of  course  the  prospects  of  war  or  peace  in  Europe  do  sensibly  affect  the 
American  produce  markets,  and  therefore  the  railroads,  and  indeed  all  great 
commercial  undertakings.  But  these  prospects  are  as  much  outside  the  prov¬ 
ince  of  the  American  statesman  as  the  drought  which  affects  the  coming  crop 
or  the  blizzard  that  stops  the  earnings  of  a  railway. 

2  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  by  his  control  of  the  public  debt,  has  no 
doubt  means  of  affecting  the  markets  ;  but  I  have  never  heard  any  charge  of 
improper  conduct  in  such  matters  on  the  part  of  any  one  connected  with  the 
Treasury  Department. 


CHAP.  CVII 


WALL  STREET 


709 


currents  in  the  sea,  was  marked  by  a  good  deal  of  rough  and 
turbid  water,  has  now  ceased  to  exist,  there  being  no  more  rail¬ 
road  lands  which  Congress  has  to  deal  withs 

The  more  serious  question  remains :  How  does  Wall  Street 
tell  on  the  character  of  the  people  ?  They  are  naturally  inclined 
to  be  speculative.  The  pursuit  of  wealth  is  nowhere  so  eager 
as  in  America,  the  opportunities  for  acquiring  it  are  nowhere 
so  numerous.  Nowhere  is  one  equally  impressed  by  the  prog¬ 
ress  which  the  science  and  arts  of  gain  —  I  do  not  mean  the 
arts  that  add  to  the  world’s  wealth,  but  those  by  which  individ¬ 
uals  appropriate  an  exceptionally  large  share  of  it  —  make  from 
year  to  year.  The  materials  with  which  the  investor  or  the 
speculator  has  to  work  may  receive  no  sensible  addition ;  but 
the  constant  application  of  thousands  of  keen  intellects,  spurred 
by  sharp  desire,  involves  new  combinations  out  of  these  old  mate¬ 
rials,  devises  new  methods  and  contrivances  apt  for  a  bold  and 
skilful  hand,  just  as  electricians  go  on  perfecting  the  machinery 
of  the  telegraph,  just  as  the  accumulated  labours  of  scholars 
present  us  with  always  more  trustworthy  texts  of  the  classical 
writers  and  more  precise  rules  of  Greek  and  Latin  syntax. 
Under  these  new  methods  of  business,  speculation,  though  it 
seems  to  become  more  of  a  science,  does  not  become  less  specula¬ 
tive.  People  seem  to  buy  and  sell  on  even  slighter  indications 
than  in  Paris  or  London.  The  processes  of  “ bulling”  and  “ bear¬ 
ing”  are  more  constant  and  more  skilfully  applied.  The  whole 
theory  and  practice  of  “margins”  has  been  more  completely 
worked  out.  The  stock  market  is  worked  in  conjunction  with 
the  stock  markets  of  Europe,  and  the  fact  that  the  stock 
exchange  in  London  opens  four  hours  earlier  than  that  of  New 
York  enables  the  former  to  be  used  so  as  to  affect  the  latter. 
However,  it  is  of  less  consequence  for  our  present  purpose  to 
dwell  on  the  proficiency  of  the  professional  operator  than  to 
note  the  prevalence  of  the  habit  of  speculation :  it  is  not 
intensity  so  much  as  extension  that  affects  an  estimate  of  the 
people  at  large. 

Except  in  New  York,  and  perhaps  in  Chicago,  which  is  more 
and  more  coming  to  reproduce  and  surpass  the  characteristics 
of  New  York,  Americans  bet  less  upon  horse-races  than  the 
English  do.  Horse-races  are,  indeed,  far  less  common,  though 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  fuss  made  about  trotting-matches.  How¬ 
ever,  much  money  changes  hands,  especially  in  Eastern  cities, 


710 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


over  yacht-races,  and  plenty  everywhere  over  elections.1  The 
purchase  and  sale  of  “ produce  futures,”  i.e.  of  cotton,  wheat, 
maize,  bacon,  lard,  and  other  staples  not  yet  in  existence  but  to 
be  delivered  at  some  distant  day,  has  reached  an  enormous 
development.2  The  Produce  Exchange  in  New  York  and  the 
Wheat  Pit  in  Chicago  are  among  the  most  remarkable  sights  of 
the  country.  There  is,  even  in  the  Eastern  cities,  where  the 
value  of  land  might  be  thought  to  have  become  stable,  a  real 
estate  market  in  which  land  and  houses  are  dealt  in  as  matter 
for  pure  speculation,  with  no  intention  of  holding  except  for  a 
rise  within  the  next  few  hours  or  days ;  while  in  the  new  West 
the  price  of  lands,  especially  near  cities,  undergoes  fluctuations 
greater  than  those  of  the  most  unstable  stocks  in  the  London 
market.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  pre-existing  ten¬ 
dency  to  encounter  risks  and  “back  one’s  opinion,”  inborn  in  the 
Americans,  and  fostered  by  the  circumstances  of  their  country, 
is  further  stimulated  by  the  existence  of  so  vast  a  number  of 
joint-stock  enterprises,  and  by  the  facilities  they  offer  to  the 
smallest  capitalists.  Similar  facilities  exist  in  the  Old  World ; 
but  few  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Old  World  have  yet  learned  how 
to  use  and  abuse  them.  The  Americans,  quick  at  everything, 
have  learned  long  ago.  The  habit  of  speculation  is  now  a  part 
of  their  character,  and  it  increases  that  constitutional  excitability 
and  high  nervous  tension  of  which  they  are  proud. 

Some  may  think  that  when  the  country  fills  up  and  settles 
down,  and  finds  itself  altogether  under  conditions  more  nearly 
resembling  those  of  the  Old  World,  these  peculiarities  will  fade 
away.  I  doubt  it.  They  seem  to  have  already  passed  into  the 
national  fibre. 

1  The  mischief  has  been  thought  sufficient  to  be  specially  checked  by  the 
constitutions  or  statutes  of  some  States;  and  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of 
legislation  against  betting  on  races. 

2  It  is  stated  that  the  Cotton  Exchange  sells  in  each  year  five  times  the 
value  of  the  cotton  crop,  and  that  the  Petroleum  Exchange  has  sometimes  sold 
fifty  times  the  amount  of  that  year’s  yield. 

I  have  referred  in  a  note  to  a  preceding  chapter  to  some  attempts  to  check 
by  legislation  this  form  of  speculation  (p.  598,  ante). 


CHAPTER  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 

Among  the  universities  of  America  there  is  none  which  has 
sprung  up  of  itself  like  Bologna  or  Paris  or  El  Azhar  or  Oxford, 
none  founded  by  an  Emperor  like  Prague,  or  by  a  Pope  like 
Glasgow.  All  have  been  the  creatures  of  private  munificence  * 
or  denominational  zeal  or  State  action.  Their  history  is  short 
indeed  compared  with  that  of  the  universities  of  Europe.  Yet 
it  is  full  of  interest,  for  it  shows  a  steady  growth,  it  records 
many  experiments,  it  gives  valuable  data  for  comparing  the 
educational  results  of  diverse  systems. 

When  the  first  English  colonists  went  to  America,  the  large 
and  liberal  mediaeval  conception  of  a  university,  as  a  place 
where  graduates  might  teach  freely  and  students  live  freely, 
was  waxing  feeble  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The  instruction 
was  given  chiefly  by  the  colleges,  which  had  already  become, 
what  they  long  continued,  organisms  so  strong  as  collectively 
to  eclipse  the  university  they  had  been  meant  to  aid.  Accord¬ 
ingly  when  places  of  superior  instruction  began  to  grow  up  in 
the  colonies,  it  was  on  the  model  not  of  an  English  university 
but  of  an  English  college  that  they  were  created.  The  glory 
of  founding  the  first  place  of  learning  in  the  English  parts  of 
America  belongs  to  a  Puritan  minister  and  graduate  of  Cam¬ 
bridge,  John  Harvard  of  Emmanuel  College,1  who,  dying  in 
1638,  eighteen  years  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
gave  half  his  property  for  the  establishment  of  a  college  in 
the  town  of  Cambridge,  three  miles  from  Boston,  which,  origi¬ 
nally  organized  on  the  plan  of  Emmanuel  College,  and  at  once 
taken  under  the  protection  of  the  infant  commonwealth  of 


1  Emmanuel  was  a  college  then  much  frequented  by  the  Puritans.  Of  the 
English  graduates  who  emigrated  to  New  England  between  1620  and  1647, 
nearly  one  hundred  in  number,  three-fourths  came  from  the  University  of 
Cambridge. 


711 


712 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Massachusetts,  has  now  grown  into  the  most  famous  university 
on  the  North  American  continent.1 

The  second  foundation  was  due  to  the  Colonial  Assembly  of 
Virginia.  So  early  as  1619,  twelve  years  after  the  first  settle¬ 
ment  at  Jamestown,  the  Virginia  Company  in  England  voted 
ten  thousand  acres  of  land  in  the  colony  for  the  establishment 
of  a  seminary  of  learning,  and  a  site  was  in  1624  actually  set 
apart,  on  an  island  in  the  Susquehanna  River,  for  the  “  Founcl- 
in  ge  and  Maintenance  of  a  University  and  such  schools  in  Vir¬ 
ginia  as  shall  there  be  erected,  and  shall  be  called  Academia 
Virginiensis  et  Oxoniensis.”  This  scheme  was  never  carried 
out.  But  in  1693  the  Virginians  obtained  a  grant  of  land  and 
money  from  the  home  government  for  the  erection  of  a  college, 
which  received  the  name  of  the  College  of  William  and  Alary.2 
The  third  foundation  was  Yale  College,  established  in  Connect¬ 
icut  (first  at  Saybrook,  then  at  New  Haven)  in  1700 ;  the 
fourth  Princeton,  in  New  Jersey,  in  1746.  None  of  these 
received  the  title  of  university:  Harvard  is  called  a  “  school  or 
colledge ”  ;  Yale  used  the  name  “collegiate  school ”  for  seventeen 
years.  “We  on  purpose  gave  your  academy  as  low  a  name 
as  we  could  that  it  might  the  better  stand  the  wind  and  weather  ” 
was  the  reason  assigned.  Other  academies  or  colleges  in  New 
England  and  the  Middle  States  followed :  such  as  that  which 
is  now  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  in  1749 ;  King’s,  now 


1  In  1636  the  General  Court  of  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  agreed  “to 
give  Four  Hundred  Pounds  towards  a  school  or  college,  whereof  Two  Hundred 
Pounds  shall  be  paid  the  next  year,  and  Two  Hundred  Pounds  when  the  work 
is  finished,  and  the  next  Court  to  appoint  where  and  what  building.”  In  1637 
the  General  Court  appointed  a  Commission  of  twelve  “to  take  order  for  a  col¬ 
lege  at  Newtown.”  The  name  Newtown  was  presently  changed  to  Cambridge. 
John  Harvard’s  bequest  being  worth  more  than  twice  the  £400  voted,  the  name 
of  Harvard  College  was  given  to  the  institution  ;  and  in  1642  a  statute  was 
passed  for  the  ordering  of  the  same..  Teaching  began  in  1650. 

2  The  Virginians  had  worked  at  this  project  for  more  than  thirty  years 
before  they  got  their  charter  and  grant.  “When  William  and  Mary  had  agreed 
to  allow  £2000  out  of  the  quit  rents  of  Virginia  towards  building  the  college, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Blair  went  to  Seymour,  the  attorney-general,  with  the  royal 
command  to  issue  a  charter.  Seymour  demurred.  The  country  was  then  en¬ 
gaged  in  war,  and  could  ill  afford  to  plant  a  college  in  Virginia.  Mr.  Blair 
urged  that  the  institution  was  to  prepare  young  men  to  become  ministers  of 
the  gospel.  Virginians,  he  said,  had  souls  to  be  saved  as  w^ell  as  their  English 
countrymen.  ‘Souls!’  said  Seymour.  ‘  Damn  your  souls  !  Make  tobacco  ! 

—  The  College  of  William  and  Mary,  by  Dr.  H.  B.  Adams.  This  oldest  of 
Southern  colleges  was  destroyed  in  the  Civil  War  [1862]  (it  has  recently  received 
a  national  grant  of  $64,000  as  compensation),  but  was  restored,  and  has  been 
re-endowed  by  the  legislature  of  Virginia  in  1888. 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


713 


Columbia  College  in  New  York,  in  1754 ;  and  Rhode  Island 
College  (now  Brown  University),  in  1764 ;  and  the  habit  of 
granting  degrees  grew  up  naturally  and  almost  imperceptibly. 
A  new  departure  is  marked  after  the  Revolution  by  the  establish¬ 
ment,  at  the  instance  of  Jefferson,  of  the  University  of  Virginia, 
whose  large  and  liberal  lines  gave  it  more  resemblance  to  the 
universities  of  the  European  continent  than  to  the  then 
educationally  narrow  and  socially  domestic  colleges  of 
England. 

At  present  most  of  the  American  universities  are  referable 
to  one  of  two  types,  which  may  be  described  as  the  older  and 
the  newer,  or  the  Private  and  the  Public  type.  By  the  Old  or 
Private  type  I  denote  a  college  on  the  model  of  a  college  in 
Oxford  or  Cambridge,  with  a  head  called  the  President,  and  a 
number  of  teachers,  now  generally  called  professors ;  a  body  of 
governors  or  trustees  in  whom  the  property  and  general  control 
of  the  institution  is  vested ;  a  prescribed  cburse  of  instruction 
which  all  students  are  expected  to  follow ;  buildings,  usually 
called  dormitories,  provided  for  the  lodging  of  the  students, 
and  a  more  or  less  strict,  but  always  pretty  effective,  discipline 
enforced  by  the  teaching  staff.  Such  a  college  is  usually  of 
private  foundation,  and  is  almost  always  connected  with  some 
religious  denomination. 

Under  the  term  New  or  Public  type  I  include  universities 
established,  endowed,  and  governed  by  a  State,  usually  through 
a  body  of  persons  called  Regents.  In  such  a  university  there 
commonly  exists  considerable  freedom  of  choice  among  various 
courses  of  study.  The  students,  or  at  least  the  majority  of 
them,  reside  where  they  please  in  the  city,  and  are  subject  to 
very  little  discipline.  There  are  seldom  or  never  denomina¬ 
tional  affiliations,  women  are  admitted,  and  very  low  charges 
are  made  for  instruction. 

There  are,  however,  institutions  which  it  is  hard  to  refer  to 
one  or  other  type.  Some  of  these  began  as  private  foundations, 
with  a  collegiate  and  quasi-domestic  character,  but  have  now 
developed  into  true  universities,  generally  resembling  those  of 
Germany  or  Scotland.  Harvard  in  Massachusetts  and  Yale  in 
Connecticut  are  instances.  Others  have  been  founded  by  pri¬ 
vate  persons,  but  as  fully  equipped  universities,  and  wholly 
undenominational.  Cornell  at  Ithaca  in  Western  New  York 
and  the  1  University  of  Chicago  are  instances ;  Johns  Hopkins 


714 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


in  Baltimore  is  another  of  a  different  order.  Some  have  been 
founded  by  public  authority,  yet  have  been  practically  left  to 
be  controlled  by  a  body  of  self-renewing  trustees.  Columbia 
College  in  New  York  City  is  an  instance.  Still  if  we  were  to  run 
through  a  list  of  the  universities  and  colleges  in  the  United 
States,  we  should  find  that  the  great  majority  were  either  strictly 
private  foundations  governed  by  trustees,  or  wholly  public  foun¬ 
dations  governed  by  the  State.  That  is  to  say,  the  two  most 
familiar  English  types,  viz.  the  University,  which  though  a  public 
institution  is  yet  little  interfered  with  by  the  State,  which  is 
deemed  to  be  composed  of  its  graduates  and  students,  and 
whose  self-government  consists  in  its  being  governed  by  the 
graduates,  and  the  College,  which  is  a  private  corporation, 
consisting  of  a  head,  fellows,  and  scholars,  and  governed  by  the 
head  and  fellows — neither  of  them  appear  in  modern  America.1 
On  the  other  hand,  the  American  university  of  the  Public  type 
differs  from  the  universities  of  Germany  in  being  placed  under 
a  State  Board,  not  under  a  Minister.  Neither  in  Germany  nor 
in  Scotland  do  we  find  anything  corresponding  to  the  American 
university  or  college  of  the  Private  type,  for  in  neither  of  these 
countries  is  a  university  governed  by  a  body  of  self-renewing 
trustees.2 

It  is  impossible  within  the  limits  of  a  chapter  to  do  more 
than  state  a  few  of  the  more  salient  characteristics  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  universities.  I  shall  endeavour  to  present  these  characteris¬ 
tics  in  the  fewest  possible  words,  and  for  the  sake  of  clearness 
shall  group  what  I  have  to  say  under  separate  heads. 

Statistics.  —  The  United  States  Education  Bureau  received 
in  1908-9  reports  from  606  universities  and  colleges  and  tech¬ 
nological  schools,  i.e.  institutions  granting  degrees  and  profess¬ 
ing  to  give  an  instruction,  higher  than  that  of  schools,  in  the 
liberal  arts.  Of  these  144  were  for  men  only  and  349  for  both 
men  and  women,  while  113  were  for  women  only.  The  total 
number  of  teachers  was  26,369,  20,961  men  and  2722  women 
teachers,  teaching  in  the  493  institutions  for  men  only  and 


1  As  respects  government  the  American  University  more  resembles  the  newer 
type  of  University  recently  created  in  some  great  cities,  which  is  governed  by  a 
Council  in  which  various  elements  are  represented  and,  for  some  educational 
purposes,  by  its  Faculty. 

2  The  Scotch  universities  (since  the  Act  of  1858),  under  their  University 
Courts,  present,  however,  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  American  system, 
inasmuch  as  the  governing  body  is  in  these  institutions  not  the  teaching  body. 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


715 


in  those  for  men  and  women,  while  in  the  institutions  for  women 
only  the  teachers  were  2686,  viz.  2027  women  and  659  men.1 

The  total  number  of  students  in  the  undergraduate  and  graduate 
departments  of  the  493  institutions  was  161,808,  viz.  119,480 
men  and  42,328  women,  while  in  the  113  colleges  for  women  only 
there  were  20,679  students.  These  numbers  do  not  include  those 
in  the  preparatory  departments.  The  attendance  has  risen 
rapidly  :  it  is  double  that  of  eighteen  years  ago.  Besides  these 
there  are  returned  — 

Schools  of  theology  162  with  1350  teachers  10,218  students 

“  law  109  “  1343  “  18,553 

“  medicine2  144  “  7957  “  22,158 

dentistry  and  pharmacy  2411  “  12,177  “ 

The  total  number  of  degrees  conferred  is  returned  as  16,733 
on  men  and  7909  on  women. 

General  Character  of  the  Universities  and  Colleges.  —  Out  of 
this  enormous  total  of  degree-granting  bodies  very  few  answer 
to  the  modern  conception  of  a  university.  If  we  define  a  uni¬ 
versity  as  a  place  where  the  teaching  that  puts  a  man  abreast  of 
the  fullest  and  most  exact  knowledge  of  the  time  is  given  in  a 
range  of  subjects  covering  all  the  great  departments  of  intel¬ 
lectual  life,  not  more  than  fifteen  and  possibly  only  ten  or 
twelve  of  the  American  institutions  would  fall  within  the  defini¬ 
tion.  Of  these  two-thirds  are  to  be  found  in  the  Atlantic  States. 
Next  below  them  come  some  forty  or  more  foundations  which 
are  scarcely  entitled  to  the  name  of  university  in  this  modern 
sense,  some  few  because  their  range  of  instruction  is  still  limited 
to  the  traditional  literary  and  scientific  course  such  as  it  stood 
fifty  years  ago/  others  because,  while  professing  to  teach  a 
great  variety  of  subjects,  they  teach  them  in  an  imperfect  way, 
having  neither  a  sufficiently  large  staff  of  highly  trained  pro¬ 
fessors,  nor  an  adequate  provision  of  laboratories,  libraries,  and 
other  external  appliances.  The  older  New  England  colleges  are 
good  types  of  the  former  group.  Their  instruction  is  sound 
and  thorough,  well  calculated  to  fit  a  man  for  the  professions 

1  These  figures  are  to  some  extent  imperfect,  because  a  few  institutions  omit 
to  send  returns,  and  cannot  be  compelled  to  do  so,  the  Federal  government  hav¬ 
ing  no  authority  in  the  matter.  The  number  of  degree-giving  bodies,  teachers, 
and  students  is  therefore  somewhat  larger  than  is  here  stated,  but  how  much 
larger  it  is  not  easy  to  ascertain. 

2  Of  these  students  805  were  women. 


716 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


of  law  or  divinity,  but  it  omits  some  branches  of  learning  and 
science  which  have  grown  to  importance  within  the  last  fifty 
years.  There  are  also  a  few  Western  colleges  worthy  to  be 
placed  in  the  same  category.  Most  of  the  Western  State 
universities  belong  to  the  other  group  of  this  second  class, 
that  of  institutions  which  aim  at  covering  more  ground  than 
they  are  as  yet  able  to  cover.  They  have  an  ambitious  pro¬ 
gramme  ;  but  neither  the  state  of  preparation  of  their 
students,  nor  the  strength  of  the  teaching  staff,  enables 
them  to  do  justice  to  the  promise  which  the  programme 
holds  out.  They  are  true  universities  rather  in  aspiration 
than  in  fact. 

Below  these  again  there  is  a  third  and  much  larger  class  of 
colleges,  three  hundred  or  more,  which  are  for  most  intents 
and  purposes  schools.  They  differ  from  the  gymnasia  of  Ger¬ 
many,  the  lycees  of  France,  the  grammar  schools  of  England 
and  high  schools  of  Scotland,  not  only  in  the  fact  that  they  give 
degrees  to  those  who  have  satisfactorily  passed  through  their 
prescribed  course  or  courses,  but  in  permitting  greater  personal 
freedom  to  the  students  than  boys  would  be  allowed  in  those 
countries.  They  are  universities  or  colleges  as  respects  some 
of  their  arrangements,  but  schools  in  respect  of  the  educational 
results  attained.  This  large  group  may  be  further  divided  into 
two  sub-classes,  distinguished  from  one  another  partly  by  their 
revenues,  partly  by  the  character  of  the  population  they  serve, 
partly  by  the  personal  gifts  of  the  president  and  teachers. 
Some  seventy  or  eighty,  though  comparatively  small,  are  strong 
by  the  zeal  and  capacity  of  their  staff,  and  while  not  attempt¬ 
ing  to  teach  everything,  teach  the  subjects  which  they  do  under¬ 
take  with  increasing  thoroughness.  The  remainder  would  do 
better  to  renounce  the  privilege  of  granting  degrees  and  be  con¬ 
tent  to  do  school  work  according  to  school  methods.  The  West 
and  South  are  covered  with  these  small  colleges.  In  Illinois  I 
find  31  named  in  the  Report  of  the  United  States  Education 
Bureau,  in  Tennessee  27.  Oklahoma  has  already  six,  with 
1210  students,  but  all  are  still  in  an  early  stage  of  development. 
In  Ohio  out  of  35,  or  possibly  more,  scarce  any  deserves  to  be 
called  a  university.  The  number  of  teachers  and  students  is 
sometimes  large,  but  not  very  many  are  in  the  collegiate  and 
far  fewer  in  the  graduate  departments.  Most  of  the  students 
are  to  be  found  in  the  preparatory  department. 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


717 


The  total  number  of  students  in  Harvard  University  was,  in 
1908-9,  3918,  in  Yale  3434,  in  Columbia  University,  New  York, 
4750,  and  in  four  great  State  Universities  as  follows :  Michigan 
4720,  Illinois  4633,  Wisconsin  4521,  California  3553.  These 
numbers,  which  except  in  the  first  case  include  women,  show 
a  great  increase  during  the  last  twenty  years. 

Revenues.  —  Nearly  all,  if  not  all,  of  the  degree-granting 
bodies  are  endowed,  the  great  majority  by  private  founders, 
but  a  good  many  also  by  grants  of  land  made  by  the  State  in 
which  they  stand,  partly  out  of  lands  set  apart  for  educational 
purposes  by  the  Federal  government.  In  most  cases  the  lands 
have  been  sold  and  the  proceeds  invested.  Many  of  the  State 
universities  of  the  West  receive  a  grant  from  the  State  treas¬ 
ury,  voted  annually  or  biennially  by  the  legislature,  but  a 
preferable  plan,  adopted  by  several  States,  is  to  enact  a  perma¬ 
nent  statute  giving  annually  to  the  university  some  fraction  of  a 
cent,  or  a  mill  (yoV o  of  a  dollar)  out  of  every  dollar  of  the  total 
valuation  of  the  State.  This  acts  automatically,  increasing 
the  grant  as  the  resources  of  the  State  increase.  The  greater 
universities  are  constantly  being  enriched  by  the  gifts  of  private 
individuals,  often  their  own  graduates;  but  the  complaint  is 
heard  that  these  gifts  are  too  frequently  appropriated  to  some 
specific  purpose,  instead  of  being  added  to  the  general  funds 
of  the  university.  Harvard,  Yale,  Columbia,  Princeton,  Cornell, 
and  Johns  Hopkins  are  now  all  of  them  wealthy  foundations, 
and  the  stream  of  munificence  swells  daily.1  Before  long 
there  will  be  universities  in  America  with  resources  far  sur¬ 
passing  those  of  any  Scottish  university,  and  exceeding  even 
the  collective  income  of  the  university  and  all  the  colleges  in 
Oxford  or  in  Cambridge.  In  some  States  the  real  property  and 
funds  of  universities  are  exempt  from  taxation. 

Government.  —  As  already  remarked,  no  American  university 
or  college  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  governed  either  by  its  graduates 

1  Mr.  Johns  Hopkins  gave  £700,000  to  the  university  he  founded  at  Balti¬ 
more.  In  1906-7  the  State  University  of  Wisconsin  received  from  its  State 
treasury  $624,456,  that  of  California  $446,040,  that  of  Illinois  $350,000.  The 
legislature  of  California  has  since  further  raised  its  grant.  Some  Universities, 
such  as  Columbia  (in  New  York),  Harvard,  and  Chicago,  have  very  large 
revenues  derived  from  private  endowments.  A  magnificent  endowment  was 
given  by  Mr.  Leland  Stanford,  Senator  for  California,  to  found  a  new  university 
at  Palo  Alto  in  that  State,  and  still  more  recently  Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller 
bestowed  immense  sums  on  the  new  university  (opened  in  1891)  he  established 
in  Chicago. 


718 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


alone,  like  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  or  by  its  teaching  staff 
alone,  like  the  Scotch  universities  before  the  Act  of  1858. 
The  State  universities  are  usually  controlled  and  managed  by 
a  board,  generally  called  the  Regents,  sometimes  elected  by 
the  people  of  the  State,  sometimes  appointed  by  the  Governor 
or  the  legislature.  There  are  States  with  an  enlightened  pop¬ 
ulation,  or  in  which  an  able  president  has  been  able  to  guide 
and  influence  the  Regents  or  the  legislature,  in  which  this  plan 
has  worked  excellently,  securing  liberal  appropriations,  and 
interesting  the  commonwealth  in  the  welfare  of  the  highest 
organ  of  its  intellectual  life.  There  have  also  been  States  in 
which  the  haste  or  unwisdom  of  the  legislature  seemed  for  a 
time  to  be  cramping  the  growth  of  the  university.  On  the 
whole  the  Regents  of  late  years  have  generally  ruled  well 
and  the  States  have  shown  more  and  more  interest  in 
university  work,  though  too  apt  to  bestow  their  liberality 
almost  wholly  on  the  more  directly  practical  branches  of  its 
work. 

All  other  universities  and  colleges  are  governed  by  boards 
of  governors  or  trustees,  sometimes  allowed  to  renew  themselves 
by  co-optation,  sometimes  nominated  by  a  religious  denomina¬ 
tion  or  other  external  authority.1  The  president  of  the  institu¬ 
tion  is  often,  but  not  always,  an  ex  officio  member  of  this  board, 
to  which  the  management  of  property  and  financial  interests 
belongs,  while  internal  discipline  and  educational  arrangements 
are  usually  left  to  the  academic  staff.  A  visitor  from  Europe 
is  struck  by  the  prominence  of  the  president  in  an  American 
university  or  college,  and  the  almost  monarchical  position  which 
he  sometimes  occupies  towards  the  professors  as  well  as  towards 
the  students.  More  authority  is  vested  in  him,  more  turns 
upon  his  individual  talents  and  character,  than  in  the  uni¬ 
versities  of  Europe.  Neither  the  German  Pro-Rector, 
nor  the  Vice-Chancellor  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  nor 
the  Principal  in  a  Scottish  university,  nor  the  Provost  of 
Trinity  College  in  Dublin,  nor  the  head  in  one  of  the 
colleges  in  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  is  anything  like  so  impor- 

1  In  Harvard  the  government  is  vested  in  a  self-renewing  body  of  seven 
persons  called  the  Corporation,  or  technically,  the  President  and  Fellows  of 
Harvard  College,  who  have  the  charge  of  the  property  ;  and  in  a  Board  of 
Overseers,  appointed  formerly  by  the  legislature,  now  by  the  graduates,  five 
each  year  to  serve  for  six  years,  with  a  general  supervision  of  the  educational 
system,  educational  details  and  discipline  being  left  to  the  Faculty. 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


719 


tant  a  personage.1  In  this,  as  in  not  a  few  other  respects, 
America  is  less  republican  than  England. 

Of  late  years  there  have  been  active  movements  to  secure 
the  representation  of  the  graduates  of  each  university  or  col¬ 
lege  upon  its  governing  body ;  and  it  now  frequently  happens 
that  some  of  the  trustees  are  elected  by  the  alumni.  Good 
results  follow,  because  the  alumni  are  often  disposed  to  elect 
men  younger  and  more  representative  of  the  whole  body  than 
might  be  the  persons  whom  the  existing  trustees  would  co-opt. 

The  Teaching  Staff.  —  The  Faculty,  as  it  is  usually  called, 
varies  in  numbers  and  efficiency  according  to  the  popularity 
of  the  university  or  college  and  its  financial  resources.  The 
largest  staff  mentioned  in  the  tables  of  the  Bureau  of  Education 
is  that  of  Harvard,  with  620  professors,  instructors,  and  lec¬ 
turers;  while  Yale  has  402,  Columbia  has  465,  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania  454,  Princeton  161,  the  University  of  Michigan 
288,  Johns  Hopkins  189.  Cornell  returns  578,  but  apparently 
not  all  of  these  are  constantly  occupied  in  teaching. 

In  the  colleges  of  the  West  and  North-west  the  average  num¬ 
ber  of  teachers  is  small,  say  twelve  to  fifteen  in  the  collegiate, 
five  to  ten  in  the  preparatory  department.  It  is  larger  in  the 
State  universities,  but  in  some  few  of  the  Southern  and  ruder 
Western  States  sinks  to  five  or  six  in  all,  each  of  them  taking 
two  or  three  subjects.  I  remember  to  have  met  in  the  Far  West 
a  college  president  —  I  will  cal]  him  Mr.  Johnson  —  who  gave 
me  a  long  account  of  his  young  university,  established  by  public 
authority,  and  receiving  ‘some  small  grant  from  the  legislature. 
He  was  an  active,  sanguine  man,  and  in  dilating  on  his  plans 
frequently  referred  to  “the  Faculty”  as  doing  this  or  contem¬ 
plating  that.  At  last  I  asked  of  how  many  professors  the 
Faculty  at  present  consisted.  “  Well,”  he  answered,  “just  at 
present  the  Faculty  is  below  its  full  strength,  but  it  will  soon 
be  more  numerous.”  “And  at  present?”  I  enquired.  “At 
present  it  consists  of  Mrs.  Johnson  and  myself.” 


1  The  president  of  a  college  was  formerly  usually,  and  in  denominational 
colleges  almost  invariably,  a  clergyman,  and  generally  lectured  on  mental 
and  moral  philosophy.  (When  a  layman  was  chosen  at  Harvard  in  1828  the 
clergy  thought  it  an  encroachment.)  He  is  to-day  much  less  likely  to  be  in 
orders  even  in  a  denominational  college.  However,  of  the  35  Ohio  colleges 
about  20  had  lately  clerical  presidents.  The  greater  universities  of  the  East, 
and  the  Western  State  universities  are  now  usually  ruled  by  laymen.  Even 
some  of  the  denominational  colleges  have  no  longer  clerical  heads. 


720 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


The  salaries  paid  to  professors,  although  tending  to  rise, 
are  small  compared  with  the  general  wealth  of  the  country 
and  the  cost  of  living.  The  highest  known  to  me  are  those  in 
Columbia  College,  a  few  of  which  exceed  $5000  a  year,  and 
in  the  University  of  Chicago,  which  pays  some  of  $7000. 
Even  in  Yale,  Johns  Hopkins,  and  Cornell,  most  fall  below 
$4000.  A  very  few  presidents  receive  $10,000,  but  over  the 
country  generally  I  should  guess  that  a  president  rarely  re¬ 
ceives  $4000,  often  only  $3000  or  $2000,  and  the  professors  less 
in  proportion.  Under  these  conditions  it  may  be  found  sur¬ 
prising  that  so  many  able  men  are  to  be  found  on  the  teaching 
staff  of  not  a  few  colleges  as  well  as  universities,  and  that  in 
the  greater  universities  there  are  also  many  who  have  trained 
themselves  by  a  long  and  expensive  education  in  Europe  for 
their  work.  The  reason  is  to  be  found  partly  in  the  fondness 
for  science  and  learning  which  has  grown  apace  in  America,  and 
which  makes  men  of  intellectual  tastes  prefer  a  life  of  letters 
with  poverty  to  success  in  business  or  at  the  bar ;  partly,  as 
regards  the  smaller  Western  colleges,  to  religious  motives,  these 
colleges  being  largely  officered  by  the  clergy  of  the  denomination 
they  belong  to,  especially  by  those  who  love  study,  or  find  their 
talents  better  suited  to  the  class-room  than  to  the  pulpit. 

The  professors  seem  to  be  always  among  the  social  aristocracy 
of  the  city  in  which  they  live,  though  usually  unable,  from  the 
smallness  of  their  incomes,  to  enjoy  social  life  as  the  correspond¬ 
ing  class  does  in  Scotland  or  even  in  England.  The  position 
of  president  is  often  one  of  high  honour  and  wide  influence. 

The  Students.  —  It  is  the  glory  of  the  American  universities, 
as  of  those  of  Scotland  and  Germany,  to  be  freely  accessible  to 
all  classes  of  the  people.  In  the  Eastern  States  a  comparatively 
small  yet  an  increasing  number  have  been  the  sons  of  working 
men,  because  parents  can  rarely  bear  the  expense  of  a  university 
course,  or  dispense  with  a  boy’s  earnings  after  he  reaches  four¬ 
teen.  But  even  in  the  East  a  good  many  now  come  from  strait¬ 
ened  homes,  receiving  assistance  from  some  richer  neighbour 
or  from  charitable  funds  belonging  to  the  college  at  which  they 
may  present  themselves  ;  while  some,  in  days  when  the  standard 
of  instruction  was  lowrer,  and  women  were  less  generally  em¬ 
ployed  as  teachers,  used  to  teach  district  schools  for  three  months 
in  winter.  In  the  West,  where  there  is  little  distinction  of  classes 
though  great  disparity  of  wealth,  the  State  Universities  make  a 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


721 


small  or  possibly  no  charge,  and  some  other  institutions  either 
require  a  merely  nominal  fee,  or  are  ready  to  receive  without 
charge  a  promising  student.  Thus  the  only  difficulty  in  a  young 
man’s  way  is  that  of  supporting  himself  during  his  college  course  : 
and  this  he  frequently  does  by  earning  during  one  half  the 
year  what  keeps  him  during  the  other  half.  Often  he  earns 
it  by  teaching  school :  —  many  of  the  eminent  men,  including 
several  Presidents  of  the  United  States,  from  1840  to  1890 
thus  supported  themselves  in  some  part  of  their  earlier  careers. 
Sometimes  he  works  at  a  trade,  as  many  a  student  has  done  in 
Scotland ;  and,  as  in  Scotland,  he  is  all  the  more  respected  by 
his  class-mates  for  it.  The  instruction  which  he  gets  in  the 
humbler  among  these  Western  colleges  may  not  carry  him  very 
far,  but  it  opens  a  door  through  which  men  of  real  power  can  pass 
into  the  professions,  or  even  into  the  domain  of  learning  and 
scientific  research.  In  no  country  are  the  higher  kinds  of 
teaching  more  cheap  or  more  accessible.  There  is  a  growing 
tendency  for  well-to-do  parents  to  send  their  sons  to  one  of  the 
greater  universities  irrespective  of  the  profession  they  con¬ 
template  for  them,  that  is  to  say,  purely  for  the  sake  of  general 
culture,  or  of  the  social  advantages  which  a  university  course 
is  thought  to  confer.  The  usual  age  at  which  students  enter 
one  of  the  leading  universities  of  the  East  is,  as  in  England, 
from  eighteen  to  nineteen,  and  the  usual  age  of  graduation 
twenty-two  to  twenty-three,1  the  regular  course  covering  four 
years.  In  the  West  some  students  come  at  a  more  advanced 
age,  twenty-four  or  twenty-five,  their  early  education  having 
been  neglected,  so  the  average  in  Western  colleges  is  higher 
than  in  the  East.  In  Scotland  boys  of  fourteen  and  men  of 
twenty-four  used  to  sit  side  by  side  in  university  class-rooms, 
and  compete  on  equal  terms,  a  pleasing  relic  of  medaeival 
times  which  survives  in  the  University  of  El  Azhar  in  Cairo. 
The  places  of  less  note  draw  students  from  their  immediate 
vicinity  only ;  to  those  of  importance  boys  are  sent  from  all 
parts  of  the  Union.  The  University  of  Michigan,  the  first 
among  the  State  Universities  to  develop  on  a  large  scale, 
used  to  be  a  sort  of  metropolitan  university  for  the  North¬ 
western  States.  Harvard  and  Yale,  which  used  to  be  filled  only 
from  the  Atlantic  States,  now  receive  students  from  the  West, 


1  President  Eliot  gives  it  for  Harvard  at  22  years  and  7  months. 


722 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


and  even  from  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  Princeton  has  long 
drawn  many  from  the  South.1  A  student  generally  completes 
his  four  years’  graduation  course  at  the  same  institution,  but 
some  few  leave  a  small  college  after  one  year  to  enter  at  a 
larger  one.  A  man  who  has  graduated  in  a  college  which  has 
only  an  Arts  or  collegiate  department,  will  often,  in  case  he 
designs  himself  for  law  or  medicine,  resort  to  the  law  or  medical 
school  of  a  larger  university,  or  even,  if  he  means  to  devote 
himself  to  science  or  philology,  will  pursue  what  is  called  a 
“ post-graduate  course”  at  some  one  of  the  greatest  seats  of 
learning.  Thus  it  may  happen,  as  in  Germany,  that  a  man  has 
studied  at  two  or  three  universities  in  succession. 

Buildings  and  External  Aspect.  —  Few  of  the  buildings  in 
any  college  or  university  are  more  than  a  century  old,2  and  among 
these  there  is  none  of  an  imposing  character,  or  with  marked 
architectural  merit.  Many  of  the  newer  ones  are  handsome 
and  well  arranged,  but  I  have  heard  it  remarked  that  too  much 
money  is  now  being  spent,  at  least  in  the  West,  upon  showy 
buildings,  possibly  with  the  view  of  commanding  attention. 
The  ground  plan  is  rarely  or  never  that  of  a  quadrangle,  as  in 
England  and  Scotland,  not  because  it  was  desired  to  avoid 
monastic  precedents,  but  because  detached  buildings  are  thought 
to  be  better  adapted  to  the  cold  and  snows  of  winter.  At 
Harvard  and  Yale  the  brick  dormitories  (buildings  in  which 
the  students  live)  and  class-rooms  are  scattered  over  a  large 
space  of  grass  planted  with  ancient  elms,  and  have  a  very  pleas¬ 
ing  effect.  Rochester,  too,  has  a  spacious  Campus.  Prince¬ 
ton,  Amherst,  Williams,  and  Dartmouth,  being  placed  in  small 
country  towns  and  pleasing  scenery,  have  even  more  attractive 
surroundings,  and  the  situations  of  the  Universities  of  Virginia, 
Wisconsin,  and  California  are  highly  favoured  by  nature.  Ample 
and  agreeable  pleasure-grounds  surround  the  women’s  colleges 
of  Vassar,  Wellesley,  and  Bryn  Mawr. 

Time  spent  in  Study.  —  Vacations  are  shorter  than  in  Eng¬ 
land  or  Scotland.  That  of  summer  usually  lasts  from  the 
middle  of  June  to  the  middle  or  end  of  September,  and  there 

1  Many  students  now  come  from  Europe  and  Asia.  In  1909  there  were  in 
34  United  States  Universities  1467  from  abroad,  including  458  from  Asia  (includ¬ 
ing  158  Japanese  and  193  Chinese,  with  60  from  the  East  Indies),  313  from 
Europe.  154  from  South  America,  and  64  from  Australia. 

2 1  remember  one  in  Yale  of  a.d.  1753,  called  South  Middle,  which  was  ven¬ 
erated  as  the  oldest  building  there. 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


723 


are  generally  ten  days  or  more  given  at  Christmas  and  at  least 
a  week  in  April.  Work  begins  earlier  in  the  morning  than  in 
England,  but  seldom  so  early  as  in  Germany.  Hardly  any  stu¬ 
dents  seem  to  work  as  hard  as  the  men  reading  for  high  honours 
do  at  Cambridge  in  England. 

Local  Distribution  of  Universities  and  Colleges.  —  The  num¬ 
ber  of  degree-granting  bodies  seems  to  be  larger  in  the  Middle 
and  North-western  States  than  either  in  New  England  or  in  the 
South.  In  the  tables  of  the  Bureau  of  Education  I  find  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Iowa,  credited 
with  185,  just  two-fifths  of  the  total  for  the  United  States;  but 
as  many  are  small  and  indifferent,  the  mere  number  does  not 
necessarily  speak  of  an  ample  and  solid  provision  of  education. 
Indeed  Ohio  has  no  single  institution  to  which  a  place  in  the 
front  rank  would  be  assigned.  The  thirteen  Southern  States 
(excluding  Missouri,  Maryland,  and  Delaware)  stand  in  the 
tables  as  possessing  117,  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any 
of  these,  except  the  University  of  Virginia,  attains  the  very 
first  rank ;  and  though  some  have  been  rising  steadily,  the 
great  majority  are  undermanned  and  hampered  by  the  im¬ 
perfect  preparation  of  the  students  whom  they  receive.  In 
this  respect,  and  as  regards  education  generally,  the  South, 
though  advancing,  is  still  behind  the  other  sections  of  the 
country.  There  are  several  colleges,  all  or  nearly  all  of  them 
denominational,  established  for  coloured  people  only. 

System  and  Methods  of  Instruction.  — -  In  1860  it  would  have 
been  comparatively  easy  to  describe  these,  for  nearly  all  the  uni¬ 
versities  and  colleges  prescribed  a  regular  four  years’  curriculum 
to  a  student,  chiefly  consisting  of  classics  and  mathematics, 
and  leading  up  to  a  B.A.  degree.  A  youth  had  little  or  no 
option  what  he  would  study,  for  everybody  was  expected  to 
take  certain  classes  in  each  year,  and  received  his  degree  upon 
having  satisfactorily  performed  what  was  in  each  class  required 
of  him.1  The  course  was  not  unlike  that  followed  (till  1892) 
in  the  Scottish  universities  :  it  began  with  Latin,  Greek,  and 
mathematics,  and  wound  up  with  logic,  mental  and  moral  phi¬ 
losophy,  and  a  tincture  of  physics.  Instruction  was  mainly, 
indeed  in  the  small  colleges  wholly,  catechetical.  About  1870 
the  simple  uniformity  of  this  traditional  system  began  to  vanish 

1  The  University  of  Virginia  was  an  exception,  having  received  from  the 
enlightened  views  of  Jefferson  an  impulse  towards  greater  freedom. 


724 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


in  the  leading  universities  of  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States, 
and  in  nearly  all  the  State  universities  of  the  West.  In  most 
of  the  smaller  colleges,  however,  there  are  still  regular  classes, 
a  certain  number  of  which  every  student  must  attend,  but  he 
is  allowed  to  choose  for  himself  between  a  variety  of  courses 
or  curricula,  by  following  any  one  of  which  he  may  obtain  a 
degree.  The  freedom  of  choice  is  greater  in  some'  universities, 
less  in  others ;  in  some,  choice  is  permitted  from  the  first,  in 
most,  however  (including  the  great  University  of  Yale),  only 
after  two  years.  In  Harvard  freedom  reached  its  maximum. 
The  controversies  out  of  which  the  “ elective  system”  emerged 
turned  largely  on  the  question  whether  Greek  should  be  a 
compulsory  subject.  The  change  was  introduced  for  the  sake 
of  bringing  scientific  subjects  into  the  curriculum  and  ena¬ 
bling  men  to  specialize  in  them  and  in  matters  like  history 
and  Oriental  or  Romance  philology,  and  was  indeed  a  nec¬ 
essary  concomitant  to  such  a  broadening  of  universities  as 
may  enable  them  to  keep  pace  with  the  swift  development  of 
new  branches  of  study  and  research  during  the  last  forty  years. 
It  is  defended  both  on  this  ground  and  as  being  more  likely 
than  the  old  strictly  limited  courses  to  give  every  student 
something  which  will  interest  him.  It  is  opposed  as  tending 
to  bewilder  him,  to  disperse  and  scatter  his  mind  over  a  too  wide 
range  of  subjects,  perhaps  unconnected  with  one  another,  to 
tempt  him  with  the  offer  of  liberty  which  he  wants  the  ex¬ 
perience  to  use  wisely.  One  or  two  conspicuous  universities, 
and  many  smaller  colleges,  have  clung  to  the  old  system 
of  two  or  three  prescribed  degree  courses  in  which  compara¬ 
tively  little  variation  is  admitted.1  An  elective  system  is 
indeed  possible  only  where  the  teaching  staff  is  large  enough  to 
do  justice  to  a  wide  range  of  subjects. 

A  parallel  change  has  passed  upon  the  methods  of  teaching. 
Lecturing  with  the  interposition  of  few  or  no  questions  to  the  class 
is  becoming  the  rule  in  the  larger  universities,  those  especially 
which  adopt  the  elective  system,  while  what  are  called  “  reci¬ 
tations,”  that  is  to  say,  catechetical  methods  resembling  those 
of  Scotland  or  of  a  college  (not  university)  lecture  in  Oxford 

1  The  small  colleges  were  the  more  unwilling  to  drop  Greek  as  a  compulsory 
subject  because  they  thought  that  by  doing  so  they  would  lose  the  anchor  by 
which  they  held  to  the  higher  culture,  and  confess  themselves  to  be  no  longer 
universities.  But  Greek  declines  in  them  also. 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


725 


sixty  years  ago,  remain  the  rule  in  the  more  conservative  ma¬ 
jority  of  institutions,  and  are  practically  universal  in  the  smaller 
colleges.  Some  of  the  largest  universities  have  established  a 
system  of  informal  instruction  by  the  professor  to  a  small  group 
of  students  on  the  model  of  the  German  Seminar.  Private 
“  coaching,”  such  as  prevailed  largely  in  Oxford  and  still  prevails 
in  Cambridge,  is  almost  unknown. 

Requirements  for  Entrance.  —  All  the  better  universities  and 
colleges  exact  a  minimum  of  knowledge  from  those  who  matric¬ 
ulate.  Some  do  this  by  imposing  an  entrance  examination. 
Others  allow  certain  schools,  of  whose  excellence  they  are 
satisfied,  to  issue  leaving  certificates,  the  production  of  which 
entitles  the  bearer  to  be  admitted  without  examination.  This 
plan  is  said  to  work  well.1  Michigan  led  the  way  in  establishing 
a  judiciously  regulated  and  systematized  relation  between  the 
public  schools  and  the  State  university,  and  other  universities 
have  now  an  excellent  system  for  inspecting  schools  and  ad¬ 
mitting  students  on  the  basis  of  school  certificates. 

Degrees  and  Examinations.  —  It  is  only  institutions  which 
have  been  chartered  by  State  authority  that  are  deemed  entitled 
to  grant  degrees.  There  are  others  which  do  so  without  any 
such  legal  title,  but  as  the  value  of  a  degree  per  se  is  slight,  the 
mischief  done  by  such  interlopers  can  hardly  be  serious.  B.A., 
M.A.,  (less  frequently)  Ph.D.,  D.D.,  and  LL.D.,  the  two 
latter  usually  for  honorary  purposes,2  are  the  only  degrees  con¬ 
ferred  in  the  majority  of  colleges;  but  of  late  years  the  larger 
universities  have,  in  creating  new  courses,  created  a  variety  of 
new  degrees  also.3  Degrees  are  awarded  by  examination,  but 


1  At  Harvard  I  was  informed  that  about  one-third  of  the  students  came  from 
the  public  (i.e.  publicly  supported)  schools.  The  proportion  is  in  most  universi¬ 
ties  larger.  There  is  a  growing  tendency  in  America,  especially  in  the  East,  for 
boys  of  the  richer  class  to  be  sent  to  private  schools,  and  the  excellence  of  such 
schools  increases.  The  total  number  of  endowed  academies,  seminaries,  and 
other  private  secondary  schools  over  the  country  in  1909  is  returned  as  1301, 
with  9696  pupils  (6350  boys  and  3365  girls)  preparing  for  a  college  classical 
course  ;  8555  pupils  (7170  boys  and  1385  girls)  preparing  for  a  scientific  course. 
But  these  figures  are  far  from  complete. 

2  Honorary  degrees  are  in  some  institutions,  and  not  usually  those  of  the 
highest  standing,  conferred  with  a  profuseness  which  seems  to  argue  an  exag¬ 
gerated  appreciation  of  inconspicuous  merit. 

3  Among  the  degree  titles  awarded  in  some  institutions  to  women,  the  titles 
of  Bachelor  and  Master  being  deemed  inappropriate,  are  the  following  — 
Laureate  of  Science,  Proficient  in  Music,  Maid  of  Philosophy,  Mistress  of  Polite 
Literature,  Mistress  of  Music. 


726 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


never,  I  think,  as  often  in  Britain,  upon  a  single  examination 
held  after  the  course  of  study  has  been  completed.  The  stu¬ 
dent,  as  he  goes  through  the  various  classes  which  make  up  his 
course,  is  examined,  sometimes  at  frequent  intervals,  some¬ 
times  at  the  end  of  each  year,  on  the  work  done  in  the  classes  or 
on  prescribed  books,  and  the  degree  is  ultimately  awarded  or 
refused  on  the  combined  result  of  all  these  tests.  At  no  point 
in  his  career  is  he  expected  to  submit  to  any  one  examination 
comparable,  for  the  combined  number  and  difficulty  of  the  sub¬ 
jects  in  which  he  is  questioned,  to  the  final  honour  examinations 
at  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  even  as  now  constituted,  much  less 
as  they  stood  in  the  middle  of  last  century. 

There  is  indeed  no  respect  in  which  the  American  system  is 
more  contrasted  with  that  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  than  the 
comparatively  small  part  assigned  to  the  award  of  honours.  In 
England  the  Class  list  or  Tripos  has  for  many  years  past,  ever 
since  the  universities  awoke  from  the  lethargy  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  been  the  main  motive  power  in  stimulating  under; 
graduates  to  exertion  and  in  stemming  the  current  which  runs  so 
strongly  towards  amusement  and  athletic  exercises.  Examina¬ 
tions  have  governed  teaching  instead  of  being  used  to  test  it. 
In  the  United  States,  although  most  universities  and  colleges 
reward  with  some  sort  of  honourable  mention  the  students 
who  have  acquitted  themselves  conspicuously  well,  graduation 
honours  are  not  a  great  object  of  ambition;  they  win  little  or 
no  fame  within  the  institution,  they  are  unnoticed  beyond  its 
walls.  In  many  universities  there  is  not  even  the  stimulus, 
which  acts  powerfully  in  Scotland,  of  class  prizes,  awarded  by 
examination  or  by  the  votes  of  the  students.  It  is  only  a  few 
institutions  that  possess  scholarships  awarded  by  competition. 
American  teachers  seem  to  find  the  discipline  of  their  regular 
class  system  sufficient  to  maintain  a  reasonable  level  of  dili¬ 
gence  among  their  students,  being  doubtless  aided  by  the  fact 
that,  in  all  but  a  very  few  universities,  the  vast  majority  of  the 
students  come  from  simple  homes,  possess  scanty  means,  and 
have  their  way  in  life  to  make.  Diligence  —  a  moderate  but 
fairly  sustained  diligence  —  was  the  tradition  of  the  American 
colleges  until  the  passion  for  athletic  competitions  became 
pronounced ;  and  this  is  still  true  in  most  of  those  remote  from 
the  dissipating  influences  and  social  excitements  of  large  cities. 
It  is  still  the  rule  in  post-graduate  courses  and  in  the  pro- 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


727 


fessional  schools,  for  students  who  have  got  so  far  feel  the 
need  for  turning  their  opportunities  to  full  account.  Even 
the  greater  universities  have  never  been,  as  the  English  uni¬ 
versities  largely  were  in  the  first  half  of  last  century,  and  to 
some  extent  are  still,  primarily  places  for  spending  three  or  four 
years,  only  incidentally  places  of  instruction.  For  the  absence 
of  a  competitive  system  two  merits  have  been  claimed.  One  is 
that  it  escapes  that  separation  which  has  grown  up  in  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  between  pass  or  poll  men  and  honour  men.  The 
ordinary  student  supposes  himself  to  have  come  to  college  for  the 
purpose  of  learning  something.  In  all  countries,  even  in  Switz¬ 
erland  and  Scotland,  there  is  a  percentage  of  idle  men  in  places 
of  study ;  but  the  idleness  of  an  American  student  is  due  to  some¬ 
thing  in  his  own  character  or  circumstances,  and  does  not,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  English  “  poll-man/ ’  rest  on  a  theory  in  his 
own  mind,  probably  shared  by  his  parents,  that  he  entered  the 
university  in  order  to  enjoy  himself  and  form  useful  social  con¬ 
nections.  It  is  held  to  be  another  merit  that  the  love  of  know¬ 
ledge  and  truth  is  not,  among  the  better  minds,  vulgarized  by 
being  made  the  slave  of  competition  and  of  the  passion  for 
quick  and  conspicuous  success.  An  American  student  is  not 
induced  by  his  university  to  think  less  of  the  intrinsic  value 
of  what  he  is  learning  than  of  how  far  it  will  pay  in  an  exam¬ 
ination  :  nor  does  he  regard  his  ablest  fellow-students  as  his 
rivals  over  a  difficult  course  for  high  stakes,  rivals  whose  speed 
and  strength  he  must  constantly  be  comparing  with  his  own. 
Americans  who  have  studied  in  an  English  university  after 
graduating  in  one  of  their  own  have  told  me  that  nothing  sur¬ 
prised  them  more  in  England  than  the  incessant  canvassing  of 
one  another’s  intellectual  capacities  which  went  on  among  the 
clever  undergraduates.1  Much  less  work  is  got  out  of  the 
better  American  students  than  the  examination  system  exacts 
from  the  same  class  of  men  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  Probably 
the  qualities  of  readiness  and  accuracy  are  not  so  thoroughly 
trained.  Possibly  it  is  a  loss  not  to  be  compelled  to  carry 
for  a  few  weeks  a  large  mass  of  facts  in  one’s  mind  under  the 
obligation  of  finding  any  one  at  a  moment’s  notice.  Those 
who  direct  the  leading  American  universities  recognize  in  these 
points  the  advantages  of  English  practice,  but  have  not  so  far 

1  If  this  be  true  of  England,  the  evil  is  probably  no  smaller  under  the  class- 
prize  system  of  Scotland. 


728 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


been  disposed  to  alter  their  own  traditional  system,  which 
relies  on  the  interest  the  student  has  in  turning  to  account  his 
college  years  and  doing  work  enough  to  secure  his  degree. 

Nearly  all  American  students  do  graduate,  that  is  to  say,  as 
those  who  would  be  likely  to  fail  drop  off  before  the  close  of  the 
fourth  year,  the  proportion  of  plucks  in  the  later  examinations  is 
small.  As  regards  the  worth  of  degrees  given,  there  is  of  course 
the  greatest  possible  difference  between  those  of  the  better  and 
those  of  the  lower  institutions,  nor  is  this  difference  merely  one 
between  the  few  great  universities  and  the  mass  of  small 
colleges  or  Western  State  universities,  for  among  the  smaller 
colleges  there  are  some  which  maintain  as  high  a  standard  of 
thoroughness  as  the  greatest.  The  degrees  of  the  very  nu¬ 
merous  colleges  to  which  I  have  referred  as  belonging  to  the 
lower  group  of  the  third  class  have  no  assignable  value,  except 
that  of  indicating  that  a  youth  has  been  made  to  work  during 
four  years  at  subjects  above  the  elementary.  Those  of  insti¬ 
tutions  belonging  to  the  higher  group  and  the  two  other  classes 
represent,  on  an  average,  as  much  knowledge  and  mental  dis¬ 
cipline  as  the  poll  or  pass  degrees  of  Cambridge  or  Oxford, 
possibly  less  than  the  pass  degrees  of  the  Scottish  universities. 
Between  the  highest  American  degrees  and  the  honour  degrees 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  it  is  hard  to  make  any  comparison. 

A  degree  is  in  the  United  States  given  only  to  those  who  have 
followed  a  prescribed  course  in  the  teaching  institution  which 
confers  it.  No  American  institution  has  so  far  departed  from 
the  old  and  true  conception  of  a  university,  approved  by  both 
history  and  policy,  as  to  become  a  mere  examining  board, 
awarding  degrees  to  anybody  who  may  present  himself  from  any 
quarter.  However,  the  evils  of  existing  arrangements,  under 
which  places  below  the  level  of  German  gymnasia  are  permitted 
to  grant  academic  titles,  have  been  deemed  so  serious  by  some 
educational  reformers  that  it  was  proposed  as  far  back  as  1890 
to  create  in  each  State  a  single  degree-conferring  authority  to 
which  the  various  institutions  within  the  State  should  be,  so 
to  speak,  tributary,  sending  up  their  students  to  its  examina¬ 
tions,  which  would  of  course  be  kept  at  a  higher  level  than 
most  of  the  present  independent  bodies  maintain.  This  is 
what  physicians  call  a  “ heroic  remedy”;  it  does  not  seem  to 
have  won  favour,  nor  need  this  be  regretted. 

Notwithstanding  these  evils,  and  the  vast  distance  between 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


729 


the  standard  of  a  university  like  Johns  Hopkins  at  the  one  end 
of  the  scale,  and  that  of  the  weakest  Southern  colleges  at 
the  other,  a  degree,  wherever  obtained,  seems  to  have  a  cer¬ 
tain  social  value.  “It  is,”  said  one  of  my  informants,  “a  thing 
which  you  would  mention  regarding  a  young  man  for  whom 
you  were  writing  a  letter  of  introduction.”  This  does  not  mean 
very  much,  but  it  is  better  than  nothing ;  it  would  appear  to 
give  a  man  some  sort  of  advantage  in  seeking  for  educational 
or  literary  work.  In  several  States  a  man  who  can  point  to 
his  degree  obtains  speedier  entrance  to  the  bar,  and  some  de¬ 
nominations  endeavour  to  secure  that  their  clergy  shall  have 
graduated. 

Post-graduate  Courses.  —  Several  of  the  leading  universities 
began  in  the  later  decades  of  last  century  to  institute  sets  of 
lectures  for  students  who  have  completed  the  regular  four  years’ 
collegiate  course  and  taken  their  B.A.  or  B.Sc.,  hoping  in  this 
way  to  provide  for  the  special  study  of  subjects  for  which  room 
cannot  be  found  in  the  regular  course.  Johns  Hopkins  Univer¬ 
sity  was  among  the  firs,  to  devote  itself  especially  to  this  object. 
Its  aim  was  not  so  much  to  rival  the  existing  universities  as  to 
discharge  a  function  which  many  of  them  had  not  the  means 
of  undertaking  —  that  of  providing  the  highest  special  in¬ 
struction,  not  necessarily  in  every  subject,  but  in  subjects  for 
which  it  could  secure  the  ablest  professors.  It  did  much 
admirable  work  in  this  direction,  and  soon  made  good  its 
claim  to  a  place  in  the  front  rank  of  transatlantic  seats  of 
education.  There  are  also  many  graduates  who,  desiring  to 
devote  themselves  to  some  particular  branch  of  science  or 
learning,  such  as  experimental  physics,  philology,  or  history, 
spend  a  semester  or  two  at  a  German  or  to  a  less  extent  at  a 
French  university.1  Fewer  come  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  but 
the  number  has  increased  since  the  foundation  of  the  Rhodes 
scholarships  provided  funds  for  two  from  each  State  to  pro¬ 
ceed  to  Oxford.  American  professors,  when  asked  why  they 
send  their  men  chiefly  to  Germany,  considering  that  in  Eng¬ 
land  they  would  have  the  advantage  of  a  more  interesting  social 
life,  and  of  seeing  how  England  is  trying  to  deal  with  problems 
similar  in  many  respects  to  their  own,  answer  that  the  English 
universities  make  scarce  any  provision  for  any  students  except 

1  In  1909  there  were  said  to  be  298  American  students  enrolled  at  the  Ger¬ 
man  Universities. 


730 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


those  who  wish  to  go  through  one  of  the  regular  degree  courses, 
and  are  so  much  occupied  in  preparing  men  to  pass  examinations 
as  to  give,  except  in  two  or  three  branches,  but  little  advanced 
teaching.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  Oxford  and  Cam¬ 
bridge  offered  the  advantages  which  Leipzig  and  Berlin  do, 
the  afflux  to  the  two  former  of  American  graduates  would  soon 
be  considerable. 

Professional  and  Scientific  Schools.  —  Besides  the  very  large 
number  of  schools  for  all  the  practical  arts,  agriculture,  engineer¬ 
ing,  mining,  and  so  forth,  as  well  as  for  the  professions  of  the¬ 
ology,  law,  and  medicine,  statistics  of  which  have  been  already 
given,  many  universities  have  established  scientific  schools, 
or  agricultural  schools,  or  theological,  legal,  and  medical 
faculties.  The  theological  faculties  are  usually  denomi¬ 
national  ;  but  Harvard,  which  used  to  be  practically  Unitarian, 
has  now  an  unsectarian  faculty,  in  which  there  are  sev¬ 
eral  learned  divines  belonging  to  Trinitarian  denominations; 
and  no  difficulty  seems  to  have  arisen  in  working  this  arrange¬ 
ment.  The  law  school  is  usually  treated  as  a  separate  depart¬ 
ment,  to  which  students  may  resort  who  have  not  graduated 
in  the  university.  The  course  is  usually  of  two,  sometimes 
of  three,  years,  and  covers  all  the  leading  branches  of  common 
law,  equity,  crimes,  civil  and  criminal  procedure.  Many  of 
these  schools  are  extremely  efficient. 

Research.  —  Till  recently  no  special  provision  was  made  for 
the  promotion  of  research  as  apart  from  the  work  of  learning 
and  teaching;  but  the  example  set  by  Johns  Hopkins  and 
Harvard  in  founding  fellowships  for  this  purpose  has  now  been 
largely  followed,  and  in  1907  there  were  664  fellowships,  of  which 
115  were  in  Massachusetts,  114  in  Illinois,  and  85  in  New  York. 
The  munificence  of  private  benefactors  may  be  expected  to  con¬ 
tinue  to  supply  the  necessary  funds.  There  is  now,  especially 
in  the  greater  universities,  a  good  deal  of  specialization  in  teach¬ 
ing,  so  an  increasing  number  of  professors  are  able  to  occupy 
themselves  with  research.  The  Institution  for  Research 
founded  in  Washington  by  Mr.  Carnegie  incidentally  aids  the 
universities  by  its  grants  of  money  to  professors  engaged  in 
research  work. 

Aids  to  Deserving  Students.  —  In  proportion  to  the  number  of 
colleges,  not  many  have  scholarships  or  bursaries  open  to  com¬ 
petition  like  those  of  the  colleges  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge  and 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


731 


of  the  Scottish  universities.  The  number  has,  however,  been 
increasing.1  But  in  a  large  number  there  exist  funds,  generally 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  President  or  the  Faculty,  which 
are  applicable  for  the  benefit  of  industrious  men  who  need  help ; 
and  it  is  common  to  remit  fees  in  the  case  of  those  whose  circum¬ 
stances  warrant  the  indulgence.  When,  as  occasionally  happens, 
free  places  or  grants  out  of  these  funds  are  awarded  upon  exam¬ 
ination,  it  would  be  thought  improper  for  any  one  to  compete 
whose  circumstances  placed  him  above  the  need  of  pecuniary 
aid :  when  the  selection  is  left  to  the  college  authorities,  they 
are  said  to  discharge  it  with  honourable  impartiality.  Having 
often  asked  whether  favouritism  was  complained  of,  I  could 
never  hear  that  it  was.  In  some  colleges  there  exists  a  loan 
fund,  out  of  which  money  is  advanced  to  the  poor  student,  who 
afterwards  repays  it.  President  Garfield  obtained  his  edu¬ 
cation  at  Williams  College  by  the  help  of  such  a  fund.  The 
denominations  often  give  assistance  to  promising  youths  who 
intend  to  enter  the  ministry.  Says  one  of  my  most  experienced 
informants:  “In  our  country  any  young  fellow  of  ability  and 
energy  can  get  education  without  paying  for  it.”  2  The  ex¬ 
periment  tried  at  Cornell  University  in  the  way  of  providing 
remunerative  labour  for  poor  students  who  were  at  the  same 
time  to  follow  a  course  of  instruction,  seems  to  have  proved  un¬ 
workable,  for  the  double  effort  imposes  too  severe  a  strain. 

Social  Life  of  the  Students.  —  Those  who  feel  that  not  only 
the  keenest  pleasure,  but  the  most  solid  moral  and  intellectual 
benefit  of  their  university  life  lay  in  the  friendships  which  they 
formed  in  that  happy  spring-time,  will  ask  how  in  this  respect 
America  compares  with  England.  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
with  their  historic  colleges  maintaining  a  corporate  life  from 
century  to  century,  bringing  the  teachers  into  easy  and  friendly 
relations  with  the  taught,  forming  between  the  members  of 
each  society  a  close  and  almost  family  tie  which  is  not  incom¬ 
patible  with  loyalty  to  the  great  corporation  for  whose  sake  all 

1  The  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Education  for  1908—9  gives  the  total  number  of 
scholarships  at  11,171,  but  does  not  state  how  many  are  awarded  by  competition. 

2  Fees,  in  the  West  especially,  are  low.  In  the  University  of  Michigan  a 
student  belonging  to  the  State  pays  $10  on  admission  and  an  annual  fee  of 
$30  (Department  of  Literature,  Science,  and  the  Arts),  or  $45  (other  depart¬ 
ments),  students  from  without  the  State  paying  $25  (admission),  $40  (Depart¬ 
ment  of  Literature,  etc.),  $55  (other  departments),  with  special  fees  in  law  and 
laboratory  courses. 


732 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


the  minor  corporations  exist,  have  succeeded  in  producing  a 
more  polished,  graceful,  and  I  think  also  intellectually  stimu¬ 
lative,  type  of  student  life  than  either  Germany,  with  its  some¬ 
what  boyish  frolics  of  duelling  and  compotations,  or  Scotland, 
where  the  youth  has  few  facilities  for  social  intercourse  with 
his  classmates,  and  none  with  his  professor.  The  American 
universities  occupy  an  intermediate  position  between  those  of 
England  and  those  of  Germany  or  Scotland.  Formerly  all 
or  nearly  all  the  students  were  lodged  in  buildings  called  dor¬ 
mitories  —  which,  however,  were  not  merely  sleeping  places, 
but  contained  sitting-rooms  jointly  tenanted  by  two  or  more 
students  —  and  meals  were  taken  in  common.  This  is  still 
the  practice  in  the  smaller  colleges,  and  remains  in  Yale, 
Harvard,  and  Princeton,  though  in  the  two  former  for  part 
only  of  the  students.  In  the  new  State  universities,  and  in 
nearly  all  universities  planted  in  large  cities,  the  great  bulk 
of  the  students  board  with  private  families,  or  (more  rarely) 
live  in  lodgings  or  hotels,  and  an  increasing  number  have  begun 
to  do  so  even  in  places  which,  like  Harvard  and  Brown  Uni¬ 
versity  (Rhode  Island)  and  Cornell,  have  some  dormitories. 
The  dormitory  plan  works  well  in  comparatively  small  establish¬ 
ments,  especially  when,  as  is  the  case  with  the  smaller  denom¬ 
inational  colleges,  they  are  almost  like  large  families,  and  are 
permeated  by  a  religious  spirit.  But  in  the  larger  universities, 
the  tendency  is  now  towards  letting  the  students  reside  where 
they  please,  though  some  State  Universities  have  dormitories. 
The  maintenance  of  discipline  is  deemed  to  give  less  trouble ; 
the  poorer  student  is  less  inclined  to  imitate  or  envy  the  lux¬ 
urious  habits  of  the  rich.  Sometimes,  however,  as  where  there 
is  no  town  for  students  to  lodge  in,  dormitories  are  indispens¬ 
able.  The  chief  breaches  of  order  which  the  authorities  have 
to  deal  with  arise  in  dormitories  from  the  practice  of  “hazing,” 
i.e.  playing  practical  jokes,  especially  upon  freshmen.  In  an 
American  college  the  students  are  classed  by  years,  those  of  the 
first  year  being  called  freshmen,  of  the  second  year  sophomores, 
of  the  third  year  juniors,  of  the  fourth  year  seniors.  The  bond 
between  the  members  of  each  “class”  (i.e.  the  entrants  of  the 
same  year)  is  a  pretty  close  one,  and  they  are  apt  to  act  together. 
Between  sophomores  and  freshmen  —  for  the  seniors  and 
j  uniors  are  supposed  to  have  put  away  childish  things  —  there 
is  a  smouldering  jealousy  which  sometimes  breaks  out  into  a 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


733 


strife  sufficiently  acute,  though  there  is  seldom  anything  more 
than  mischievously  high  spirits  behind  it,  to  give  the  President 
and  Faculty  trouble.1  Otherwise  the  conduct  of  the  students 
is  generally  good.  Intoxication,  gaming,  or  other  vices  are 
rare,  those  who  come  to  work,  as  the  vast  majority  do,  being 
little  prone  to  such  faults ;  it  is  only  in  a  few  universities  situate 
in  or  near  large  cities  and  resorted  to  by  the  sons  of  the  rich 
that  they  give  serious  trouble.  Of  late  years  the  passion  for 
baseball,  foot-ball,  rowing,  and  athletic  exercises  generally,  has 
become  very  strong  in  the  universities  last  mentioned,  where 
fashionable  youth  congregates,  and  the  student  who  excels  in 
these  seems  to  be  as  much  a  hero  among  his  comrades  as  a  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  University  Eight  or  Eleven  is  in  England. 

The  absence  of  colleges  constituting  social  centres  within  a 
university  has  helped  to  develop  in  the  American  universities 
one  of  their  most  peculiar  and  interesting  institutions  —  I  mean 
the  Greek  letter  societies.  These  are  clubs  or  fraternities  of 
students,  denoted  by  two  or  three  Greek  letters,  the  initials  of 
the  secret  fraternity  motto.  Some  of  these  fraternities  exist  in 
one  college  only,  but  the  greater  are  established  in  a  good  many 
universities  and  colleges,  having  in  each  what  is  called  a  Chapter, 
and  possessing  in  each  a  sort  of  club  house,  with  several  meet¬ 
ing  and  reading  rooms,  and  sometimes  also  with  bedrooms 
for  the  members.  In  some  colleges  as  many  as  a  third  or  a 
half,  in  a  very  few  nearly  all  of  the  students,  belong  to  a  fra¬ 
ternity,  which  is  an  institution  recognized  and  patronized  by 
the  authorities.  New  members  are  admitted  by  the  votes  of 
the  Chapter ;  and  to  obtain  early  admission  to  one  of  the  best 
is  no  small  compliment.  They  are,  so  far  as  I  know,  always 
non-political,  though  political  questions  may  be  debated  and 
political  essays  read  at  their  meetings ;  and  one  is  told  that 
they  allow  no  intoxicants  to  be  kept  in  their  buildings  or  used 
at  the  feasts  they  provide.  They  are  thus  something  between 
an  English  club  and  a  German  Studenten  Corps ,  with  a  literary 
element  sometimes  thrown  in.  They  are  deemed  a  valuable 
part  of  the  university  system,  not  so  much  because  they  cul¬ 
tivate  intellectual  life  as  on  account  of  their  social  influence. 


1  Sophomores  and  freshmen  used  to  have  a  whimsical  habit  of  meeting  one 
another  in  dense  masses  and  trying  which  can  push  the  other  aside  on  the  stairs 
or  path.  This  is  called  “rushing.”  In  some  universities  the  admission  of 
women  as  students  put  an  end  to  it.  Hazing  has  diminished  of  late  years. 


734 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


It  is  an  object  of  ambition  to  be  elected  a  member ;  it  is  a  point 
of  honour  for  a  member  to  maintain  the  credit  of  the  fraternity. 
Former  members,  who  are  likely  to  include  some  of  the  university 
professors,  keep  up  their  connection  with  the  fraternity,  and 
often  attend  its  chapters  in  the  college,  or  its  general  meetings. 
Membership  constitutes  a  bond  between  old  members  during 
their  whole  life,  so  that  a  member  on  settling  in  some  distant 
city  would  probably  find  there  persons  who  had  belonged  to  his 
fraternity,  and  w^ould  be  admitted  to  their  local  gatherings.1 
Besides  these  there  exist  a  few  honorary  societies  into  which 
students  are  elected  in  virtue  of  purely  literary  or  scientific 
acquirements,  as  evidenced  in  the  college  examinations.  The 
oldest  and  most  famous  is  called  the  $  B  K,  which  is  said  to 
mean  < pi\oacf)La  /3lov  Kv^epvr/rrj ?,  and  exists  in  many  of  the  lead¬ 
ing  universities  in  some  of  the  States. 

Religion.  —  I  have  already  observed  that  a  good  many  of  the 
American  universities,  and  indeed  a  majority  of  the  smaller 
colleges,  are  denominational.  This  term,  however,  does  not 
mean  what  it  would  mean  in  Europe,  or  at  least  in  England.  It 
means  that  they  have  been  founded  by  or  in  connection  with  a 
particular  church,  and  that  they  remain  to  some  extent  associated 
with  it  or  influenced  by  it.  Aside  from  the  81  State  or  munici¬ 
pal  institutions,  only  84  out  of  the  493  mentioned  in  the  Edu¬ 
cational  Report  state  that  they  are  unsectarian.  The  Metho¬ 
dists  claim  77  colleges  ;  the  Presbyterians,  54 ;  the  Baptists,  39  ; 
the  Roman  Catholics,  52  ;  the  Congregationalists,  10 ;  the  Prot¬ 
estant  Episcopalians,  2.  But,  except  as  regards  the  Roman 
Catholic  institutions,  there  is  seldom  any  exclusion  of  teachers, 
and  never  of  students,  belonging  to  other  churches,  nor  any 
attempt  to  give  the  instruction  (except,  of  course,  in  the  theo¬ 
logical  department,  if  there  be  one)  a  sectarian  cast ;  this  in¬ 
deed  is  apt  to  be  expressly  repudiated  by  them.  Although 
it  usually  happens  that  students  belonging  to  the  church  which 
influences  the  college  are  more  numerous  than  those  of  any 
other  church,  students  of  other  persuasions  abound ;  nor  are 
efforts  made  to  proselytize  them.  For  instance,  Harvard  re¬ 
tains  a  certain  slight  flavour  of  Unitarianism,  and  has  one  or 
two  Unitarian  clergymen  among  the  professors  in  its  theo¬ 
logical  faculty;  Yale  has  always  been  Congregationalist,  and 

1  There  are,  of  course,  other  students’  societies  and  social  clubs,  sometimes 
expensive  and  exclusive,  besides  these  Greek  letter  ones. 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


735 


has  by  its  charter  ten  Congregationalist  clergymen  among  the 
trustees ;  and  moreover  had  formerly  Congregationalist  clergy¬ 
men  as  its  presidents,  as  Brown  University  has  a  Baptist  clergy¬ 
man.1  Princeton  used  to  be  specifically  Presbyterian,  and  the 
Episcopalians  have  denominational  colleges  in  which  the  local 
bishop  is  one  of  the  trustees.  But  in  none  of  these  is  there 
anything  approaching  to  a  test  imposed  upon  professors ;  all 
are  resorted  to  alike  by  students  belonging  to  any  church  or 
to  none. 

In  all  the  older  universities,  and  in  the  vast  majority  of  the 
more  recent  ones,  there  is  a  chapel  in  which  religious  services  are 
regularly  held,  short  prayers  on  week-days  and  sometimes  also 
a  full  service  on  Sundays.  In  most  institutions  every  student, 
unless  of  course  he  has  some  conscientious  objection,  is  ex¬ 
pected  to  attend.  The  service  seldom  or  never  contains  any¬ 
thing  of  a  sectarian  character,  and  arrangements  are  sometimes 
made  for  having  it  conducted  by  the  clergy  of  various  denom¬ 
inations  in  turn.  Even  among  the  professedly  neutral  new 
State  universities,  there  are  some  which,  like  the  University 
of  Michigan,  have  daily  prayers.  There  are  of  course  persons 
who  think  that  an  unsectarian  place  of  education  cannot  be  a 
truly  Christian  place  of  education,  and  Cornell  University 
in  its  early  days  had  to  face  attacks  directed  against  it  on  this 
score.2  But  the  more  prevalent  view  is  that  a  university  ought 
to  be  in  a  general  sense  religious  without  being  sectarian.3  An 

1  Brown  University,  formerly  called  Rhode  Island  College  (founded  in  1764), 
is  in  the  rather  peculiar  position  of  having  by  its  regulation  four  denominations, 
Baptists,  Congregationalists,  Episcopalians,  and  Quakers,  represented  on  its 
two  governing  bodies,  the  trustees  and  the  fellows,  the  Baptists  having  a 
majority. 

2  At  Cornell  University  there  exists  a  Sunday  preachership  endowed  with  a 
fund  of  $30,000  (£6000),  which  is  used  to  recompense  the  services  of  distin¬ 
guished  ministers  of  different  denominations,  who  preach  in  succession  during 
twenty-one  Sundays  of  the  academic  year.  The  founder  was  an  Episcopalian, 
whose  first  idea  was  to  have  a  chaplaincy  limited  to  ministers  of  his  denomi¬ 
nation,  but  the  trustees  refused  the  endowment  on  such  terms.  The  only  stu¬ 
dents  who  absent  themselves  are  Roman  Catholics. 

3  This  idea  is  exactly  expressed  in  the  regulations  for  the  great  foundation 
of  Mr.  Leland  Stanford  in  California.  It  is  declared  to  be  the  duty  of  the  trus¬ 
tees  “to  prohibit  sectarian  instruction,  but  to  have  taught  in  the  University 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  existence  of  an  all-wise  and  benevolent  Creator, 
and  that  obedience  to  His  laws  is  the  highest  duty  of  man.’’  The  founders  fur¬ 
ther  declare,  “While  it  is  our  desire  that  there  shall  be  no  sectarian  teaching  in 
this  institution,  it  is  very  far  from  our  thoughts  to  exclude  divine  service.  We 
have  provided  that  a  suitable  building  be  erected,  wherein  the  professors  of  the 
various  religious  denominations  shall  from  time  to  time  be  invited  to  deliver 


736 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


interesting  experiment  in  unsectarian  religious  worship  has 
for  some  time  past  been  tried  at  Harvard.  Attendance  at  the 
college  chapel,  formerly  compulsory,  is  now  voluntary,  and 
short  morning  daily  services  with  extempore  prayers  are  con¬ 
ducted  by  the  chaplains,  who  are  eminent  ministers  of  different 
denominations,  serving  in  turn  for  a  few  weeks  each.  The 
late  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks  was  one  of  them ;  and  his  short  ad¬ 
dresses  profoundly  impressed  the  students. 

The  Provision  of  University  Education  for  Women.  —  The 
efforts  made  and  experiments  tried  in  this  matter  furnish  ma¬ 
terial  for  a  treatise.  All  I  have  space  to  mention  is  that  these 
efforts  have  chiefly  flowed  in  two  channels.  One  is  the  admis¬ 
sion  of  women  to  co-education  with  men  in  the  same  places  of 
higher  education.  This  has  gone  on  for  many  years  in  some 
of  the  denominational  colleges  of  the  West,  such  as  Oberlin 
and  Antioch,  in  Ohio.  Both  sexes  have  been  taught  in  the 
same  classes,  meeting  in  the  hours  of  recreation,  but  lodged  in 
separate  buildings.  My  informants  generally  commended  the 
plan,  declaring  that  the  effect  on  the  manners  and  general  tone 
of  the  students  was  excellent.  The  State  universities  founded 
in  the  West  are  by  law  open  to  women  as  well  as  to  men.  The 
number  of  women  attending  is  nearly  always  smaller  than  that 
of  men,  yet  in  some  institutions  it  is  considerable,  as  for  instance 
at  the  University  of  Michigan  at  Ann  Arbor  there  were,  in 
1908-9,  776  women  and  3944  men,  in  that  of  California  1361 
women  and  2192  men,  in  that  of  Minnesota,  1237  women  and 
3430  men,  while  Oberlin  had  1220  women  and  658  men  and 
Chicago  3076  women  and  3286  men.  The  students  live  where 
they  will,  but  are  taught  in  the  same  classes,  generally,  however, 
sitting  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  class  room  from  the  men. 
The  evidence  given  to  me  as  to  the  working  of  this  system  in 
the  Universities  of  California  and  Michigan,  as  well  as  in  Cor¬ 
nell  University,  was  on  the  whole  favourable,  save  that  the 
young  men  sometimes  find  the  competition  of  the  girls  rather 
severe,  and  call  them  “ study  machines,”  observing  that  they 
are  more  eager,  and  less  addicted  to  sports  or  to  mere  lounging. 

discourses  not  sectarian  in  character.”  On  the  other  hand,  the  still  more  recent 
foundation  of  Mr.  Rockefeller  at  Chicago  prescribes  that  ‘‘at  all  times  two-thirds 
of  the  trustees  and  also  the  president  of  the  university  and  of  its  said  college  shall 
be  members  of  regular  Baptist  churches  —  and  in  this  particular  the  charter  shall 
be  for  ever  unalterable.”  All  professorships,  however,  are  to  be  free  from  any 
religious  tests. 


CHAP.  CVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


737 


In  the  Eastern  States  the  tendency  has  been  to  establish 
universities  or  colleges  exclusively  for  women,  and  cases  are 
known  to  me  in  which  institutions  that  received  both  sexes 
ended  by  having  a  distinct  department  or  separate  college  for 
women.  There  are  persons  even  in  the  East  who  would  prefer 
the  scheme  of  co-education,  but  the  more  general  view  is  that 
the  stricter  etiquette  and  what  is  called  the  “more  complex 
civilization”  of  the  older  States  render  this  undesirable.1  The 
total  number  of  colleges  specially  for  women  is  given  in  the 
Education  Report  for  1909  at  113,  at  two  grades.  In  Division 
A  were  16  colleges,  with  357  male  and  568  female  instructors 
and  8610  students  of  whom  142  were  in  preparatory  depart¬ 
ments.  The  97  colleges  in  Division  B  might  more  fitly  be 
described  as  “  upper  schools”  with  301  male  instructors,  1443 
women,  12,211  “collegiate  students”  and  6691  preparatory. 
The  number  of  degrees  conferred  was  978.  Among  these 
colleges  the  best  known,  and  apparently  the  most  complete  and 
efficient,2  are  Vassar,  at  Poughkeepsie,  New  York;  Wellesley, 
Smith,  and  Mount  Holyoke  in  Massachusetts ;  Bryn  Mawr 
in  Pennsylvania.  In  visiting  three  of  these,  I  was  much 
impressed  by  the  earnestness  and  zeal  for  learning  by  which 
both  the  professors  and  the  students  seemed  to  be  inspired, 
as  well  as  by  the  high  level  of  the  teaching  given.  They  have 
happily  escaped  the  temptation  to  which  some  similar  institu¬ 
tions  in  England  were  in  danger  of  yielding,  of  making  every¬ 
thing  turn  upon  degree  examinations.  Plarvard  has  established, 
in  what  was  called  its  Annex,  but  is  now  more  generally  known 
as  Radcliffe  College,  a  separate  department  for  women,  in  which 
the  university  professors  lecture.  I  have  no  adequate  data 
for  comparing  the  quality  of  the  education  given  to  women 
in  America  with  that  provided  by  women’s  colleges,  and  es¬ 
pecially  by  those  in  Cambridge  and  Oxford,  in  England,  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  eagerness  to  make  full  provision 

1  As  the  late  Mr.  George  William  Curtis  wrote  :  “It  is  now  settled  that  Juliet 
may  study,  but  shall  she  study  with  Romeo  ?  —  that  is  a  question  which  gives 
even  Boston  pause.” 

2  In  1909-10,  Wellesley  had  1319  students,  with  130  professors  and  teachers 
(119  women  and  11  men),  and  an  income  from  all  sources  of  $716,000.  Smith 
College  had  1635  students,  112  instructors  (82  women  and  30  men),  and 
an  income  from  all  sources  of  $581,000.  Vassar  had  1040  students,  83  in¬ 
structors  (66  women  and  17  men),  and  an  income  of  $855,000.  Bryn  Mawr 
had  425  students,  67  instructors  (37  women  and  30  men),  and  an  income 
of  $487,000. 

3b 


738 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


for  women  has  been  keener  in  the  former  country,  and  that  a 
much  larger  number  avail  themselves  of  what  has  been  pro¬ 
vided. 

General  Observations.  —  The  European  reader  will  by  this 
time  have  perceived  how  hard  it  is  to  give  such  a  general  esti¬ 
mate  of  the  educational  and  social  worth  of  the  higher  teaching 
in  the  United  States  as  one  might  give  of  the  universities  of 
Germany,  England,  and  Scotland.  In  America  the  universities 
are  not,  as  they  are  in  those  countries,  a  well-defined  class  of 
institutions.  Not  only  is  the  distance  between  the  best  and  the 
worst  greater  than  that  which  in  Germany  separates  Leipzig 
from  Rostock,  or  in  England  Cambridge  from  Durham,  but  the 
gradations  from  the  best  down  to  the  worst  are  so  imperceptible 
that  one  can  nowhere  draw  a  line  and  say  that  here  the  true 
university  stops  and  the  pretentious  school  begins.1  As  has 
been  observed  already,  a  large  number  present  the  external 
seeming  and  organization  —  the  skeleton  plan,  so  to  speak  — 
of  a  university  with  the  actual  performance  of  a  rather  raw 
school. 

Moreover,  the  American  universities  and  colleges  are  in  a 
state  of  transition.  True,  nearly  everything  in  America  is 
changing,  the  apparently  inflexible  Constitution  not  excepted. 
But  the  changes  that  are  passing  in  the  universities  are  only 
to  be  paralleled  by  those  that  pass  upon  Western  cities.  The 
number  of  colleges,  especially  in  the  Mississippi  and  Pacific 
States,  has  greatly  increased  since  1870.  The  character  of  the 
Eastern  universities  is  being  constantly  modified.  The  former 
multiply,  because,  under  the  Federal  system,  every  State  likes  to 
have  its  own  universities  numerous,  and  its  inhabitants  inde¬ 
pendent  of  other  States,  even  as  respects  education ;  while  the 
abundance  of  wealth,  the  desire  of  rich  men  to  commemorate 
themselves  and  to  benefit  their  community,  and  the  rivalry  of 
the  churches,  lead  to  the  establishment  of  new  colleges  where 
none  are  needed,  and  where  money  would  be  better  spent  in 
improving  those  which  exist.  Individualism  and  laissez  faire 
have,  in  this  matter  at  least,  free  scope,  for  a  State  legislature  is 


1  Even  in  Europe  it  is  curious  to  note  how  each  country  is  apt  to  think  the 
universities  of  the  other  to  be  rather  schools  than  universities.  The  Germans 
call  Oxford  and  Cambridge  schools,  because  they  have  hitherto  given  compara¬ 
tively  little  professional  and  specialized  teaching.  The  English  used  to  call  the 
Scotch  universities  schools  because  many  of  their  students  entered  at  fifteen. 


CHAP.  CYIII 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


739 


always  ready  to  charter  any  number  of  new  degree-giving  bodies.1 
Meanwhile,  the  great  institutions  of  the  Atlantic  States  con¬ 
tinue  to  expand  and  develop,  not  merely  owing  to  the  accretion 
of  wealth  to  them  from  the  liberality  of  benefactors,  but  because 
they  are  in  close  touch  with  Europe,  resolved  to  bring  their 
highest  education  up  to  the  European  level  and  to  keep  pace 
with  the  progress  of  science,  filled  with  that  love  of  experiment 
and  spirit  of  enterprise  which  are  stronger  in  America  than  any¬ 
where  else  in  the  world. 

Not  the  least  interesting  of  the  phenomena  of  the  last  thirty 
years  is  the  struggle  which  has  gone  on  in  the  Middle  and  West¬ 
ern  States  between  the  greater,  and  especially  the  State  uni¬ 
versities,  and  the  small  denominational  colleges.  The  latter, 
which  used  to  have  the  field  to  themselves,  became  afraid  of 
being  driven  off  by  the  growth  of  the  former,  and  not  only 
redoubled  their  exertions  to  increase  their  own  resources  and  stu¬ 
dents,  but  —  in  some  States  —  sought  to  prevent  the  State  uni¬ 
versity  from  obtaining  larger  grants  from  the  State  treasury. 
They  alleged  that  the  unsectarian  character  of  the  State  estab¬ 
lishments,  as  well  as  the  freedom  allowed  to  their  students, 
made  them  less  capable  of  giving  a  moral  and  religious  training. 
But  as  the  graduates  of  the  State  universities  became  numerous 
in  the  legislatures  and  influential  generally,  and  as  it  was  more 
and  more  clearly  seen  that  the  small  colleges  would  not,  for  want 
of  funds,  provide  the  various  appliances  —  libraries,  museums, 
laboratories,  and  so  forth  —  which  universities  need,  the  balance 
inclined  in  favour  of  the  State  universities.  It  is  probable  that 
while  these  will  rise  towards  the  level  of  their  Eastern  sisters, 
many  of  the  denominational  colleges  will  subside  into  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  places  of  preparatory  training. 

One  praise  which  has  often  been  given  to  the  universities  of 
Scotland  may  be  given  to  those  of  America.  While  the  German 
universities  have  been  popular  but  not  free,  while  the  English 
universities  have  been  free  2  but  not  popular,  the  American 

1  The  New  York  legislature  recently  offered  a  charter  to  the  Chautauqua 
gathering,  one  of  the  most  interesting  institutions  in  America,  and  one  most 
thoroughly  characteristic  of  the  country,  standing  midway  between  a  popular 
university  and  an  educational  camp-meeting,  and  representing  both  the  re¬ 
ligious  spirit  and  the  love  of  knowledge  which  characterize  the  better  part  of  the 
native  American  middle  and  poorer  classes.  It  has  been  imitated  in  the  West ; 
there  are  many  such  gatherings  called  Chautauquas. 

2  Free  as  regards  self-government  in  matters  of  education,  for  they  were 
tightly  bound  by  theological  restrictions  till  a.d.  1871. 


740 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


universities  have  been  both  free  and  popular.  Although  some 
have  been  managed  on  too  narrow  a  basis,  the  number  has  been 
so  great  that  the  community  have  not  suffered.  They  have 
been  established  so  easily,  they  have  so  fully  reflected  the  habits 
and  conditions  of  the  people,  as  to  have  been  accessible  to  every 
stratum  of  the  population.  They  show  all  the  merits  and  all 
the  faults  of  a  development  absolutely  uncontrolled  by  govern¬ 
ment,  and  little  controlled  even  by  the  law  which  binds  endow¬ 
ments  down  to  the  purposes  fixed  by  a  founder,1  because  new 
foundations  were  constantly  rising,  and  new  endowments  were 
accruing  to  the  existing  foundations.  Accordingly,  while  a 
European  observer  is  struck  by  their  inequalities  and  by  the 
crudeness  of  many  among  them,  he  is  also  struck  by  the  life,  the 
spirit,  the  sense  of  progress,  which  pervade  them.  In  America 
itself  educational  reformers  are  apt  to  deplore  the  absence  of 
control.  They  complain  of  the  multiplication  of  degree-giving 
bodies,  and  consequent  lowering  of  the  worth  of  a  degree.  They 
point  to  such  instances  as  the  dissipation  over  thirty-five  colleges 
4  in  Ohio  of  the  funds  and  teaching  power  which  might  have  pro¬ 
duced  one  first-rate  university.  One  strong  institution  in  a 
State  does  more,  they  argue,  to  raise  the  standard  of  teaching 
and  learning,  and  to  civilize  the  region  which  it  serves,  than  can 
be  done  by  twenty  weak  ones. 

The  European  observer,  while  he  admits  this,  conceives  that 
his  American  friends  may  not  duly  realize  the  services  which 
these  small  colleges  have  performed  in  the  rural  districts  of  the 
country.  They  get  hold  of  a  multitude  of  poor  men,  who  might 
never  resort  to  a  distant  place  of  education.  They  set  learning 
in  a  visible  form,  plain,  indeed,  and  humble,  but  dignified  even 
in  her  humility,  before  the  eyes  of  a  rustic  people,  in  whom  the 
love  of  knowledge,  naturally  strong,  might  never  break  from  the 
bud  into  the  flower  but  for  the  care  of  some  zealous  gardener. 
They  give  the  chance  of  rising  in  some  intellectual  walk  of  life  to 
many  a  strong  and  earnest  nature  who  might  otherwise  have 
remained  an  artisan  or  storekeeper,  and  perhaps  failed  in  those 

1  The  law  of  most  American  States  has  not  yet  recognized  the  necessity  of 
providing  proper  methods  for  setting  aside  the  dispositions  made  by  founders 
when  circumstances  change  or  their  regulations  prove  unsuitable.  Endow¬ 
ments,  if  they  continue  to  increase  at  their  present  rate,  will  become  a 
very  doubtful  blessing  unless  this  question  is  boldly  dealt  with.  The 
difficulties  of  so  dealing  are  complicated  by  the  provisions  of  the  Federal 
Constitution. 


CHAP.  CVI1I 


THE  UNIVERSITIES 


741 


avocations.  They  light  up  in  many  a  country  town  what  is  at 
first  only  a  farthing  rushlight,  but  which,  when  the  town  swells 
to  a  city,  or  when  endowments  flow  in,  or  when  some  able 
teacher  is  placed  in  charge,  becomes  a  lamp  of  growing  flame, 
which  may  finally  throw  its  rays  over  the  whole  State  in  which  it 
stands.  In  some  of  these  smaller  Western  colleges  one  finds  to¬ 
day  men  of  great  ability  and  great  attainments,  one  finds  students 
who  are  receiving  an  education  quite  as  thorough,  though  not 
always  as  wide,  as  the  best  Eastern  universities  can  give.  I  do 
not  at  all  deny  that  the  time  for  more  concentration  has  come,  and 
that  restrictions  on  the  power  of  granting  degrees  would  be  use¬ 
ful.  But  one  who  recalls  the  history  of  the  West  during  the  sec¬ 
ond  half  of  last  century,  and  bears  in  mind  the  tremendous  rush  of 
ability  and  energy  towards  a  purely  material  development  which 
has  marked  its  people,  will  feel  that  this  uncontrolled  freedom 
of  teaching,  this  multiplication  of  small  institutions,  have  done 
for  the  country  a  work  which  a  few  State-regulated  universities 
might  have  failed  to  do.  The  higher  learning  is  in  no  danger. 
The  great  universities  of  the  East,  as  well  as  several  in  the  West, 
are  already  beginning  to  rival  the  ancient  universities  of  Europe. 
They  will  soon  have  far  greater  funds  at  their  command  with 
which  to  move  towards  the  same  ideal  as  Germany  sets  before 
herself ;  and  they  have  already  what  is  better  than  funds  —  an 
ardour  and  industry  among  the  teachers  which  equals  that  dis¬ 
played  early  in  last  century  in  Germany  by  the  foremost  men  of 
the  generation  which  raised  the  German  schools  to  their  glorious 
eminence. 

It  may  be  thought  that  an  observer  familiar  with  two  uni¬ 
versities  which  are  among  the  oldest  and  most  famous  in  Europe, 
and  are  beyond  question  the  most  externally  sumptuous  and 
beautiful,  would  be  inclined  to  disparage  the  corresponding 
institutions  of  the  United  States,  whose  traditions  are  compara¬ 
tively  short,  and  in  whose  outward  aspect  there  is  little  to  attract 
the  eye  or  touch  the  imagination.  I  have  not  found  it  so.  An 
Englishman  who  visits  America  can  never  feel  sure  how  far  his 
judgment  has  been  affected  by  the  warmth  of  the  welcome  he 
receives.  But  if  I  may  venture  to  state  the  impression  which  the 
American  universities  have  made  upon  me,  I  will  say  that  while 
of  all  the  institutions  of  the  country  they  are  those  of  which 
the  Americans  speak  most  modestly,  and  indeed  deprecatingly, 
they  are  those  which  seem  to  be  at  this  moment  making  the 


742 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


swiftest  progress,  and  to  have  the  brightest  promise  for  the 
future.  They  are  supplying  exactly  those  things  which  European 
critics  have  hitherto  found  lacking  to  America :  and  they  are 
contributing  to  her  political  as  well  as  to  her  contemplative  life 
elements  of  inestimable  worth. 


CHAPTER  CIX 


FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  UNIVERSITIES 

As  the  fifteen  years  that  have  elapsed  since  the  last  preceding 
chapter  was  written  have  brought  many  changes  to  the  Univer¬ 
sities  of  the  United  States,  it  seems  fitting  to  note  here  the  more 
important  among  those  changes,  and  thus  convey  more  fully  than 
can  be  done  by  insertions  made  here  and  there  in  that  chapter  the 
present  state  of  the  Universities,  the  course  which  their  develop¬ 
ment  is  taking,  the  reflections  which  a  more  intimate  knowledge 
of  them  suggests. 

I.  Except  in  the  newest  parts  of  the  West  such  as  Oklahoma 
and  parts  of  the  Pacific  Slope,  the  founding  of  colleges  or  Uni¬ 
versities  has  almost  stopped.  It  is  generally  felt  all  through  the 
more  populous  and  well-settled  regions  that  there  are  already 
at  least  enough  degree-giving  institutions,  and  that  it  is  more 
important  to  strengthen  and  improve  those  that  exist  than  to 
create  new  ones.  Nevertheless  the  desire  of  a  rich  man  to 
perpetuate  his  name  by  a  new  foundation  and  the  desire  of  a 
denomination  to  have  the  satisfaction  of  pointing  to  a  college 
as  its  very  own  may  be  expected  to  cause  new  institutions  to 
be  from  time  to  time,  though  less  frequently  than  heretofore, 
established  even  in  districts  where  they  are  not  needed. 

The  development  of  the  already  existing  Universities  and 
Colleges  goes  on  with  undiminishing  speed.  It  is  seen  in  four 
directions  :  additions  to  the  endowments,  the  creation  of  new 
.  departments,  the  raising  of  salaries  paid  to  teachers,  and  an  in¬ 
crease  in  the  number  of  students.  In  1908  the  total  gifts  of 
money  for  the  purposes  of  higher  education  amounted  to 
$23,127,762,  and  the  number  of  students  in  institutions  of 
higher  education  (including  science  schools)  had  risen  from 
55,687  in  1889  to  199,824,  exclusive  of  those  in  preparatory 
departments. 

In  every  civilized  country  the  march  of  scientific  discovery 
has  led  to  an  enormous  increase  in  the  applications  of  science 

743 


744 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


to  productive  industry.  This  has  been  followed  by  a  demand 
for  men  conversant  with  these  applications,  and  to  supply  that 
demand  the  teaching  of  applied  science  has  been  provided  on 
a  scale  undreamed  of  even  a  generation  ago.  Nowhere,  per¬ 
haps  not  even  in  Germany,  has  this  movement  gone  so  fast 
or  so  far  as  in  the  United  States.  While  the  existing  Univer¬ 
sities  have  been  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  scientific  depart¬ 
ments,  a  host  of  independent  or  affiliated  scientific  schools  and 
technical  institutes  have  sprung  up.  Most  of  these  have  been 
planted  in  the  cities,  but  the  agricultural  colleges,  perhaps  the 
most  numerous  class,  are  often  placed  in  rural  areas.  Of  these 
latter  many  are  really  secondary  schools,  or  are  teaching  en¬ 
gineering  quite  as  much  as  agriculture,  but  some  of  the  best 
have  experimental  farms  attached  to  them.  Many  of  the 
States,  and  especially  the  Western  States,  have  been  active  in 
setting  up  and  endowing  such  schools  of  agriculture  either  as 
parts  of  a  State  University  or  as  independent  institutions,  and 
in  the  case  of  the  best  of  these,  such  as  those  of  Wisconsin  and 
Illinois,  the  large  sums  spent  in  buildings  and  annual  grants  are 
deemed  to  have  been  amply  repaid  to  the  State  by  the  increase 
in  its  production  whether  of  tillage  crops,  or  of  fruit,  or  of  milk 
and  cheese,  or  of  other  forms  of  food.  The  classes  in  these  best 
agricultural  colleges  are  attended  by  crowds  of  students,  some 
of  them  middle-aged  or  elderly  farmers  ;  while  the  Universities 
also  send  their  lecturers  out  through  the  country  and  supply 
from  their  head  offices  information  and  advice  to  those  who  ap¬ 
ply  for  it.  Thus  one  may  say  that  the  idea  that  Agriculture  in 
all  its  branches  is  a  science,  to  be  pursued  with  exact  knowledge 
and  by  scientific  methods,  has  now  thoroughly  laid  hold  of  the 
American  mind,  and  is,  in  the  North  and  West,  almost  as  fully 
realized  by  the  farmers  as  by  the  men  of  science.1 

These  new  developments,  including  the  enlargement  of  the 
professional  schools  (medicine,  dentistry,  and  law)  attached  to 
the  Universities,  have  of  course  led  to  large  increases  in  the 
teaching  staff.  The  number  of  professors  and  instructors  of 
all  kinds  rose  from  7918  in  1889  to  22,359  in  1909.  There  has 
also  been  a  tendency  to  raise  the  salaries  of  the  teachers,  and 
in  some  few  Universities  the  full  professor  now  receives  $5000 


1  Though  many  of  the  so-called  agricultural  colleges  are  still  far  from  having 
reached  the  level  of  those  few  mentioned  above.  Some  trenchant  remarks  on 
this  subject  may  be  found  in  the  Report  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation  for  1909. 


chap,  cix  OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


745 


to  $6000  a  year.1  But  as  a  rule  the  remuneration  allotted 
to  presidents  and  teachers  of  all  grades  remains  small  when 
compared  on  the  one  hand  with  the  attainments  now  expected 
and  on  the  other  hand  with  the  growing  cost  of  living.2 

The  most  considerable  improvement  in  the  position  of  the 
professor  has  come  from  a  private  source.  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie 
has  created  a  fund  with  an  annual  income  (in  1909)  of  $500,000 
for  the  purpose  of  providing  retiring  allowances  for  professors 
in  those  Universities  and  Colleges  in  the  United  States,  Canada, 
and  Newfoundland  that  comply  with  certain  conditions  pre¬ 
scribed,  the  most  important  of  which  is  that  they  are  not  to 
be  under  the  control  of  any  particular  sect  or  denomination, 
the  trustees  of  the  fund  having  a  discretionary  power  to  deter¬ 
mine  how  this  principle  is  to  be  applied  in  each  particular  case.3 

The  recent  development  of  the  higher  education  is,  however, 
most  conspicuous  in  the  enormous  increase  in  the  attendance  of 
students.  In  1889-1890  the  total  number  returned  to  the 
Bureau  of  Education  as  collegiate  and  resident  graduate  students 
was  44,926  men  and  10,761  women.  In  1908-1909  the  numbers 
were  119,480  men  and  50,786  women,  besides  19,344  students 
in  the  collegiate  and  graduate  departments  of  a  different  and 
much  less  advanced  group  of  colleges  for  women.  The  actual 
number  was  larger,  because  there  are  colleges  which  make  no 
return.  But  these  figures  are  enough  to  show  how  rapid  has 
been  the  growth  in  nineteen  years,  a  growth  whose  rate  is  far 
in  excess  of  the  rate  at  which  the  population  has  grown,  and 
which  is  twice  as  large  for  women  students  as  for  the  men. 
Of  the  total  number  of  students  who  are  receiving  higher  educa¬ 
tion  no  accurate  record  is  attainable,  for  though  the  Bureau  of 
Education  Report  gives  a  total  enrolment  of  308,163  in  the 
preparatory,  collegiate,  graduate,  and  professional  departments  of 


1  In  Harvard  the  maximum  salary  is  in  the  Law  School  $7500,  in  other 
departments  $5500,  but  this  maximum  is  reached  only  after  a  number  of  years’ 
service  as  full  professor. 

2  In  1908  one-third  of  the  degree-granting  Universities  paid  their  full  professors 
an  average  salary  of  less  than  $1000  a  year,  and  only  20  paid  an  average  of  $3000 
or  over,  only  5  paying  an  average  salary  of  $3500  or  over.  The  salaries  of  Assist¬ 
ant  professors  are  much  lower,  those  of  Instructors  lower  still. 

3  In  1909  the  total  number  of  retiring  allowances  in  force  was  318,  the  average 
amount  being  $1460. 

The  creation  of  this  fund  has  had  the  incidental  result  of  tending  to  establish, 
not  without  protests  and  complaints,  a  sort  of  unofficial  standard  of  excellence 
for  colleges. 


746 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


the  606  Universities,  Colleges,  and  technological  schools  that 
have  made  returns,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  say  how  many  of 
these  are  receiving  instruction  of  a  true  University  type.  The 
institutions  that  make  up  the  606  enumerated  are  of  all  kinds 
and  descriptions.  Many  are  not  above  the  grade  of  secondary 
schools,  and  it  is  impossible  to  draw  the  line  between  them  and 
those  which  give  an  instruction  corresponding  to  that  of  Univer¬ 
sities  in  Europe.  Still,  without  venturing  to  form  any  numerical 
estimate  of  the  students  in  institutions  of  the  latter  class,  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  they  bear  a  larger  proportion  to  the  population  of 
the  United  States  than  similar  students  do  to  the  whole  popula¬ 
tion  in  any  other  country.  That  is  to  say,  Universities  and 
technical  or  professional  schools  of  the  University  level  are  more 
numerous  and  attract  more  students,  not  merely  absolutely, 
but  relatively  to  the  whole  community,  than  in  the  most  ad¬ 
vanced  of  European  countries. 

Of  the  quality  of  the  instruction  given  it  is  even  more  difficult 
to  speak  in  general  terms  than  it  is  to  fix  the  type  to  which  each 
institution  belongs.  But  the  fact  remains  that  the  institutions 
are  there  and  the  students  are  there.  The  revenues  grow  :  the 
attendance  grows.  Quantity  at  least  has  been  obtained.  Of 
quality  I  shall  speak  later. 

This  striking  growth  in  the  number  of  students  seems  due  to 
two  causes.  One  cause,  operative  all  over  the  country,  but 
perhaps  most  operative  in  the  Western  States,  is  the  sense  that 
a  knowledge  of  applied  science  has  great  practical  value  for 
many  occupations,  and  especially  for  agriculture  and  for  the 
various  branches  of  engineering,  and  that  it  is  therefore  worth 
while  “as  a  business  proposition”  to  spend  some  years  in  ac¬ 
quiring  that  knowledge  systematically  rather  than  to  begin  prac¬ 
tical  life  on  leaving  school  at  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  age. 
The  other  cause  is  that  University  education  has  become  fash¬ 
ionable,1  and  is  more  and  more  coming  to  be  considered  not  a 
luxury  for  the  few,  nor  a  thing  needed  only  by  those  who  mean 
to  enter  one  of  the  so-called  “learned  professions/’  but  a  prep¬ 
aration  for  life  with  which  all  those  who  can  afford  the  money 
and  the  time  ought  to  be  furnished.  Formerly  young  men 
intended  for  a  business  life  seldom  thought,  except  in  two  or 

1  A  degree  conferred  at  one  of  the  few  oldest  and  most  famous  Universities 
has  even  a  social  value,  especially  to  a  member  of  a  new  rich  ”  family  which 
is,  as  people  say,  “  on  the  make.” 


chap,  cix  OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


747 


three  of  the  older  States,  of  going  to  college.  Now  they  are 
just  as  likely  to  go  as  are  any  others.  This  is  the  most  note¬ 
worthy  new  feature  of  the  last  thirty  years,  and  is  also  the  most 
striking  educational  difference  between  America  and  Europe. 
A  University  education  has  in  the  United  States  ceased  to  be 
the  privilege  of  the  few.  It  is  for  all  the  world. 

The  change  is  itself  largely  due  to  two  economic  facts.  One 
is  the  rapid  increase  in  the  number  of  persons  with  incomes 
large  enough  to  make  it  easy  for  them  to  send  sons  and  daughters 
to  college.  The  other  is  the  creation  of  State  Universities,  espe¬ 
cially  in  the  Western  States,  in  which  instruction  is  provided  at 
a  very  low  charge.  These  have  so  much  popularized  the  higher 
education  that  through  their  example  and  influence  the  afflux 
of  students  to  all  Colleges  has  increased.  It  may  be  added  that 
charges  are  everywhere  moderate,  and  that  in  the  smaller  towns 
of  the  West,  a  student  can  lodge  and  board  cheaply.  Two 
other  causes,  however,  must  not  be  altogether  omitted.  Col¬ 
leges  have  profited  by  the  modern  passion  for  athletic  competi¬ 
tion  and  the  immense  interest  which  the  public  take  in  football 
and  baseball  matches  between  the  teams  of  different  Univer¬ 
sities.  Many  a  boy  finds  in  these  an  incitement  to  University 
life  which  the  desire  for  knowledge  might  have  failed  to  provide. 
Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  the  rivalry,  not  only  of  denominations 
but  of  particular  places,  even  comparatively  small  places,  has 
borne  a  part  in  this  immense  multiplication  of  teaching  institu¬ 
tions.  Each  little  city  or  even  rural  area  thinks  it  a  feather  in 
its  cap  to  possess  a  college,  and  those  who  own  real  estate  be¬ 
lieve  that  it  raises  the  value  of  the  land  they  have  to  sell.  Once 
the  college  is  established,  its  staff  as  well  as  the  local  people  are 
concerned  to  “boom”  and  “boost”  it.  So  the  resources  of  ad¬ 
vertising  are  called  in,  sometimes  with  a  certain  lack  of  the  dignity 
which  befits  a  seat  of  learning.  Thus  it  happens,  not  only  that 
colleges  are  established  where  they  are  not  wanted,  but  that  many 
students  are  drawn  to  them  who  ought  to  be  preparing  them¬ 
selves  at  school,  including  some  whom  nature  has  not  blessed 
with  the  gifts  needed  to  profit  by  the  higher  branches  of  edu¬ 
cation. 

This  increase  has  tended  to  give  the  Universities,  and 
especially  the  larger  ones,  a  much  more  prominent  place  in  the 
life  of  the  country  than  they  formerly  had.  They  have  become 
objects  of  general  interest.  Questions  affecting  them  are  more 


748 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


amply  discussed  in  newspapers  and  magazines,  and  appear  to 
lay  more  hold  on  the  attention  of  the  community  at  large  than 
is  the  case  in  England  or  perhaps  in  any  European  country. 
The  alumni  of  the  greater  Universities  form  associations,  some 
few  of  which  have  branches  in  the  chief  cities  of  the  country, 
while  others  are  locally  established.  They  meet  from  time  to 
time  ;  and  when  their  Alma  Mater  celebrates  an  anniversary  or 
opens  a  new  building  or  inaugurates  a  new  President,  they  flock 
to  her,  and  give  importance  to  the  festivity.  They  are  inclined 
—  sometimes  unduly  inclined  —  to  discourage  innovations. 
The  elder  man  was  even  in  the  days  of  Horace  laudator  temporis 
acti,  se  puero,  and  a  reforming  president  sometimes  finds  the 
influence  of  the  alumni  to  be  a  drag  on  his  efforts.  But  they 
respond  generously  when  the  University  asks  them  to  contribute 
to  some  new  object :  indeed,  it  is  largely  through  them  that 
extension  funds  are  raised.  In  one  University  the  custom  has 
grown  up  that  each  “ class’ ’  shall  on  the  completion  of  the 
twenty-fifth  year  from  graduation  offer  not  less  than  $100,000 
(£20,000)  to  the  University  treasury. 

With  this  rise  in  the  importance  of  the  American  University 
its  headship  has  come  to  be  an  office  of  enhanced  dignity  and 
influence.  The  man  selected  for  it  is  usually  a  person  of  literary 
or  scientific  eminence,  though  he  is  also  expected  to  possess 
administrative  talents.  He  is  now,  in  the  larger  Universities, 
almost  always  a  layman,  and  needs  to  have  unusual  energy  and 
tact,  for  one  of  his  chief  duties  is  to  travel  hither  and  thither 
delivering  public  addresses,  meeting  the  societies  of  the  alumni 
of  his  University,  and  endeavouring,  by  a  description  of  its  de¬ 
sires  and  needs,  to  obtain  further  funds  for  its  purposes.  His 
powers  in  the  management  of  the  institution  and  the  selec¬ 
tion  of  professors  are  much  greater  than  those  of  the  head 
of  an  English  or  Scottish  University.  But  he  is  often  also  a 
leading  figure  in  the  State,  perhaps  even  in  the  Nation.  No 
persons  in  the  country,  hardly  even  the  greatest  railway  magnates, 
are  better  known,  and  certainly  none  are  more  respected,  than  the 
Presidents  of  the  leading  Universities.  Much  of  course  depends 
on  personal  qualities.  The  place  will  not  give  strength  to  a 
weak  man.  But  if  he  be  strong,  the  place  doubles  his  oppor¬ 
tunities  for  exerting  his  strength,  and  ensures  a  wide  and 
attentive  hearing  for  anything  he  may  have  to  say. 

Although  the  terms  “  University  ”  and  “  College  ”  continue  to  be 


CHAP.  CIX 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


749 


loosely  used  in  the  United  States,  and  although  it  is  still  difficult 
to  draw  lines  dividing  into  classes  the  various  institutions  which 
bear  these  names,  still  it  may  be  said  that  three  main  types  are 
now  beginning  to  emerge,  to  one  or  other  of  which  all  may  be 
referred. 

The  first  includes  the  larger  among  the  old  degree-giving  bodies 
of  the  Eastern  States,  such  as  Harvard,  Yale,  and  Columbia,  to 
which  may  be  added  some  more  recent  institutions  of  private 
foundation,  such  as  the  University  of  Chicago,  Cornell  Uni¬ 
versity  in  New  York,  Stanford  University  in  California,  and 
Washington  University  in  St.  Louis.  All  these  were  originally 
colleges  giving  instruction  of  the  old-fashioned  kind  in  classics, 
mathematics,  and  moral  philosophy.  They  have  now  super- 
added  to  those  subjects,  formerly  deemed  to  constitute  a  general 
liberal  education,  various  professional  and  technical  departments, 
as  well  as  post-graduate  courses  in  special  but  not  professional 
subjects,  the  students  in  which,  taken  all  together  ^  exceed  in 
number  those  pursuing  the  course  for  the  regular  academic  arts 
or  science  degrees.  In  these  institutions  it  is  now  the  practice 
to  use  the  term  “  University  ”  to  denote  the  aggregate  of  all  the 
various  aforesaid  schools  and  to  restrict  the  term  11  College”  to 
that  central  department  which  prepares  students  for  some 
regular  degree  in  the  liberal  arts,  science,  or  philosophy. 

The  institutions  of  this  type  are  all  (with  minor  differences 
in  their  constitutions)  governed  by  bodies  of  trustees  who  per¬ 
petuate  themselves  by  co-optation  (with  sometimes  the  addition 
of  persons  representing  the  alumni)  and  they  are  supported  by  en¬ 
dowments  plus  the  sums  which  the  students  pay  for  instruction.1 

The  second  type  embraces  Universities  founded  and  supported 
wholly  or  mainly  by  a  State.  There  are  several  of  these  in  the 
Eastern  States,  such  as  the  Universities  of  North  Carolina,2  Vir¬ 
ginia,  Vermont,  and  Maine.  But  the  largest  and  most  char¬ 
acteristic  examples  occur  in  the  West,  such  as  the  Universities 
of  Michigan,  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  California. 
There  are  in  all  38  such  State  Universities,  including  three  in 

1  Cornell,  however,  receives  also  a  grant  from  the  State  of  New  York,  though 
not  strictly  a  State  University. 

2  The  State  University  of  North  Carolina,  founded  in  1789,  seems  to  be  the 
oldest  State  institution  of  the  modern  type,  though  in  several  States,  such  as 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  Pennsylvania,  the  legislatures  had  granted 
charters  and  money  to  Colleges  which  were  or  subsequently  became  self-govern¬ 
ing.  See  an  interesting  paper  entitled  The  Origin  of  American  State  Universities 
by  Dr.  Elmer  Elsworth  Brown  (Univ.  of  Calif.  Publications,  1903). 


750 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Ohio,  and  the  youthful  Universities  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona. 
These  resemble  the  first  type  in  having  an  undergraduate  de¬ 
partment  giving  a  general  liberal  education,  round  which  cluster 
a  number  of  professional  and  technical  schools,  the  schools  of 
medicine  and  agriculture  being  the  most  important.  They 
differ  from  the  first  type  in  being  governed  by  a  body,  usually 
called  Regents,  appointed  by  the  State  Government  (generally 
by  the  legislature)  and  in  being  supported  by  annual  or  biennial 
grants  from  the  revenues  of  the  State,  which  has  of  course 
provided  their  buildings  and  apparatus.  In  a  few  of  them 
instruction  is  gratuitous  to  citizens  of  the  State ;  in  all  it  is 
supplied  very  cheaply  to  citizens  and  cheaply  to  all  comers. 
Women  students  are  admitted  on  equal  terms  with  men.  As 
respects  instruction,  they  differ  little  from  the  Universities  of 
the  former  type.  Being  State-supported,  they  are  of  course 
absolutely  undenominational. 

The  third  type  is  less  easy  to  describe,  and  is,  indeed,  rather  a 
residual  mass  than  a  well-defined  class.  It  includes  those  degree¬ 
granting  bodies,  most  of  them  called  Colleges  but  some  of  them 
Universities  (there  being  seldom  any  distinction  in  fact  corre¬ 
sponding  to  the  difference  in  name),  which  confine  themselves 
wholly  or  mainly  to  the  giving  of  a  general  liberal  education 
without  providing  either  post-graduate  courses  or  professional 
departments.  To  this  division  belong  a  very  few  Eastern  Col¬ 
leges  of  high  rank  and  a  large  attendance  of  students  —  Prince¬ 
ton,  Dartmouth,  and  Brown  (in  Rhode  Island)  are  examples 
—  which  have  not  yet  set  up  professional  schools.  Johns 
Hopkins  in  Baltimore  holds  a  peculiar  position,  for  having 
begun  with  post-graduate  and  professional  schools  it  has  now 
engrafted  thereon  an  academic  department.  Here  too  we  must 
place  those  old  New  England  colleges  such  as  Williams,  Am¬ 
herst,  and  Bowdoin,  which,  situated  in  small  country  towns, 
have  adhered  to  the  older  traditions  and  devoted  themselves 
chiefly  to  the  preparation  of  students  for  the  B.A.  degree, 
whether  in  literary  or  in  scientific  courses.  These  latter 
Colleges  have  as  a  rule  remained,  and  have  wished  to  remain, 
comparatively  small.  They  retain,  and  they  well  deserve,  the 
credit  of  making  their  instruction  thorough  and  of  cultivating 
a  strong  social  spirit  among  their  alumni.  From  them  have 
come  many  of  the  strongest  intellects  and  characters  of  the 
last  generation.  In  this  division  we  must  also  place  the  large 


CHAP.  CIX 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


751 


number  of  small  Colleges  in  the  Middle,  the  Southern,  and 
the  Western  States,  most  of  which  provide  only  the  regular 
undergraduate  course,  though  a  very  few  have  begun  to  de¬ 
velop  special  departments,  especially  of  a  technical  kind.  Most 
of  these  are  connected  with  some  denomination,  those  of  the 
Roman  Catholic,  Methodist,  Protestant  Episcopal,  Presbyterian, 
and  Baptist  bodies  being  the  most  numerous,  but  students  of  all 
persuasions  are  freely  admitted  to  them.  There  are  such  great 
differences  among  them  both  as  regards  the  size  and  qualifications 
of  the  staff,  the  attendance  of  students,  and  the  standard 
of  instruction  that  no  general  statements  can  be  made.  Com¬ 
paratively  few,  however,  have  an  attendance  exceeding  500 ; 
many  might  be  classed  rather  with  upper  secondary  schools 
than  with  Universities ;  some  can  scarcely  be  called  efficient 
even  as  schools.  Some  few,  such  as  the  Iowa  College  at  Grin¬ 
ned,  -resemble  the  small  Colleges  of  New  England,  such  as  Am¬ 
herst,  in  the  thoroughness  of  their  academic  work ;  and  it  is  to 
be  desired  that  this  useful  order  was  more  largely  represented  in 
the  West.  As  has  been  already  observed,  Colleges  of  this  third 
type  now  spring  up  less  frequently  than  formerly,  and  we  may 
conjecture  that  in  the  West  and  South  the  weakest  among 
them  will  either  die  out,  or  frankly  admit  themselves  to  be  no 
more  than  secondary  schools,  or  possibly  be  affiliated  to  some 
strong  State  University,  while  the  richest  and  strongest  will 
grow  into  institutions  of  the  first  type.  Denominational  senti¬ 
ment  is  a  less  powerful  force  now  than  it  was  fifty  years  ago, 
so  the  State  University,  with  its  conspicuous  visibility  and  its 
command  of  money,  begins  to  dwarf  all  but  the  best  endowed 
Universities  of  private  foundation. 

It  was  noted  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  the  old  system  of 
prescribed  courses  for  degrees  limited  to  a  few  subjects,  taken  in 
regular  order,  had  about  1880  begun  to  break  up  and  disappear 
in  nearly  all  the  Universities.  The  process  went  on  briskly 
after  1890,  until,  in  some  institutions,  a  student  might  attend 
lectures  and  offer  himself  for  examination  in  any  one  or  more 
of  the  numerous  subjects  taught.  The  subjects  need  not  have 
any  relation  to  one  another,  the  selection  of  a  prescribed  number 
among  them  being  left  entirely  to  his  personal  tastes.  After 
a  while  a  reaction  set  in  against  this  “ unchartered  freedom.” 
Much  debate  followed  as  to  the  desirability  of  prescribing  a 
certain  small  number  of  regular  curricula,  either  for  the  whole 


752 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


or  at  least  for  the  first  year,  or  first  two  years,  of  the  students’ 
four  years  of  residence.  Great  diversity  still  exists,  both  in 
opinion  and  in  practice  :  indeed,  the  present  situation  is,  if  not 
chaotic,  yet  evidently  transitional.  Only  two  things  are  pretty 
clear  :  the  first  that  the  general  tendency  is  at  present  away 
from  the  extreme  form  of  what  is  called  the  elective  system  ;  the 
second  that  nothing  like  the  rigidity  of  the  old  curriculum  will 
reappear.  Probably,  while  some  Universities  inay  continue  to 
allow  the  widest  freedom,  the  bulk  will  arrange  some  four,  five, 
or  six  groups  or  curricula  suited  to  different  tastes  and  capaci¬ 
ties,  or  will  permit  the  student  a  choice,  within  certain  limits, 
or  subject  to  the  approval  of  some  members  of  the  faculty  en¬ 
trusted  with  the  duty  of  advising. 

Controversies,  similar  to  those  with  which  Europe  is  fa¬ 
miliar,  are  carried  on  regarding  the  respective  values  of  various 
subjects  of  study.  But  the  main  issue  between  the  ancient 
classics  versus  the  natural  sciences  and  so-called  “  modern  sub¬ 
jects”  has  been  practically  decided  in  favour  of  the  latter.  Latin 
and  (still  more)  Greek  are,  especially  in  the  West,  vanishing 
quantities.  Less  than  10  per  cent  of  all  the  students  in  the 
Universities  and  Colleges  acquire  an  effective  knowledge  of  the 
former,  less  than  2  per  cent  of  the  latter  language,  under¬ 
standing  by  “effective  knowledge”  the  ability  to  read  a  previ¬ 
ously  unseen  but  easy  Latin  or  Greek  passage  two  years  after 
graduation.  If  Universities  of  the  first  type  only  were  taken, 
the  percentage  would  be  larger,  yet  even  in  them  small.  Efforts 
are  being  made  to  restore  the  study  of  the  ancient  authors  to 
their  proper  place  in  the  scheme  of  a  truly  liberal  education. 
But  in  America,  as  in  Europe,  the  stream  runs  strong  towards 
those  branches  of  instruction  deemed  most  directly  useful  for 
gainful  occupations.  Even  in  Europe,  where  traditions  are 
more  powerful  than  in  America,  it  is  hard  to  convince  persons 
who  have  not  themselves  either  a  knowledge  of  the  ancient  lan¬ 
guages  or  a  taste  for  letters  and  for  history,  of  what  is  called  the 
“cultural  value”  of  a  knowledge  of  ancient  literature.  Philo¬ 
sophical  courses  have  in  America  declined  less  than  classical ; 
and  history,  which  does  not  usually  require  a  knowledge  of 
ancient  languages,  holds  its  own.  It  is  indeed  one  of  the  sub¬ 
jects  for  which  a  comparatively  ample  provision  is  made  in 
Universities  both  of  the  first  and  of  the  second  of  the  above- 
mentioned  types.  The  number  of  persons  teaching  it  in  all  the 


CHAP.  CIX 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


753 


Universities  and  Colleges  must  be  reckoned  by  hundreds,  indeed, 
by  many  hundreds.  It  is,  however,  towards  scientific  subjects, 
and  especially  towards  applied  science,  that  the  drift  is 
strongest.  The  same  tendency  prevails  in  Europe,  and  seems 
likely  to  continue  for  a  good  while  to  come. 

The  graduate  schools  mentioned  in  the  preceding  chapter 
as  novelties  have  immensely  expanded.  Johns  Hopkins  has 
the  honour  of  having  led  the  way ;  and  now  such  schools  have 
been  created  in  most  of  the  greater  Universities,  a  notable  in¬ 
stance  in  which  the  educational  spirit  and  enterprise  of  Ameri¬ 
cans  have  outstripped  the  conservatism  or  the  poverty  of  Eng¬ 
lish  and  Scottish  seats  of  learning.  It  may,  however,  be  doubted 
whether  it  would  not  have  been  better  if  some  at  least  of 
the  Universities  which  have  founded  these  schools  had,  instead 
of  attempting  to  spread  themselves  over  a  large  variety  of  sub¬ 
jects,  each  confined  itself  to  a  few  only,  on  which  its  resources 
might  have  been  concentrated.  Some  few  Universities  may 
command  revenues  large  enough  to  enable  them  to  cover  the 
whole  field  of  knowledge,  but  in  others  the  spirit  of  rivalry  in¬ 
duces  the  spending,  in  efforts  to  do  many  things  imperfectly, 
the  money  which  might  better  have  been  employed  in  doing 
a  few  things  thoroughly.  The  Academic  Department  must 
of  course  make  full  provision  for  all  the  general  academic  sub¬ 
jects  ;  and  to  specialize  a  University,  on  its  general  teaching 
side,  would  be  to  narrow  it,  and  to  lose  the  benefit  that  comes 
from  the  mingling  of  minds  pursuing  different  branches  of 
scholarship  or  scientific  enquiry.  But  more  might  be  done 
for  advanced  study  in  particular  subjects  if  one  University  de¬ 
voted  itself  chiefly  to  one  group  of  subj  ects,  another  to  another, 
so  that  the  graduate  student  might  resort  to  an  institution 
which  had  gathered  together  the  most  eminent  teachers  and 
investigators  in  the  line  he  desired  to  follow,  and  had  pro¬ 
vided  the  most  complete  laboratory  or  apparatus.  The  coun¬ 
try  is  so  large  that  there  would  always  be  several  Universities 
dedicated  to  each  group,  so  that  none  would  enjoy  a  monopoly, 
yet  the  benefits  incident  to  division  of  labour  and  special¬ 
ization  of  function  would  follow.  Nearly  all  the  scientific  work 
of  the  country,  except  that  directly  connected  with  inventions 
of  practical  commercial  value,  is  done  in  the  Universities  and 
the  need  for  strengthening  research  departments  begins  to  be 
more  and  more  recognized. 

3  c 


754 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


It  may  be  added  that  in  this,  as  in  some  other  respects,  there  is 
at  present  less  diversity  between  American  Universities  than  the 
European  visitor  who  sees  the  vastness  of  the  country,  the  dif¬ 
ferent  economic  conditions  of  its  different  parts,  and  the  different 
elements  in  its  population  has  been  led  to  expect.  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  are  more  unlike  either  the  Scottish  Universities  or 
the  new  Universities  in  Alanchester  and  Liverpool,  than  any 
American  University  is  to  any  other,  for  although  the  appli¬ 
ances  are  generally  (not  always)  inferior  in  the  newer  parts  of 
the  country,  although  the  students  are  less  well  prepared  and 
possibly  rougher  in  externals  in  some  districts  than  in  others, 
still  the  educational  habits  and  views  of  policy  and  methods  of 
instruction  are  essentially  similar  all  over  the  country.  This  is 
a  natural  result  of  the  long  course  of  historical  development 
in  Britain,  as  compared  with  the  shorter  time  during  which  the 
higher  education  has  been  developing  itself  in  the  New  World, 
but  it  suggests  the  wish  that  American  Universities  may  in 
time  i  similarly  differentiate  themselves  from  one  another,  for 
there  is  in  variety  a  sort  of  richness  helpful  to  the  thought  and 
imagination  of  a  great  country. 

The  restless  activity  of  our  time  has  further  displayed  itself  in 
the  University  Extension  Movement,  which,  coming  a  little  later 
than  it  did  in  England,  has  reached  even  larger  proportions. 
It  was  felt  that  something  ought  to  be  done  for  those  who  could 
not  spare  the  time  to  follow  a  regular  degree  course,  as  well  as 
for  those  whose  previous  training  had  not  qualified  them  to  ma¬ 
triculate.  Of  the  many  institutions  which  are  doing  this  work, 
twenty-three  State  Universities  offer  general  extension  work, 
and  fifteen  of  these  have  organized  departments  for  the  purpose. 
Correspondence  study  has  been  found  valuable  for  students 
living  in  rural  areas  which  lecturers  cannot  easily  reach.  Some 
Universities,  notably  the  great  one  at  Chicago,  have  established 
summer  schools  to  which  great  numbers  of  students  resort  who 
have  not  time  for  a  regular  four  years’  course.  It  is  believed 
that  these  extension  methods  have  been  helpful  to  the  elemen¬ 
tary  teachers  and  are  serving  to  bring  the  teaching  profession  of 
a  State  into  closer  touch  with  the  leading  Universities,  a  thing 
profitable  to  both.1  They  throw,  however,  a  heavy  burden  on 

1  The  Universities  and  Colleges  in  and  near  Boston  have  organized  a  com¬ 
bined  system  of  courses  and  offer  the  degree  of  A. A.  to  those  who  attain  a  cer¬ 
tain  standard. 


chap,  cix  OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


755 


the  University  staff,  which  is  already  so  hard  worked  as  to 
have  insufficient  time  for  study  and  research. 

The  number  of  women  students  has  increased  faster  than 
that  of  men  and  faster  in  the  West  than  in  the  other  parts  of 
the  country.  In  the  University  of  Illinois  the  proportion  of 
one-fourth  is  steadily  maintained,  but  in  Chicago  the  attend¬ 
ance  of  women  bears  a  higher  ratio.  All  State  Universities 
are  coeducational,  though  fears  are  expressed  that  as  these 
institutions  become  more  fashionable  places  of  resort  it  may 
prove  less  easy  to  maintain  that  spirit  of  hard  work  which  has 
hitherto  prevented  questions  of  college  discipline  from  causing 
trouble.  There  is  even  some  talk  of  establishing  separate 
departments  for  women  in  the  State  Universities.  In  the 
East  coeducation  does  not  make  way..  Parents  prefer  to  send 
their  daughters  to  colleges  for  women  only,  and  three  colleges 
which  taught  men  and  women  together  have  recently  ceased 
to  do  so.1  So  far,  the  women  are  said  to  have  showrn  more 
assiduity  and  zeal  in  their  studies  than  the  men.  A  sort  of 
differentiation  is  visible  in  the  fact  that  while  men  prefer 
science  as  practically  serviceable,  women  favour  the  courses  in 
languages  and  history,  and  keep  going,  in  the  West,  the  classes 
in  Latin  and  Greek.  As  the  public  schools  in  the  North  and 
West  are  chiefly  staffed  by  female  teachers,  who  in  some  States 
are  five-sixths  or  even  more  of  the  total  number  of  instructors, 
this  equal  right  of  access  to  the  Universities  does  much  for  the 
teaching  profession. 

Among  the  minor  changes  of  the  last  twenty  years  it  is  not 
without  interest  to  note  that  the  growth  of  an  aesthetic  spirit 
among  the  educated  classes  has  led  some  Universities  to 
erect  handsome  buildings  in  mediaeval  or  post  mediaeval  styles. 
Washington  University  at  St.  Louis  has  followed  the  types  of 
English  college  architecture  with  felicity ;  the  University  of 
Chicago  has  reproduced  the  hall  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford  and 
the  tower  of  Magdalen  College.  Stanford  University,  near 
San  Francisco,  has  beautiful  cloisters  and  lecture  rooms  of  a 
colonial  Spanish  type ;  and  the  University  of  California  has 
half  erected,  half  carved  out  of  the  hillside,  a  Greek  theatre 
modelled  on  that  at  Epidaurus  which  has  preserved  the  ad¬ 
mirable  acoustic  properties  of  the  original.  So  too,  the  faculties 
of  nearly  all  the  greater  Universities  have  now  blossomed  out 


1  One  of  these  has  provided  a  separate  college  for  women. 


756 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


into  a  variety  of  gowns  and  a  still  richer  and  more  brilliant 
variety  of  coloured  hoods  worn  upon  solemn  academic  occa¬ 
sions.  The  effect  when  a  long  procession,  clad  in  all  the  colours 
of  the  rainbow,  winds  across  the  green  spaces  of  the  college 
campus  under  the  shade  of  spreading  trees  has  been  such  as  to 
silence  the  cavils  of  those  who  condemned  this  departure  from 
democratic  simplicity.  It  is  an  innovation  which  even  the 
alumni  do  not  disapprove. 

Three  other  questions  besides  that  relating  to  curricula  and 
the  range  of  choice  allowed  to  students,  have  of  recent  years 
begun  to  claim  the  attention  of  those  who  direct  University 
policy. 

One  of  these  is  the  increased  passion  for  athletic  competitions, 
especially  in  football  and  baseball,  and,  to  a  much  smaller 
extent,  in  rowing.  The  ordinary  undergraduate  plays  games  far 
less  than  does  the  ordinary  English  youth  at  Oxford  or  Cam¬ 
bridge,  and  as  little  as  the  ordinary  youth  in  a  Scotch  or  German 
University.  But  he  is  incomparably  more  interested  in  the 
performances  of  his  College  team  when  it  competes  with  that  of 
another  University.  The  members  of  the  team  are  the  heroes 
of  their  time.  The  contests  sometimes  draw  fifty  or  sixty  thou¬ 
sand  spectators  and  excite  passionate  curiosity  over  the  coun¬ 
try,  among  women  not  less  than  among  men ;  and  while  the  long 
list  of  hurts,  not  rarely  fatal,  received  in  these  contests  leads  to 
protests  against  the  roughness  of  the  way  in  which  football  is 
played,  some  college  presidents  declare  that  the  preoccupa¬ 
tion  of  the  undergraduate  with  these  games  has  reduced  the 
attention,  not  too  great  before,  which  is  given  to  study.  But 
these  contests  continue  to  be  the  most  conspicuous,  and  to  many 
the  most  attractive,  feature  of  University  life,  especially  in  the 
Eastern  States,  where  the  rival  claims  of  learning  might  be 
thought  to  have  a  better  chance  than  in  the  strenuously 
practical  and  fiercely  competitive  West. 

Another  topic  of  discussion  is  the  possibility  of  creating  in 
those  Universities  which  have  grown  very  large  something  in 
the  nature  of  the  residential  Colleges  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 
It  is  thought  that  these  might  furnish  social  groups  of  a  size 
favourable  to  the  formation  of  friendships  and  the  creation  of 
a  sort  of  quasi-domestic  life.  The  idea  has  not  yet  had  time 
to  strike  root,  but  if  it  does,  benefactors  to  give  effect  to  it  will 
be  found,  for  the  Universities  have  now  among  their  alumni 


CHAP.  CIX 


OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


757 


a  great  many  rich  men  who  are  on  the  lookout  for  means  of 
spending  their  fortunes  on  purposes  useful  in  themselves,  and 
calculated  to  perpetuate  their  names. 

The  third  question  touches  a  more  vital  point.  In  the  pro¬ 
fessional  and  scientific  and  post-graduate  departments  of  Uni¬ 
versities,  diligence  and  interest  on  the  part  of  the  students  are 
the  rule.  They  have  entered  in  order  to  fit  themselves  for  their 
future  avocations,  and  they  apply  themselves  steadily,  throw¬ 
ing  their  force  into  work  which  they  feel  to  be  for  their  practical 
benefit.  But  in  the  so-called  “  College,”  or  academic  part  of  the 
institution,  that  which  gives  a  general  liberal  education,  whether 
in  languages  or  philosophy  or  history  or  natural  science,  things 
are  said  to  be  otherwise.  The  average  undergraduate,  espe¬ 
cially  the  son  of  well-to-do  parents,  is  now  described  as  being  more 
absorbed  in  social  life  and  its  amusements  than  in  the  subjects 
in  which  he  is  lectured  and  on  which  he  is  examined.  He  does  no 
more  than  is  absolutely  needed  to  get  his  degree.  The  man 
who  enjoys  his  work  and  follows  it  con  amove  is  the  exception. 
That  intellectual  stimulation  which  a  University  ought  to  give 
is  received  by  comparatively  few  ;  that  atmosphere  of  keen  and 
eager  thought  which  ought  to  pervade  all  the  more  vigorous 
minds  is,  if  not  wanting,  yet  comparatively  faint. 

To  these  criticisms,  those  who  know  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
sometimes  add  another,  viz.  that  there  is  not  a  sufficiently  close 
relation  between  teacher  and  student  whereby  the  latter  is  influ¬ 
enced  and  stimulated  privately  as  well  as  in  class  lectures. 
Many  of  the  teachers  are  young  men  —  the  instructors  (as 
distinct  from  the  full  professors)  are  nearly  all  so.  Yet  it  is 
alleged  that  the  want  of  something  resembling  a  college  and 
something  in  the  nature  of  a  tutorial  system  prevents  the  teach¬ 
ers  from  getting  into  personal  touch  with  the  students  as  indi¬ 
viduals  as  they  do  in  the  older  English  Universities,  though  to 
be  sure  neither  in  Scotland  nor  in  Germany.1 

How  far  either  of  these  allegations  is  true,  I  am  not  able 
to  determine.  But  this  at  least  seems  certain,  that  in  most 
Universities,  including  the  oldest  and  greatest  in  the  Eastern 
States,  intellectual  distinction  in  the  work  of  the  college  is 
little  sought  by  ambitious  spirits,  and  little  valued  by  their 
companions.  A  prominent  athlete  is  a  far  more  brilliant  and 
honoured  figure  than  the  man  most  distinguished  in  the  studies 

1  Except  of  course  in  what  is  called  in  Germany  the  Seminar. 


758 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


of  the  place.  Undergraduates  declare  that  the  assiduous  stu¬ 
dent,  even  if  there  be  nothing  of  the  bookworm  about  him,  is 
apt  to  be  looked  down  upon  as  a  dull  and  plodding  fellow. 
And  a  further  point  of  unlikeness  to  English  and  Scotch  con¬ 
ditions  appears  in  the  fact  that  nobody  seems  to  think  he 
will  get  any  better  start  in  his  profession  by  having  done  well 
at  college ;  nor  when  references  are  made  to  men  who  have 
won  success  or  fame  in  after  life,  does  one  hear  anything  said 
about  their  University  careers,  though  statistical  enquiries 
have  shown  that  the  proportion  of  successes  in  life  is 
much  larger  among  those  who  did  in  fact  apply  themselves 
to  their  studies.1  In  England  there  are  of  course  many 
undergraduates,  perhaps  a  half,  who  neglect  their  work,  and 
others  who,  though  they  do  study,  are  moved  less  by  love  of 
knowledge  than  for  the  sake  of  getting  a  degree  sufficiently 
high  to  help  them  forward  in  their  future  profession.  Still 
there  are  also  many  who  are  really  interested,  and  care  far 
more  for  their  studies  than  they  do  for  the  amusements  of  the 
place.  Among  nearly  all  the  men  of  talent  the  desire  to  achieve 
distinction  is  strong,  and  the  men  who  achieve  it  are  marked  out 
among  their  fellows.  Accordingly  those  who  in  the  American 
Universities  regret  what  they  think  the  deficient  interest  taken 
by  undergraduates  in  their  studies  and  the  preponderating 
attraction  of  inter-university  contests  in  such  games  as  football, 
have  begun  to  canvas  the  question  whether  the  introduction 
of  honour  courses  and  of  competitions  for  literary  and  scientific 
distinctions  may  not  be  needed.  Observers  from  other  coun¬ 
tries  have  long  expected  that  such  a  debate  would  some  day 
arise,  and  await  with  curiosity  its  issue. 

One  who  surveys  the  progress  of  the  United  States  during 
the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years  finds  nothing  more  sig¬ 
nificant  than  the  growth  of  the  Universities  in  number,  in 
wealth,  and  in  the  increased  attendance  of  students  from  all 
ranks  of  life.  They  have  become  national  and  popular  in  a 
sense  never  attained  before  in  any  country.  This  growth  is  not 
due  to  any  set  purpose;  and  in  it  the  National  government 

1  Distinction  in  a  professional  school  (law  and  medicine)  in  a  few  of  the 
greatest  Universities  is,  however,  supposed  to  help  a  man  in  his  start  in  pro¬ 
fessional  life,  and  in  some  few  Universities  there  are  honours  to  be  won  by  com¬ 
petition.  Harvard  so  awards  scholarships,  and  the  number  of  those  who  though 
they  obtain  the  honour  do  not  receive,  because  they  do  not  need,  the  emolu¬ 
ment,  practically  equals  that  of  those  to  whom  the  stipend  is  paid. 


chap,  cix  OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


759 


has  had  no  hand.1  For  nearly  a  century  it  was  a  quite  sponta¬ 
neous  growth,  due  to  private  liberality  and  denominational  zeal, 
since  it  is  only  within  the  last  few  decades  that  the  State 
Legislatures  have  thrown  themselves  effectively  into  the  work. 
Effective  as  their  action  has  been,  it  has  been  done  without 
concert,  and  seldom  upon  any  fixed  plan,  so  the  State  Univer¬ 
sities  have  enjoyed  a  large  freedom  of  natural  development  and 
have,  taking  them  all  in  all,  suffered  little  more  from  govern¬ 
mental  control  than  have  those  which  depended  on  private 
liberality  or  on  the  payments  made  by  students. 

In  some  ways  they  would  all,  both  State  and  private  institu¬ 
tions,  have  profited  by  a  little  more,  not  indeed  of  uniformity,  yet 
of  systematic  direction  and  regulation.  There  has  been  much 
waste  of  effort  and  of  money  in  planting  several  weak  colleges 
where  one  strong  one  would  have  rendered  better  service. 
Weakness  has  meant  acquiescence  in  a  low  standard  of  entrance 
requirements  (hard  anyhow  to  avoid  in  the  newer  States  where 
secondary  schools  are  still  insufficient  in  number  and  quality), 
in  imperfect  teaching,  in  degrees  which  witness  to  no  high  level 
of  attainment.  This  has  been  specially  unfortunate  as  respects 
the  profession  of  medicine,  where  the  maintenance  of  a  high 
level  is  essential  for  the  safety  of  the  whole  community.  Some 
of  the  American  medical  schools  are  equal  to  any  in  Europe,  but 
some  are  far  below  the  level  of  any  recognized  in  England, 
France,  or  Germany.2  The  abundance  of  Colleges  and  Uni¬ 
versities  whose  performances  are  obviously  mediocre  has  natu¬ 
rally  lowered  among  the  people  at  large  the  conception  of 
what  a  University  ought  to  be  and  achieve,  and  the  eagerness 
of  rival  institutions  to  secure  students  has  led  not  only  to  super¬ 
ficiality  but  to  a  preference  of  the  subjects  most  attractive  to  the 
practical  mind  and  a  corresponding  undervaluing  of  those  whose 
virtue  lies  in  the  general  intellectual  cultivation  they  give. 

Nevertheless,  with  all  these  defects  the  Universities  and 
Colleges  have,  taken  as  a  whole,  rendered  an  immense  service. 

1  Except  of  course  in  respect  of  the  land  grants  made  by  Congress  to  the 
States  for  University  and  agricultural  education.  Latterly,  moreover,  the  Agri¬ 
cultural  Department  at  Washington  has  rendered  valuable  help  to  Agricultural 
State  Colleges. 

2  The  Carnegie  Foundation  Report  for  1909  observes,  “There  are  in  this 
country  more  medical  schools  than  in  all  Europe,  and  these  schools  have  turned 
upon  the  public  a  far  larger  number  of  physicians  than  are  needed,  the  majority 
ill  trained  and  educated,  the  imperative  need  being  now  not  more  medical  schools 
but  fewer  and  better  ones,”  p.  91. 


760 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


They  have  brought  instruction  within  the  reach  of  every  boy 
and  girl  of  every  class.  They  receive  a  larger  proportion  of  the 
youthful  population  than  do  any  similar  institutions  in  any 
other  country.  They  are  resorted  to  hardly  less  by  those  who 
mean  to  tread  the  paths  of  commerce  or  industry  than  by  those 
who  prepare  themselves  for  a  learned  profession.  They  have 
turned  a  University  course  from  being  the  luxury  which  it  has 
been  in  the  Old  World  into  being  almost  a  necessary  of  life. 
And  they  have  so  expanded  their  educational  scheme  as  to 
provide  (in  the  larger  institutions)  instruction  in  almost  every 
subject  in  which  men  and  women  are  likely  to  ask  for  it. 

So  far  then  as  Quantity  goes,  whether  quantity  and  variety 
of  attendance  or  quantity  and  variety  of  instruction,  nearly 
all  that  the  needs  of  the  time  and  the  country  demand  has  been 
attained. 

Quality  is  of  course  another  matter.  In  education,  improve¬ 
ments  in  quality  do  not  always  keep  pace  with  increase  in  quan¬ 
tity,  and  often  follow  with  sadly  lagging  steps.  Nevertheless, 
they  do  generally  tend  to  follow.  No  doubt  the  first  and  easier 
thing  for  an  ambitious  institution  is  to  devote  itself  to  material 
improvements,  to  enlarge  its  buildings  and  its  library,  its  scien¬ 
tific  apparatus,  even  its  gymnasium.1  When  money  is  spent 
on  these  things  the  result  can  be  seen,  and  even  the  least  in¬ 
structed  visitors  are  impressed.  To  secure  more  able,  more 
learned,  more  inspiring  teachers,  and  by  their  help  to  improve 
the  instruction  given  and  the  standard  of  attainment  which  a 
degree  represents  is  a  slower  and  more  difficult  task.  Yet 
here,  too,  the  natural  tendency  is  upward,  and  the  emulation 
of  these  numerous  and  aspiring  bodies  helps  that  tendency. 
When  one  University  has  made  evident  its  excellence  by  the 
work  of  its  teachers  and  by  the  kind  of  men  it  turns  out,  others 
feel  they  must  try  to  reach  its  level  by  similar  methods. 

The  things  which  the  most  judicious  friends  of  the  Universi¬ 
ties  (including  many  of  their  Presidents)  hold  to  be  now  most 
needed,  would  appear  to  be  the  following  :  — 

(1)  The  development  in  each  region  of  the  country  —  by 
which  I  mean  in  each  populous  State  or  in  each  group  of  less 
populous  States  —  of  at  least  one  University  which  may  serve  as 

1  One  University  is  reported  to  have  recently  mortgaged  its  campus  for 
$400,000  to  erect  what  is  called  a  Stadium,  while  paying  its  full  professors  an 
average  yearly  salary  of  $1800  only. 


chap,  cix  OBSERVATIONS  ON  UNIVERSITIES 


761 


a  model  to  the  others  in  that  section,  setting  before  them  in 
a  tangible  form  the  organs  of  activity  and  the  excellences  of 
arrangement  and  method  which  a  first-rate  place  of  education, 
learning,  and  research  ought  to  possess.  In  some  parts  of  the 
country  there  are  several  Universities  so  much  ahead  of  others 
that  they  are  already  being  taken  as  patterns.  In  other  parts 
none  such  yet  exist. 

(2)  As  a  means  to  the  above  end,  there  is  required  a  higher 
scale  of  salaries  for  the  teaching  staff.  This  is  no  doubt  needed 
in  European  countries  also,  but  in  those  countries  the  attractions 
which  other  careers  have  for  a  man  of  energy  are  seldom  so 
great  as  in  the  United  States,  and  the  cost  of  living  is  neither  so 
high  nor  rising  so  rapidly. 

(3)  It  is  felt  that  there  ought  to  be  a  stronger  pulse  of  intellec¬ 
tual  life  among  the  undergraduates  in  the  “  College  ”  or  Academic 
department.  They  are  not  generally  idle  or  listless,  but  rather, 
like  most  young  Americans,  alert  and  active  in  temperament. 
Their  conduct  is  usually  good ;  in  no  country  are  vices 
less  common  among  students.  But  those  who  are  keenly 
interested  either  in  their  particular  studies  or  in  the  “  things  of 
the  mind”  in  general  are  comparatively  few  in  number.  Ath¬ 
letic  competitions  and  social  pleasures  claim  the  larger  part  of 
their  thoughts,  and  the  University  does  not  seem  to  be  giving 
them  that  taste  for  intellectual  enjoyment  which  ought  to  be 
acquired  early  if  it  is  to  be  acquired  at  all. 

(4)  The  conception  of  a  general  liberal  education,  the  ideal 
of  such  an  education  as  something  which  it  is  the  function  of  a 
University  to  give  in  order  to  prepare  men  for  life  as  a  whole, 
over  and  above  the  preparation  required  for  any  particular  walk 
of  life,  is  described  as  being  in  some  institutions  insufficiently 
valued  and  imperfectly  realized.  Those  whose  views  I  am  set¬ 
ting  forth  admit  that  professional  and  other  special  schools 
can  give,  and  often  do  give,  an  effective  training  of  the  men¬ 
tal  powers  in  the  course  of  the  special  instruction  they  impart. 
What  they  miss  is  that  largeness  of  view  and  philosophic  habit 
of  thought  which  the  study  of  such  subjects  as  literature,  phi¬ 
losophy,  and  history  is  fitted  to  implant  when  these  subjects  are 
taught  in  a  broad  and  stimulating  way.  In  short,  the  pressure 
of  the  practical  subjects  and  of  the  practical  spirit  in  handling 
these  subjects,  is  deemed  to  be  unduly  strong. 

How  far  the  criticisms  summarized  under  the  two  last  heads 


762 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


as  made  by  competent  American  observers  are  generally  appli¬ 
cable,  I  will  not  attempt  to  determine.  They  are  given  because 
they  are  made  by  persons  entitled  to  be  heard.  This,  however, 
may  be  said,  that  forces  and  tendencies  are  discernible  all  over 
the  country  which  cannot  but  work  for  raising  the  level  of  in¬ 
struction  and  diffusing  more  widely  those  educational  ideals 
which  the  best  representatives  of  University  progress  already 
cherish. 

Foreign  critics  often  say,  and  some  domestic  critics  have 
echoed  the  censure,  that  what  is  chiefly  admired  in  America  is 
Bigness,  things  being  measured  by  their  size  or  by  what  they 
cost.  This  quantitative  estimate  finds  little  place  in  the  Univer¬ 
sities.  With  very  few  exceptions,  the  teaching  staff  are  not 
thinking  of  size,  nor  of  money,  except  so  far  as  it  helps  to  extend 
the  usefulness  of  their  institution.  All  the  better  men,  and  not 
merely  the  ablest  men,  but  the  good  average  men,  feel  that  it  is 
the  mission  of  a  University  to  seek  and  find  and  set  forth  the 
real  values.  It  has  been  well  said  by  one  of  the  most  acute  and 
large-minded  of  all  recent  visitors  to  the  United  States 1  that 
nowhere  in  the  world  do  University  teachers  feel  more  strongly 
that  the  first  object  of  their  devotion  is  Truth.  They  are  of  all 
classes  in  the  country  that  which  is  least  dazzled  by  wealth,  least 
governed  by  material  considerations.  No  wealth-seeker  would, 
indeed,  choose  such  a  profession.  To  one  who  looks  back  over 
the  last  twenty  years,  the  Universities  seem  to  have  grown  not 
only  in  their  resources  and  the  number  of  their  students,  but  also 
in  dignity  and  influence.  They  hold  a  higher  place  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Nation.  They  have  almost  entirely  escaped  any  delete¬ 
rious  contact  either  with  politics  or  with  those  capitalistic  groups 
whose  power  is  felt  in  so  many  other  directions.2  Through  the 
always  widening  circle  of  their  alumni  they  are  more  closely  in 
touch  than  ever  before  with  all  classes  in  the  community.  The 
European  observer  can  express  now  with  even  more  conviction 
than  he  could  twenty  years  ago  the  opinion  that  they  constitute 
one  of  the  most  powerful  and  most  pervasive  forces  working  for 
good  in  the  country. 

1  Professor  Dr.  Lamprecht  of  Leipzig  in  his  Amerikana. 

2  The  exceptions  to  this  general  statement  are  so  rare  as  to  emphasize  the  fact 
that  it  is  almost  universally  true. 


CHAPTER  CX 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 

In  examining  the  National  government  and  the  State  govern¬ 
ments,  we  have  never  once  had  occasion  to  advert  to  any  eccle¬ 
siastical  body  or  question,  because  with  such  matters  govern¬ 
ment  has  in  the  United  States  absolutely  nothing  to  do.  Of  all 
the  differences  between  the  Old  World  and  the  New  this  is  per¬ 
haps  the  most  salient.  Half  the  wars  of  Europe,  half  the  internal 
troubles  that  have  vexed  European  States,  from  the  Monophysite 
controversies  in  the  Roman  Empire  of  the  fifth  century  down  to 
the  Kulturkampf  in  the  German  Empire  of  the  nineteenth,  have 
arisen  from  theological  differences  or  from  the  rival  claims  of 
Church  and  State.  This  whole  vast  chapter  of  debate  and  strife 
has  remained  virtually  unopened  in  the  United  States.  There 
is  no  Established  Church.  All  religious  bodies  are  absolutely 
equal  before  the  law,  and  unrecognized  by  the  law,  except  as 
voluntary  associations  of  private  citizens. 

The  Federal  Constitution  contains  the  following  prohibi¬ 
tions  :  — 

Art.  VI.  No  religious  test  shall  ever  be  required  as  a  qualification  to 
any  office  or  public  trust  under  the  United  States. 

Amendment  I.  Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establish¬ 
ment  of  religion  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof. 

No  attempt  has  ever  been  made  to  alter  or  infringe  upon  these 
provisions.  They  affect  the  National  government  only,  placing 
no  inhibition  on  the  States,  and  leaving  the  whole  subject  to  their 
uncontrolled  discretion,  though  subject  to  the  general  guaran¬ 
tees  against  oppression. 

Every  State  constitution  contains  provisions  generally  simi¬ 
lar  to  the  above.  Most  declare  that  every  man  may  worship 
God  according  to  his  own  conscience,  or  that  the  free  enjoyment 
of  all  religious  sentiments  and  forms  of  worship  shall  be  held 

763 


764 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


sacred ;  1  most  also  provide  that  no  man  shall  be  compelled  to 
support  or  attend  any  church ;  some  forbid  the  creation  of  an 
established  church,  and  many  the  showing  of  a  preference  to  any 
particular  sect;  while  many  provide  that  no  money  shall  ever 
be  drawn  from  the  State  treasury,  or  from  the  funds  of  any 
municipal  body,  to  be  applied  for  the  benefit  of  any  church  or 
sectarian  institution  or  denominational  school.  Thirty-three 
constitutions,  including  those  of  the  six  most  recently  admitted 
States,  forbid  any  religious  test  to  be  required  as  a  qualifica¬ 
tion  for  office ;  some  declare  that  this  principle  extends  to  all 
civil  rights ;  some  specify  that  religious  belief  is  not  to  affect 
a  man’s  competence  as  a  witness.  But  in  several  States  there 
still  exist  qualifications  worth  noting.  Vermont  and  Delaware 
declare  that  every  sect  ought  to  maintain  some  form  of  religious 
worship,  and  Vermont  adds  that  it  ought  to  observe  the  Lord’s 
Day.  Six  Southern  States  exclude  from  office  any  one  who 
denies  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being.  Besides  these  six, 
Pennsylvania  and  Tennessee  pronounce  a  man  ineligible  for 
office  who  does  not  believe  in  God  and  in  a  future  state  of  re¬ 
wards  and  punishments.  Maryland  and  Arkansas  even  make 
such  a  person  incompetent  as  a  juror  or  witness.2  Religious 
freedom  has  been  generally  thought  of  in  America  in  the  form 
of  freedom  and  equality  as  between  different  sorts  of  Christians, 
or  at  any  rate  different  sorts  of  theists;  persons  disclaiming 
any  kind  of  religion  have  till  recently  been  extremely  few  every¬ 
where  and  practically  unknown  in  the  South.  The  neutrality  of 
the  State  cannot  therefore  be  said  to  be  theoretically  complete.3 

In  earlier  days  the  States  were  very  far  from  being  neutral. 
Rhode  Island  indeed,  whose  earliest  settlers  were  seceders 
from  Massachusetts,  stood  from  the  first  for  the  principle 
of  complete  religious  freedom  and  the  detachment  of  Christian 
communities  from  all  secular  power  or  secular  control.  Roger 
Williams,  the  illustrious  founder  of  this  little  State,  was  one  of 
those  few  to  whom  this  principle  was  revealed  when  the  great 

1  Four  States  provide  that  this  declaration  is  not  to  be  taken  to  excuse  breaches 
of  the  public  peace,  many  that  it  shall  not  excuse  acts  of  licentiousness,  or  justify 
practices  inconsistent  with  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  State,  and  three  that  no 
person  shall  disturb  others  in  their  religious  worship. 

2  Full  details  on  these  points  will  be  found  in  Mr.  Stimson’s  valuable  collec¬ 
tion  entitled  American  Statute  Law. 

-i  Idaho  disfranchises  all  polygamists  or  advocates  of  polygamy  ;  but  Mor- 
monism  is  attacked  not  so  much  as  a  religion  as  in  respect  of  its  social  features  and 
hierarchical  character. 


CHAP.  CX 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 


7G5 


mass  of  Christians  were  still  in  bondage  to  the  ideas  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  But  the  other  two  States  of  old  New  England 
began  with  a  sort  of  Puritan  theocracy,  and  excluded  from  some 
civil  rights  persons  who  stood  outside  the  religious  community. 
Congregationalism  was  the  ruling  faith,  and  Roman  Catholics, 
Quakers,  and  Baptists  were  treated  with  great  severity.  The 
early  constitutions  of  several  States  recognized  what  was  vir¬ 
tually  a  State  church,  requiring  each  locality  to  provide  for  and 
support  the  public  worship  of  God.  It  was  not  till  1818  that 
Connecticut  in  adopting  her  new  constitution  placed  all  reli- 
ious  bodies  on  a  level,  and  left  the  maintenance  of  churches  to 
the  voluntary  action  of  the  faithful.  In  Massachusetts  a  tax 
for  the  support  of  the  Congregationalist  churches  was  imposed 
on  all  citizens  not  belonging  to  some  other  incorporated  reli¬ 
gious  body  until  1811,  and  religious  equality  was  first  fully  recog¬ 
nized  by  a  constitutional  amendment  of  1833.  In  Virginia, 
North  and  South  Carolina,  and  Maryland,  Protestant  Episco¬ 
pacy  was  the  established  form  of  religion  till  the  Revolution, 
when  under  the  impulse  of  the  democratic  spirit,  and  all  the 
more  heartily  because  the  Anglican  clergy  were  prone  to  Toryism 
(as  attachment  to  the  British  connection  was  called),  and 
because,  at  least  in  Virginia,  there  had  been  some  persecution  of 
Nonconformists,  all  religious  distinctions  were  abolished  and 
special  ecclesiastical  privileges  withdrawn.  In  Pennsylvania 
no  church  was  ever  legally  established.  In  New  York,  however, 
first  the  Dutch  Reformed,  and  afterwards  the  Anglican  Church 
had  in  colonial  days  enjoyed  a  measure  of  State  favour.  What 
is  remarkable  is  that  in  all  these  cases  the  disestablishment,  if 
one  may  call  it  by  that  name,  of  the  privileged  church  was  ac¬ 
complished  with  no  great  .effort,  and  left  very  little  rancour 
behind.  In  the  South  it  seemed  a  natural  outcome  of  the 
Revolution.  In  New  England  it  came  more  gradually,  as  the 
necessary  result  of  the  political  development  of  each  common¬ 
wealth.  The  ecclesiastical  arrangements  of  the  States  were  not 
inwoven  with  the  pecuniary  interests  of  any  wealthy  or  socially 
dominant  class ;  and  it  was  felt  that  equality  and  democratic 
doctrine  generally  were  too  palpably  opposed  to  the  maintenance 
of  any  privileges  in  religious  matters  to  be  defensible  in  argument. 
However,  both  in  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts  there  was  a 
political  struggle  over  the  process  of  disestablishment,  and  the 
Congregationalist  ministers  predicted  evils  from  a  change  which 


766 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


they  afterwards  admitted  to  have  turned  out  a  blessing  to  their 
own  churches.  No  voice  has  ever  since  been  raised  in  favour 
of  reverting  —  I  will  not  say  to  a  State  establishment  of  religion 
—  but  even  to  any  State  endowment  or  State  regulation  of 
ecclesiastical  bodies.  It  is  accepted  as  an  axiom  by  all  Americans 
that  the  civil  power  ought  to  be  not  only  neutral  and  impartial 
as  between  different  forms  of  faith,  but  ought  to  leave  these 
matters  entirely  on  one  side,  regarding  them  no  more  than  it 
regards  the  artistic  or  literary  pursuits  of  the  citizens.1  There 
seem  to  be  no  two  opinions  on  this  subject  in  the  United 
States.  Even  the  Protestant  Episcopal  clergy,  who  are  in  many 
ways  disposed  to  admire  and  feel  with  their  brethren  in  England ; 
even  the  Roman  Catholic  bishops,  whose  creed  justifies  the 
enforcement  of  the  true  faith  by  the  secular  arm,  assure  the 
European  visitor  that  if  State  establishment  were  offered  them 
they  would  decline  it,  preferring  the  freedom  they  enjoy  to  any 
advantages  the  State  could  confer.  Every  religious  community 
can  now  organize  itself  in  whatever  way  it  pleases,  lay  down  its 
own  rules  of  faith  and  discipline,  create  and  administer  its 
own  system  of  judicature,  raise  and  apply  its  funds  at  its  uncon¬ 
trolled  discretion.  A  church  established  by  the  State  would  not 
be  able  to  do  all  these  things,  because  it  would  also  be  controlled 
by  the  State,  and  it  would  be  exposed  to  the  envy  and  jealousy 
of  other  sects. 

The  only  controversies  that  have  arisen  regarding  State 
action  in  religious  matters  have  turned  upon  the  appropriation 
of  public  funds  to  charitable  institutions  managed  by  some  par¬ 
ticular  denomination.  Such  appropriations  are  expressly  pro¬ 
hibited  in  the  constitutions  of  some  States.  But  it  may  happen 
that  the  readiest  way  of  promoting  some  benevolent  public 
purpose  is  to  make  a  grant  of  money  to  an  institution  already 
at  work,  and  successfully  serving  that  purpose.  As  this  reason 
may  sometimes  be  truly  given,  so  it  is  also  sometimes  advanced 
where  the  real  motive  is  to  purchase  the  political  support  of  the 
denomination  to  which  the  institution  belongs,  or  at  least  of  its 
clergy.  In  some  States,  and  particularly  in  New  York,  State 
or  city  legislatures  have  often  been  charged  with  giving  money 

1  There  was,  however,  for  some  time,  a  movement,  led,  I  think,  by  some 
Baptist  and  Methodist  ministers,  for  obtaining  the  insertion  of  the  name  of  God 
in  the  Federal  Constitution.  Those  who  desired  this  held  that  the  instrument 
would  be  thereby  in  a  manner  sanctified,  and  a  distinct  national  recognition  of 
theism  expressed. 


chap,  cx  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 


767 


to  Roman  Catholic  institutions  for  the  sake  of  securing  the 
Catholic  vote.1  In  these  cases,  however,  the  money  always 
purports  to  be  voted  not  for  a  religious  but  for  a  philanthropic 
or  educational  purpose.  No  ecclesiastical  body  would  be  strong 
enough  to  obtain  any  grant  to  its  general  funds,  or  any  special 
immunity  for  its  ministers.  The  passion  for  equality  in  reli¬ 
gious  as  well  as  secular  matters  is  everywhere  too  strong  to  be 
braved,  and  nothing  excites  more  general  disapprobation  than 
any  attempt  by  an  ecclesiastical  organization  to  interfere  in 
politics.  The  suspicion  that  the  Roman  Catholic  church  uses 
its  power  over  its  members  to  guide  their  votes  for  its  purposes 
has  more  than  once  given  rise  to  strong  anti-Catholic  or  (as 
they  would  be  called  in  Canada)  Orange  movements,  such  as 
that  which  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  figured  largely 
in  Ohio,  Indiana,  Michigan,  and  Illinois  under  the  name  of  the 
American  Protective  Association.  So  the  hostility  to  Mormon- 
ism  was  due  not  merely  to  the  practice  of  polygamy,  but  also 
to  the  notion  that  the  hierarchy  of  the  Latter  Day  Saints  con¬ 
stitutes  a  secret  and  tyrannical  imperium  in  imperio  opposed  to 
the  genius  of  democratic  institutions. 

The  refusal  of  the  civil  power  to  protect  or  endow  any  form 
of  religion  is  commonly  represented  in  Europe  as  equivalent 
to  a  declaration  of  contemptuous  indifference  on  the  part  of 
the  State  to  the  spiritual  interests  of  its  people.  A  State  recog¬ 
nizing  no  church  is  called  a  godless  State ;  the  disestablishment 
of  a  church  is  described  as  an  act  of  national  impiety.  Nothing 
can  be  farther  from  the  American  view,  to  an  explanation  of 
which  it  may  be  well  to  devote  a  few  lines. 

The  abstention  of  the  State  from  interference  in  matters  of 
faith  and  worship  may  be  advocated  on  two  principles,  which 
may  be  called  the  political  and  the  religious.  The  former  sets 
out  from  the  principles  of  liberty  and  equality.  It  holds  any 
attempt  at  compulsion  by  the  civil  power  to  be  an  infringe¬ 
ment  on  liberty  of  thought,  as  well  as  on  liberty  of  action,  which 
could  be  justified  only  when  a  practice  claiming  to  be  religious 
is  so  obviously  anti-social  or  immoral  as  to  threaten  the  well¬ 
being  of  the  community.  Religious  persecution,  even  in  its 

1  In  1910  the  Roman  Catholic  schools  and  charities  of  New  York  received 
more  than  $1,500,000  ;  very  few  other  denominational  institutions  received 
money,  but  those  of  some  Hebrew,  German,  French,  and  similar  societies  re¬ 
ceived  smaller  amounts,  of  which  the  largest,  $235,000,  went  to  Hebrew  charities. 


768 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


milder  forms,  such  as  disqualifying  the  members  of  a  particular 
sect  for  public  office,  is,  it  conceives,  inconsistent  with  the  con¬ 
ception  of  individual  freedom  and  the  respect  due  to  the  primor¬ 
dial  rights  of  the  citizen  which  modern  thought  has  embraced. 
Even  if  State  action  stops  short  of  the  imposition  of  disabilities, 
and  confines  itself  to  favouring  a  particular  church,  whether  by 
grants  of  money  or  by  giving  special  immunities  to  its  clergy, 
this  is  an  infringement  on  equality,  putting  one  man  at  a  disad¬ 
vantage  compared  with  others  in  respect  of  matters  which  are 
(according  to  the  view  I  am  stating)  not  fit  subjects  for  State 
cognizance. 

The  second  principle,  embodying  the  more  purely  religious 
view  of  the  question,  starts  from  the  conception  of  the 
church  as  a  spiritual  body  existing  for  spiritual  purposes, 
and  moving  along  spiritual  paths.  It  is  an  assemblage  of 
men  who  are  united  by  their  devotion  to  an  unseen  Being, 
their  memory  of  a  past  divine  life,  their  belief  in  the  possibility 
of  imitating  that  life,  so  far  as  human  frailty  allows,  their  hopes 
for  an  illimitable  future.  Compulsion  of  any  kind  is  contrary 
to  the  nature  of  such  a  body,  which  lives  by  love  and  reverence, 
not  by  law.  It  desires  no  State  help,  feeling  that  its  strength 
comes  from  above,  and  that  its  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world. 
It  does  not  seek  for  exclusive  privileges,  conceiving  that  these 
would  not  only  create  bitterness  between  itself  and  other  religious 
bodies,  but  might  attract  persons  who  did  not  really  share  its 
sentiments,  while  corrupting  the  simplicity  of  those  who  are 
already  its  members.  Least  of  all  can  it  submit  to  be  controlled 
by  the  State,  for  the  State,  in  such  a  world  as  the  present,  means 
persons  many  or  most  of  whom  are  alien  to  its  beliefs  and  cold 
to  its  emotions.  The  conclusion  follows  that  the  church  as  a 
spiritual  entity  will  be  happiest  and  strongest  when  it  is  left 
absolutely  to  itself,  not  patronized  by  the  civil  power,  not  re¬ 
strained  by  law  except  when  and  in  so  far  as  it  may  attempt  to 
quit  its  proper  sphere  and  intermeddle  in  secular  affairs. 

Of  these  two  views  it  is  the  former  much  more  than  the  latter 
that  has  moved  the  American  mind.  The  latter  would  doubtless 
be  now  generally  accepted  by  religious  people.  But  when  the 
question  arose  in  a  practical  shape  in  the  earlier  days  of  the 
Republic,  arguments  of  the  former  or  political  order  were  found 
amply  sufficient  to  settle  it,  and  no  practical  purpose  has  since 
then  compelled  men  either  to  examine  the  spiritual  basis  of  the 


chap,  cx  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 


769 


church,  or  to  inquire  by  the  light  of  history  how  far  State  action 
has  during  sixteen  centuries  helped  or  marred  her  usefulness. 
There  has,  however,  been  another  cause  at  work,  I  mean  the 
comparatively  limited  conception  of  the  State  itself  which 
Americans  have  formed.  The  State  is  not  to  them,  as  to  Ger¬ 
mans  or  Frenchmen,  and  even  to  some  English  thinkers,  an 
ideal  moral  power,  charged  with  the  duty  of  forming  the  charac¬ 
ters  and  guiding  the  lives  of  its  subjects.  It  is  more  like  a  com¬ 
mercial  company,  or  perhaps  a  huge  municipality  created  for  the 
management  of  certain  business  in  which  all  who  reside  within 
its  bounds  are  interested,  levying  contributions  and  expending 
them  on  this  business  of  common  interest,  but  for  the  most  part 
leaving  the  shareholders  or  burgesses  to  themselves.  That  an 
organization  of  this  kind  should  trouble  itself,  otherwise  than 
as  matter  of  police,  with  the  opinions  or  conduct  of  its  members, 
would  be  as  unnatural  as  for  a  railway  company  to  inquire  how 
many  of  the  shareholders  were  Wesley ans  or  total  abstainers. 
Accordingly  it  never  occurs  to  the  average  American  that  there 
is  any  reas.on  why  State  churches  should  exist,  and  he  stands 
amazed  at  the  warmth  of  European  feeling  on  the  matter. 

Just  because  these  questions  have  been  long  since  disposed 
of,  and  excite  no  present  passion,  and  perhaps  also  because 
the  Americans  are  more  practically  easy-going  than  pedanti¬ 
cally  e^act,  the  National  government  and  the  State  governments 
do  give  to  Christianity  a  species  of  recognition  inconsistent  with 
the  view  that  civil  government  should  be  absolutely  neutral 
in  religious  matters.  Each  House  of  Congress  has  a  chaplain, 
and  opens  its  proceedings  each  day  with  prayers.  The  President 
annually  after  the  end  of  harvest  issues  a  proclamation  ordering 
a  general  thanksgiving,  and  occasionally  appoints  a  day  of  fast¬ 
ing  and  humiliation.  So  prayers  are  offered  in  the  State  legis¬ 
latures,1  and  State  governors  issue  proclamations  for  days  of 
religious  observance.  Congress  in  the  crisis  of  the  Civil  War 
(July,  1863)  requested  the  President  to  appoint  a  day  for  humili¬ 
ation  and  prayer.  In  the  army  and  navy  provision  is  made 
for  religious  services,  conducted  by  chaplains  of  various  denomi¬ 
nations,  and  no  difficulty  seems  to  have  been  found  in  reconciling 
their  claims.  In  most  States  there  exist  laws  punishing  blas¬ 
phemy  or  profane  swearing  by  the  name  of  God  (laws  which, 

1  Though  Michigan  and  Oregon  forbid  any  appropriation  of  State  funds  for 
religious  services. 

3d 


770 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


however,  are  in  some  places  openly  transgressed  and  in  few  or 
none  enforced),  laws  restricting  or  forbidding  trade  or  labour  on 
the  Sabbath,  as  well  as  laws  protecting  assemblages  for  religious 
purposes,  such  as  camp-meetings  or  religious  processions,  from 
being  disturbed.  The  Bible  is  (in  most  States)  read  in  the  public 
State-supported  schools,  and  though  controversies  have  arisen 
on  this  head,  the  practice  is  evidently  in  accord  with  the  gen¬ 
eral  sentiment  of  the  people. 

The  matter  may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that  Christianity 
is  in  fact  understood  to  be,  though  not  the  legally  established 
religion,  yet  the  national  religion.1  So  far  from  thinking  their 
commonwealth  godless,  the  Americans  conceive  that  the  reli¬ 
gious  character  of  a  government  consists  in  nothing  but  the  re¬ 
ligious  belief  of  the  individual  citizens,  and  the  conformity  of 
their  conduct  to  that  belief.  They  deem  the  general  acceptance 
of  Christianity  to  be  one  of  the  main  sources  of  their  national 
prosperity,  and  their  nation  a  special  object  of  the  Divine  favour. 

The  legal  position  of  a  Christian  church  is  in  the  United 
States  simply  that  of  a  voluntary  association,  or  group  of  asso¬ 
ciations,  corporate  or  unincorporate,  under  the  ordinary  law. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  special  ecclesiastical  law ;  all  ques¬ 
tions,  not  only  of  property  but  of  church  discipline  and  juris¬ 
diction,  are,  if  brought  before  the  courts  of  the  land,  dealt  with 
as  questions  of  contract ; 2  and  the  court,  where  it  is  obliged  to 
examine  a  question  of  theology,  as  for  instance  whether  a  clergy¬ 
man  has  advanced  opinions  inconsistent  with  any  creed  or  formula 
to  which  he  has  bound  himself  —  for  it  will  prefer,  if  possible,  to 
leave  such  matters  to  the  proper  ecclesiastical  authority  —  will 
treat  the  point  as  one  of  pure  legal  interpretation,  neither  assum¬ 
ing  to  itself  theological  knowledge,  nor  suffering  considerations 
of  policy  to  intervene.3  Questions  relating  to  the  union  of  two 
religious  bodies  are  similarly  dealt  with  on  a  basis  merely  legal. 


1  It  has  often  been  said  that  Christianity  is  a  part  of  the  common  law  of  the 
States,  as  it  has  been  said  to  be  of  the  common  law  of  England  ;  but  on  this 
point  there  have  been  discrepant  judicial  opinions,  nor  can  it  be  said  to  find 
any  specific  practical  application.  A  discussion  of  it  may  be  found  in  Justice 
Story’s  opinion  in  the  famous  Girard  will  case. 

2  Or  otherwise  as  questions  of  private  civil  law.'  Actions  for  damages  are 
sometimes  brought  against  ecclesiastical  authorities  by  persons  deeming  them¬ 
selves  to  have  been  improperly  accused  or  disciplined  or  deprived  of  the  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  property. 

3  The  Emperor  Aurelian  decided  in  a  like  neutral  spirit  a  question  that  had 
arisen  between  two  Christian  churches. 


chap,  cx  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 


771 


As  a  rule,  every  religious  body  can  organize  itself  in  any  way 
it  pleases.  The  State  does  not  require  its  leave  to  be  asked, 
but  permits  any  form  of  church  government,  any  ecclesiastical 
order,  to  be  created  and  endowed,  any  method  to  be  adopted 
of  vesting  church  property,  either  simply  in  trustees  or  in  cor¬ 
porate  bodies  formed  either  under  the  general  law  of  the  State 
or  under  some  special  statute.  Sometimes  a  limit  is  imposed 
on  the  amount  of  property,  or  of  real  estate,  which  an  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  corporation  can  hold  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  civil  power  manifests  no  jealousy  of  the  spiritual,  but  allows 
the  latter  a  perfectly  free  field  for  expansion.  Of  course  if  any 
ecclesiastical  authority  were  to  become  formidable  either  by  its 
wealth  or  by  its  control  over  the  members  of  its  body,  this  easy 
tolerance  would  disappear ;  all  I  observe  is  that  the  difficulties 
often  experienced,  and  still  more  often  feared,  in  Europe,  from  the 
growth  of  organizations  exercising  tremendous  spiritual  powers, 
have  in  the  United  States  never  proved  serious.1  No  church 
has  anywhere  a  power  approaching  that  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  Lower  Canada  Religious  bodies  are  in  so  far  the 
objects  of  special  favour  that  their  property  is  in  most  States 
exempt  from  taxation ;  and  this  is  reconciled  to  theory  by  the 
argument  that  they  are  serviceable  as  moral  agencies,  and  diminish 
the  expenses  incurred  in  respect  of  police  administration.2  Two 
or  three  States  impose  restrictions  on  the  creation  of  religious  cor¬ 
porations,  and  one,  Maryland,  requires  the  sanction  of  the  legisla¬ 
ture  to  dispositions  of  property  to  religious  uses.  But,  speaking 
generally,  religious  bodies  are  the  objects  of  legislative  favour.3 

I  pass  on  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  the  religious  bodies  of  the 
country.4 

1  Occasionally  a  candidate  belonging  to  a  particular  denomination  receives 
some  sympathetic  support  from  its  members.  Once  in  a  State  election  in  Ar¬ 
kansas,  as  one  candidate  for  the  Governorship  had  been  a  Baptist  minister  and 
the  other  a  Methodist  presiding  elder,  and  four-fifths  of  the  voters  belonged  to 
one  or  other  denomination,  each  received  a  good  deal  of  denominational  adhesion. 

2  In  his  message  of  1881  the  Governor  of  Washington  Territory  recommended 
the  legislature  to  exempt  church  property  from  taxation,  not  only  on  the  ground 
that  “churches  and  schoolhouses  are  the  temples  of  education,  and  alike  con¬ 
duce  to  the  cultivation  of  peace,  happiness,  and  prosperity,”  but  also  because 
“churches  enhance  the  value  of  contiguous  property,  which,  were  they  abol¬ 
ished,  would  be  of  less  value  and  return  less  revenue.” 

3  New  Hampshire  taxed  churches  on  the  value  of  their  real  estate  exceeding 
810,000. 

4  An  interesting  and  impartial  summary  view  of  the  history  of  the  chief 
denominations  in  the  United  States  may  be  found  in  Dr.  George  P.  Fisher’s 
History  of  the  Christian  Church,  pp.  559-582. 


772 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


In  1906  an  attempt  was  made  to  obtain  from  each  of  these 
bodies  full  statistics  regarding  its  numbers  and  the  value  of  its 
property.  The  results,  which  I  take  from  the  bulletins  and  ab¬ 
stracts  of  that  census,  were,  as  respects  the  denominations  whose 
membership  exceeds  500,000  persons,  as  follows  :  — 


Roman  Catholics  .... 

.  10,879,930 1 

Methodists  (17  bodies) 

.  6,551,891 

Baptists  (16  bodies)  .... 

.  5,241,841 

Lutherans  (23  bodies) 

.  1,957,433 

Presbyterians  (12  bodies)  . 

.  1,771,787 

Disciples  of  Christ  .... 

.  1,264,758 

Protestant  Episcopalians 

837,073 

Congregationalists  .... 

694,923  2 

Besides  these  eight  bodies  the  Jews  are  returned  as  having 
143,000  members  (only  heads  of  families,  however,  being  reck¬ 
oned),  the  Friends  118,752,  the  Spiritualists  295,000,  and  eight 
communistic  societies  (including  the  so-called  Shakers)  only 
3084.  The  total  number  of  persons  returned  as  communicants 
or  members  of  all  the  churches  is  32,936,445. 

Of  the  above-mentioned  denominations,  or  rather  groups,  for 
most  of  them  include  numerous  minor  denominations,  the 
Methodists  and  Baptists  are  numerous  everywhere,  but  the 
Methodists  especially  numerous  in  the  South,  where  they  have 
been  the  chief  evangelizers  of  the  negroes,  and  in  the  Middle 
States,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois.  Of 
the  Congregationalists  nearly  one-half  are  to  be  found  in  New 
England,  the  rest  in  such  parts  of  the  Middle  and  Western 
States  as  have  been  peopled  from  New  England.  The  Presby¬ 
terians  are  strongest  in  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  Ohio,  New 
Jersey,  and  in  the  older  Southern  States,3  especially  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina,  States  where  many  Scoto-Irish  emigrants 
settled,  but  are  well  represented  over  the  West  also.  Of  the 
Lutherans  nearly  one-half  are  Germans  and  one-quarter  Scan¬ 
dinavians,  including  Icelanders  and  Finns.  The  Protestant 
Episcopalians  are  strongest  in  New  York  (which  supplies  one- 
fourth  of  their  total  number),  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and 

1  All  baptized  Roman  Catholics  over  nine  years  of  age  are  treated  as  members. 

2  The  total  number  of  ministers  of  all  denominations  is  returned  at  156,107, 
the  total  value  of  church  sites  and  buildings  (including  many  Chinese  temples) 
at  $1,257,575,867. 

3  The  strength  of  Presbyterianism  in  tlje  South  is  probably  due  in  part  to 
the  immigration  into  those  States  of  Ulstermen  in  the  middle  of  last  century, 
and  of  settlers  from  Holland  at  a  still  earlier  date. 


CHAP.  CX 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 


773 


Massachusetts.  There  are  65  dioceses  and  94  bishops,  but  no 
archbishop,  the  supreme  authority  being  vested  in  a  convention 
which  meets  triennially.  The  Unitarians  (in  all  70,542  with  541 
ministers)  are  few  outside  New  England  and  the  regions  settled 
from  New  England,  but  have  exercised  an  influence  far  beyond 
that  of  their  numbers  owing  to  the  eminence  of  some  of  their 
divines,  such  as  Channing,  Emerson,  and  Theodore  Parker,  and 
to  the  fact  that  they  include  a  large  number  of  highly  cultivated 
men.  The  Roman  Catholics  are,  except  in  Maryland  and  Lou¬ 
isiana,  nearly  all  either  of  Irish,  German,  Italian,  Slavonic,  or 
French-Canadian  extraction.  They  abound  everywhere,  except 
in  the  South  and  some  parts  of  the  North-West,  and  are  perhaps, 
owing  to  the  influx  of  Irish  and  French-Canadians,  most  relatively 
numerous  in  New  England.  The  great  development  of  the 
Lutheran  bodies  is  of  course  due  to  German  and  Scandinavian 
immigration.  Of  all  denominations  the  Jews  have  increased 
most  rapidly,  viz.  at  the  rate  of  160  per  cent  for  the  ten  years, 
1880-1890.  The  Jewish  population  of  the  U.  S.  was  estimated 
to  be  in  1880,  230,257  ;  in  1897,  937,800  ;  and  in  1907,  1,777,185. 
Of  the  Orthodox  Jews  (for  there  is  also  a  large  “ Reformed” 
section),  half  are  in  New  York. 

All  these  phenomena  find  an  easy  historical  explanation.  The 
churches  of  the  United  States  are  the  churches  of  the  British 
Isles,  modified  by  recent  Roman  Catholic,  Lutheran,  and  Jewish 
immigration  from  the  European  continent.  Each  race  has, 
as  a  rule,  adhered  to  the  form  of  religion  it  held  in  Europe ; 
and  where  denominations  comparatively  small  in  England 
have,  like  the  Methodists  and  Baptists,  swelled  to  vast  pro¬ 
portions  here,  it  is  because  the  social  conditions  under  which 
they  throve  in  England  were  here  reproduced  on  a  far  larger 
scale.  In  other  words,  the  causes  which  have  given  their 
relative  importance  and  their  local  distribution  to  American 
denominations  have  been  racial  and  social  rather  than  ecclesias¬ 
tical.  No  new  religious  forces  have  sprung  up  on  American 
soil  to  give  a  new  turn  to  her  religious  history.  The  breaking 
up  of  large  denominations  into  smaller  religious  bodies  seems  to 
be  due,  partly  to  immigration,  which  has  introduced  slightly 
diverse  elements,  partly  to  the  tendency  to  relax  the  old  dogmatic 
stringency,  a  tendency  which  has  been  found  to  operate  as  a 
fissile  force. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  there  exist  no  such  social  dis- 


774 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


tinctions  between  different  denominations  as  those  of  England. 
No  clergyman,  no  layman,  either  looks  down  upon  or  looks  up 
to  any  other  clergyman  or  layman  in  respect  of  his  worship¬ 
ping  God  in  another  way.  The  Roman  Catholic  church  of 
course  stands  aloof  from  the  Protestant  Christians,  whom  she 
considers  schismatic;  and  although  what  is  popularly  called 
the  doctrine  of  apostolic  succession  is  less  generally  deemed 
vital  by  Protestant  Episcopalians  in  America  than  it  has  come 
to  be  by  them  of  late  years  in  England,  the  clergy  of  that  church 
did  not  often  admit  to  their  own  pulpits  pastors  of  other  bodies 
(though  they  themselves  sometimes  appeared  in  the  pulpits  of 
those  churches)  until  in  1908  a  canon  was  passed  expressly 
legalizing  the  admission  of  ministers  of  other  Christian  com¬ 
munions.  Such  exchanges  of  pulpit  are  common  among  Pres¬ 
byterians,  Congregationalists,  and  other  orthodox  Protestant 
bodies.  In  many  parts  of  the  North  and  West  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  church  has  long  been  slightly  more  fashionable  than 
its  sister  churches;  and  people  who  have  no  particular  “ reli¬ 
gious  preferences/’  but  wish  to  stand  well  socially,  will  sometimes 
add  themselves  to  it.1  In  the  South,  however,  Presbyterianism 
(and  in  some  places  Methodism)  is  equally  well  regarded  from 
a  worldly  point  of  view;  while  everywhere  the  strength  of 
Methodists  and  Baptists  and  Roman  Catholics  resides  in  the 
masses  of  the  people.2 

Of  late  years  proposals  for  union  between  some  of  the  lead¬ 
ing  Protestant  churches,  and  especially  between  the  Presby¬ 
terians  and  Congregationalists  and  Lutherans,  have  been  freely 
canvassed.  They  witness  to  a  growing  good  feeling  among  the 
clergy,  and  growing  indifference  to  minor  points  of  doctrine  and 
church  government.  The  vested  interests  of  the  existing  clergy 
create  some  difficulties  serious  in  small  towns  and  country 
districts ;  but  it  seems  possible  that  before  many  years  more 
than  one  such  union  will  be  carried  through. 

The  social  standing  of  the  clergy  of  each  church  corresponds 


1  The  proposal  which  has  been  more  than  once  made  in  the  annual  conven¬ 
tion  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  church,  that  it  should  call  itself  “The  National 
Church  of  America,”  has  been  always  rejected  by  the  good  sense  of  the  major¬ 
ity,  who  perceive  that  an  assumption  of  this  kind  would  provoke  much  dis¬ 
pleasure  from  other  bodies  of  Christians. 

2  The  Methodists  and  Baptists  are  said  to  make  more  use  of  social  means  in 
the  work  of  evangelizing  the  masses,  and  to  adapt  themselves  more  perfectly 
to  democratic  ideas  than  do  the  other  Protestant  bodies. 


chap,  cx  THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 


775 


pretty  closely  to  the  character  of  the  church  itself  —  that  is  to 
say,  the  pastors  of  the  Presbyterian,  Congregationalism  Episco¬ 
palian,  and  Unitarian  bodies  come  generally,  at  least  in  the 
Northern  States,  from  a  slightly  higher  social  stratum  than 
those  of  other  more  numerous  denominations.  The  former  are 
usually  graduates  of  some  university  or  college.  As  in  Great 
Britain,  comparatively  few  are  the  sons  of  the  wealthy ;  and 
not  very  many  come  from  the  working  classes.  The  position 
of  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  carries  with  it  some  dignity  —  that 
is  to  say,  it  gives  a  man  a  certain  advantage  in  the  society, 
whatever  it  may  be,  to  which  he  naturally  belongs  in  respect  of 
his  family  connections,  his  means,  and  his  education.  In  the 
great  cities  the  leading  ministers  of  the  chief  denominations, 
including  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  Episcopal  bishops, 
whether  they  be  eminent  as  preachers  or  as  active  philanthro¬ 
pists,  or  in  respect  of  their  learning,  are  among  the  first  citizens, 
and  exercise  an  influence  often  wider  and  more  powerful  than 
that  of  any  layman.  Possibly  no  man  in  the  United  States,  since 
President  Lincoln,  has  been  so  warmly  admired  and  so  widely 
mourned  as  the  late  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks.  Some  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  prelates  are  known  and  admired  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  their  dioceses.  In  cities  of  the  second  order,  the 
clergymen  of  these  denominations,  supposing  them  (as  is 
usually  the  case)  to  be  men  of  good  breeding  and  personally 
acceptable,  move  in  the  best  society  of  the  place.  Similarly  in 
country  places  the  pastor  is  better  educated  and  more  enlight¬ 
ened  than  the  average  members  of  his  flock,  and  becomes  a 
leader  in  works  of  beneficence.  The  level  of  education  and  learn¬ 
ing  is  rising  among  the  clergy  with  the  steady  improvement  of 
the  universities.  This  advance  is  perhaps  most  marked  among 
those  denominations  which,  like  the  Methodists  and  Baptists, 
have  heretofore  lagged  behind,  because  their  adherents  were 
mostly  among  the  poor.  So  far  as  I  could  learn,  the  incomes  of 
the  clergy  are  also  increasing,  though  not  so  fast  as  the  cost  of 
living,  which,  especially  in  cities,  bears  heavily  upon  members 
of  a  profession  from  which  the  maintenance  of  aa  certain  style’ ’ 
is  expected.  The  highest  salaries  are  those  received  by  the 
Presbyterian  and  Congregationalist  pastors  in  the  great  cities, 
which  run  from  $8000  up  to  $15,000,  and  by  the  Protestant  Epis¬ 
copal  bishops  ($3300  up  to  $12,500).  Roman  Catholic  bishops, 
being  celibate  and  with  poorer  flocks,  have  from  $3000  to  $5000 ; 


776 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Methodist  bishops  usually  $5000,  with  travelling  expenses. 
In  the  wealthier  denominations  there  are  many  city  ministers 
whose  incomes  exceed  $3000,  while  in  small  towns  and  rural 
districts  few  fall  below  $1000;  in  the  less  wealthy  $1500  for  a 
city  and  $700  for  a  rural  charge  may  be  a  fair  average  as  regards 
the  North  and  West.  The  average  income  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
priest  is  given  at  $800.  To  the  sums  regularly  paid  must  be 
added  in  many  cases  a  residence,  and  in  nearly  all  various  gifts 
and  fees  which  the  minister  receives. 

These  figures,  which,  however,  must  be  a  little  reduced  for 
the  Southern  States,  compare  favourably  with  the  average 
incomes  received  by  the  clergy  of  all  denominations  in  England 
or  Scotland,  and  are  above  the  salaries  paid  to  priests  in  France 
or  to  Protestant  pastors  in  Germany.  Reckoning  in  the  clergy 
of  all  denominations  in  Great  Britain  and  in  the  United  States, 
both  the  pecuniary  and  the  social  position  of  the  American 
clergy  may,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  strike  an  average,  be 
pronounced  slightly  higher. 

Although  the  influence  of  the  clergy  is  still  great  it  has  changed 
its  nature,  yielding  to  the  universal  current  which  makes  for 
equality.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century  the  New  England 
ministers  enjoyed  a  local  authority  not  unlike  that  of  the  bishops 
in  Western  Europe  in  the  sixth  century  or  of  the  Presbyterian 
ministers  of  Scotland  in  the  seventeenth.  They  were,  especially 
in  country  places,  the  leaders  as  well  as  instructors  of  their 
congregations,  and  were  a  power  in  politics  scarcely  less  than  in 
spiritual  affairs.1  That  order  of  things  has  quite  passed  away. 
His  profession  and  his  education  still  secure  respect  for  a  clergy¬ 
man,2  but  he  must  not  now  interfere  in  politics;  he  must  not 


1  In  a  few  States  clergymen  are  still  declared  ineligible,  by  the  constitution, 
as  members  of  a  State  legislature.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  in  the  early  days 
sat  in  these  bodies  ;  and  they  very  rarely  sit  in  Congress,  but  one  finds  them  in 
conventions.  One  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  John 
Witherspoon,  a  Presbyterian  minister  and  president  of  Princeton  College,  who 
had  come  recently  from  Scotland.  Some  of  the  best  speeches  in  the  Massachusetts 
Convention  of  1788  which  ratified  the  Federal  Constitution  were  made  by  minis¬ 
ters.  In  New  England,  they  were  nearly  all  advocates  of  the  Constitution,  and 
passed  into  the  Federalist  party. 

2  The  clergy  are  the  objects  of  a  good  deal  of  favour  in  various  small  ways  ; 
for  instance,  they  used  to  receive  free  passes  on  railroads,  and  the  Inter-State 
Commerce  Act  of  1887,  while  forbidding  the  system  of  granting  free  passes, 
which  had  been  much  abused,  specially  exempted  clergymen  from  the  prohibi¬ 
tion.  Their  children  are  usually  educated  at  lower  fees,  or  even  gratis,  in  col¬ 
leges,  and  storekeepers  often  allow  them  a  discount. 


CHAP.  CX 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 


777 


speak  on  any  secular  subject  ex  cathedra ;  his  influence,  whatever 
it  may  be,  is  no  longer  official  but  can  only  be  that  of  a  citizen 
distinguished  by  his  talents  or  character,  whose  office  gives  him 
no  greater  advantage  than  that  of  an  eminence  where  shining 
gifts  may  be  more  widely  visible.  Now  and  then  this  rule  of 
abstention  from  politics  is  broken  through.  Mr.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  took  the  field  as  a  Mugwump  in  the  presidential  cam¬ 
paign  of  1884,  and  was  deemed  the  more  courageous  in  doing 
so  because  the  congregation  of  Plymouth  Church  were  mostly 
“straight  out”  Republicans.  The  Roman  Catholic  bishops 
have  sometimes  been  accused  of  lending  secret  aid  to  the  political 
party  which  will  procure  subventions  for  their  schools  and 
charities,  and  do  no  doubt,  as  indeed  their  doctrines  require, 
press  warmly  the  claims  of  denominational  education.  But 
otherwise  they  also  abstain  from  politics.  Such  action  as  is 
constantly  taken  in  England  by  ministers  of  the  Established 
Church  on  the  one  side  of  politics,  by  Nonconformist  ministers 
on  the  other,  would  in  America  excite  disapproval.  It  is  only 
on  platforms  or  in  conventions  where  some  moral  cause  is  to  be 
advocated,  such  as  Abolitionism  was  before  the  war  years  ago 
or  temperance  is  now,  that  clergymen  can  with  impunity  appear. 

Considering  that  the  absence  of  State  interference  in  matters 
of  religion  is  one  of  the  most  striking  differences  between  all 
the  European  countries  on  the  one  hand  and  the  United  States 
on  the  other,  the  European  reader  may  naturally  expect  some 
further  remarks  on  the  practical  results  of  this  divergence. 
“There  are,”  he  will  say,  “two  evil  consequences  with  which 
the  European  defenders  of  established  churches  seek  to  terrify 
us  when  disestablishment  and  disendowment  are  mentioned, 
one  that  the  authority  and  influence  of  religion  will  wane  if 
State  recognition  is  withdrawn,  the  other  that  the  incomes  of 
the  clergy  and  their  social  status  will  sink,  that  they  will  in 
fact  become  plebeians,  and  that  the  centres  of  light  which  now 
exist  in  every  country  parish  will  be  extinguished.  There  are 
also  two  benefits  which  the  advocates  of  the  ‘Free  Church  in  a 
Free  State’  promise  us,  one  that  social  jealousies  and  bitter¬ 
nesses  between  different  sects  will  melt  away,  and  the  other 
that  the  church  will  herself  become  more  spiritual  in  her  temper 
and  ideas,  more  earnest  in  her  proper  work  of  moral  reform  and 
the  nurture  of  the  soul.  What  has  American  experience  to  say 
on  these  four  points?” 


778 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


These  are  questions  so  pertinent  to  a  right  conception  of  the 
ecclesiastical  side  of  American  life  that  I  cannot  decline  the  duty 
of  trying  to  answer  them,  though  reluctant  to  tread  on  ground 
to  which  European  conflicts  give  a  controversial  character. 

I.  To  estimate  the  influence  and  authority  of  religion  is  not 
easy.  Suppose,  however,  that  we  take  either  the  habit  of 
attending  church  or  the  sale  of  religious  books  as  evidences  of 
its  influence  among  the  multitude :  suppose  that  as  regards  the 
more  cultivated  classes  we  look  at  the  amount  of  respect  paid 
to  Christian  precepts  and  ministers,  the  interest  taken  in  theo¬ 
logical  questions,  the  connection  of  philanthropic  reforms  with 
religion.  Adding  these  various  data  together,  we  may  get  some 
sort  of  notion  of  the  influence  of  religion  on  the  American  people 
as  a  whole. 

Purposing  to  touch  on  these  points  in  the  chapter  next  fol¬ 
lowing,  I  will  here  only  say  by  way  of  anticipation  that  in  all 
these  respects  the  influence  of  Christianity  seems  to  be,  if  we 
look  not  merely  to  the  numbers  but  also  the  intelligence  of  the 
persons  influenced,  greater  and  more  widespread  in  the  United 
States  than  in  any  part  of  western  Continental  Europe,  and 
probably  as  great  as  in  England.  In  parts  of  France,  and  in 
Italy,  Spain,  and  the  Catholic  parts  of  Germany,  as  well  as  in 
German  Austria,  the  authority  of  religion  over  the  masses  is 
of  course  great.  Its  influence  on  the  best  educated  classes  — • 
one  must  include  all  parts  of  society  in  order  to  form  a  fair 
judgment  —  is  apparently  smaller  in  France  and  Italy  than  in 
Great  Britain,  and  apparently  smaller  than  in  the  United  States. 
The  country  which  most  resembles  America  in  this  respect  is 
Scotland,  where  the  mass  of  the  people  enjoy  large  rights  in 
the  management  of  their  church  affairs,  and  where  the  interest 
of  all  classes  has,  ever  since  the  Reformation,  tended  to  run 
in  ecclesiastical  channels.  So  far  from  suffering  from  the  want 
of  State  support,  religion  seems  in  the  United  States  to  stand 
all  the  firmer  because,  standing  alone,  she  is  seen  to  stand  by 
her  own  strength.  No  political  party,  no  class  in  the  com¬ 
munity,  has  any  hostility  either  to  Christianity  or  to  any 
particular  Christian  body.  The  churches  are  as  thoroughly 
popular,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  as  any  of  the  other 
institutions  of  the  country. 

II.  The  social  and  economic  position  of  the  clergy  in  the  United 
States  is  perhaps  slightly  above  that  of  the  priesthood,  taken  as 


CHAP.  CX 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  THE  CLERGY 


779 


a  whole,  in  Roman  Catholic  countries,  and  equal  to  that  of  all 
denominations  taken  together;  Anglican  and  Nonconformist, 
in  England.  No  American  pastors  enjoy  such  revenues  as  the 
prelates  of  England  and  Hungary;  but  the  average  income  at¬ 
tached  to  the  pastoral  office  is  in  America  rather  larger.  The 
peculiar  conditions  of  England,  where  one  church  looks  down 
socially  on  the  others,  make  a  comparison  in  other  respects 
difficult.  The  education  of  the  American  ministers,  their  man¬ 
ners,  their  capacity  for  spreading  light  among  the  people,  seem 
superior  to  those  of  the  seminarist  priesthood  of  France  and 
Italy  (who  are  of  course  far  more  of  a  distinct  caste)  and  equal 
to  those  of  the  Protestant  pastors  of  Germany  and  Scotland. 

III.  Social  jealousies  connected  with  religion  scarcely  exist 
in  America,  and  one  notes  a  kindlier  feeling  between  all  denomi¬ 
nations,  Roman  Catholics  included,  a  greater  readiness  to  work 
together  for  common  charitable  aims,  than  between  Catholics 
and  Protestants  in  France  or  Germany,  or  between  Anglicans 
and  Nonconformists  in  England.  There  is  a  rivalry  between 
the  leading  denominations  to  extend  their  bounds,  to  erect  and 
fill  new  churches,  to  raise  great  sums  for  church  purposes. 
Viewed  from  the  side  of  the  New  Testament,  it  may  appear  a 
foolish  rivalry ;  but  it  is  not  unfriendly,  and  does  not  provoke 
bad  blood,  because  the  State  stands  neutral,  and  all  churches 
have  a  free  field.  There  is  less  mutual  exclusiveness  than 
in  any  other  country,  except  perhaps  Scotland.  An  instance 
may  be  found  in  the  habit  of  exchanging  pulpits,  another 
in  the  comparative  frequency  with  which  persons  pass  from 
one  denomination  to  another,  if  a  particular  clergyman  at¬ 
tracts  them,  or  if  they  settle  in  a  place  distant  from  a  church 
of  their  own  body.  One  often  finds  members  of  the  same 
family  belonging  to  different  denominations.  Some  of  the 
leading  bodies,  and  especially  the  Presbyterians  and  Congre- 
gationalists,  between  whose  doctrines  there  exists  practically 
no  difference,  have  been  wont,  especially  in  the  West,  to  co¬ 
operate  for  the  sake  of  efficiency  and  economy  in  agreeing  not 
to  plant  two  rival  churches  in  a  place  where  one  will  suffice, 
but  to  arrange  that  one  denomination  shall  set  up  its  church, 
and  the  other  advise  its  adherents  to  join  and  support  that 
church. 

IV.  To  give  an  opinion  on  the  three  foregoing  questions  is 
incomparably  easier  than  to  say  whether  and  how  much  Chris- 


780 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


tianity  has  gained  in  spiritual  purity  and  dignity  by  her  severance 
from  the  secular  power. 

There  is  a  spiritual  gain  in  that  diminution  of  envy,  malice, 
and  uncharitableness  between  the  clergy  of  various  sects  which 
has  resulted  from  their  being  all  on  the  same  legal  level;  and 
the  absence  both  of  these  faults  and  of  the  habit  of  bringing 
ecclesiastical  questions  into  secular  politics,  gives  the  enemy 
less  occasion  to  blaspheme  than  he  is  apt  to  have  in  Europe. 
Church  assemblies  —  synods,  conferences,  and  conventions  — 
seem  on  the  whole  to  be  conducted  with  better  temper  and  more 
good  sense  than  these  bodies  have  sometimes  shown  in  the 
Old  World,  from  the  Council  of  Ephesus  down  to  our  own  day. 
But  in  America  as  elsewhere  some  young  men  enter  the  clerical 
profession  from  temporal  motives;  some  laymen  join  a  church 
to  improve  their  social  or  even  their  business  position ;  some 
country  pastors  look  out  for  city  cures,  and  justify  their  leaving 
a  poorer  flock  for  a  richer  by  talking  of  a  wider  sphere  of  use¬ 
fulness.  One  hears  that  in  some  bodies  there  is  much  intrigu¬ 
ing  to  secure  a  post  of  eminence,  and  that  men  of  great  wealth 
exert  undue  influence,  as  the}^  did  in  the  days  when  the  Epistle 
of  St.  James  was  written.  The  desire  to  push  the  progress  of 
the  particular  church  or  of  the  denomination  often  mingles 
with  the  desire  to  preach  the  gospel  more  widely ;  and  the  gospel 
is  sometimes  preached,  if  not  with  “respect  of  persons”  yet 
with  less  faithful  insistence  on  unpalatable  truths  than  the  moral 
health  of  the  community  requires. 

So  far  as  I  could  ascertain,  the  dependence  of  the  minister 
for  support  on  his  congregation  does  not  lower  him  in  their 
eyes,  nor  make  him  more  apt  to  flatter  the  leading  members 
than  he  is  in  established  churches.  If  he  is  personally  digni¬ 
fied  and  unselfish,  his  independence  will  be  in  no  danger.  But 
whether  the  voluntary  system,  which  no  doubt  makes  men  more 
liberal  in  giving  for  the  support  of  religious  ordinances  among 
themselves  and  of  missions  elsewhere,  tends  to  quicken  spiritual 
life,  and  to  keep  the  church  pure  and  undefiled,  free  from  the 
corrupting  influences  of  the  world,  is  another  matter,  on  which 
a  stranger  may  well  hesitate  to  speak.  Those  Americans  whose 
opinion  I  have  enquired  generally  hold  that  in  this  respect  also 
the  fruits  of  freedom  have  been  good. 


CHAPTER  CXI 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RELIGION 

To  convey  some  impression  of  the  character  and  type  which 
religion  has  taken  in  America,  and  to  estimate  its  influence  as 
a  moral  and  spiritual  force,  is  an  infinitely  harder  task  than 
to  sketch  the  salient  ecclesiastical  phenomena  of  the  country. 
I  approach  it  with  the  greatest  diffidence,  and  do  not  profess 
to  give  anything  more  than  the  sifted  result  of  answers  to 
questions  addressed  to  many  competent  observers  belonging 
to  various  churches  or  to  none. 

An  obviously  important  point  to  determine  is  the  extent 
to  which  the  external  ministrations  of  religion  are  supplied  to 
the  people  and  used  by  them.  This  is  a  matter  on  which  no 
trustworthy  statistics  seem  attainable,  but  on  which  the 
visitor’s  own  eyes  leave  him  in  little  doubt.  There  are  churches 
everywhere,  and  everywhere  equally :  in  the  cities  and  in  the 
country,  in  the  North  and  in  the  South,  in  the  quiet  nooks  of 
New  England,  in  the  settlements  which  have  sprung  up  along 
railroads  in  the  West.  It  is  only  in  the  very  roughest  parts  of 
the  West,  and  especially  in  the  region  of  mining  camps,  that  they 
are  wanting,  and  the  want  is  but  temporary,  for  “home  mission¬ 
ary”  societies  are  quickly  in  the  field,  and  provide  the  ministra¬ 
tions  of  religion  even  to  this  migratory  population.  In  many  a 
town  of  moderate  size  one  finds  a  church  for  every  thousand 
inhabitants,  as  was  the  case  with  Dayton,  in  Ohio,  which,  when 
it  had  40,000  people,  had  just  forty  churches.  The  growth  of 
churches  is  deemed  an  indication  of  prosperity,  as  I  remember 
that  the  dweller  in  a  new  Oklahoma  city,  anxious  to  prove  its 
swift  progress,  pointed  to  a  corner  lot  and  said,  “  A  Fifteen  Thou¬ 
sand  Dollar  church  is  going  up  there.” 

Denominational  rivalry  has  counted  for  much  in  the  rapid 
creation  of  churches  in  the  newly  settled  West  and  their  mul¬ 
tiplication  everywhere  else.  So,  too,  weak  churches  are  some¬ 
times  maintained  out  of  pride  when  it  would  be  better  to  let 

781 


782 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


them  be  united  with  other  congregations  of  the  same  body. 
Attendance  is  pretty  good,  though  in  some  denominations 
the  women  greatly  outnumber  the  men.  In  cities  of  moderate 
size,  as  well  as  in  small  towns  and  country  places,  a  stranger 
is  told  that  possibly  a  half  of  the  native  American  population 
go  to  church  at  least  once  every  Sunday.  In  the  great  cities  the 
proportion  of  those  who  attend  is  very  much  less,  but  whether 
or  no  as  small  as  in  English  cities  no  one  could  tell  me.  One 
sometimes  finds  the  habit  of  church-going  well  formed  in  the 
more  settled  parts  of  the  Far  West  where  the  people,  being 
newcomers,  might  be  supposed  to  be  less  under  the  sway 
of  habit  and  convention.  California  is  an  exception,  and  is 
the  State  supposed  to  be  least  affected  by  religious  influences. 
In  the  chief  city  of  Oregon  I  found  in  1881  that  a  person, 
and  especially  a  woman  of  the  upper  class,  who  did  not 
belong  to  some  church  and  attend  it  pretty  regularly,  would  be 
looked  askance  on.  She  need  not  actually  lose  caste,  but  the 
fact  would  excite  surprise  and  regret ;  and  her  disquieted  friends 
would  put  some  pressure  upon  her  to  enroll  herself  as  a  church 
member.  That  would  hardly  happen  in  such  a  city  to-day,  and 
there  are  grounds  for  thinking  that,  taking  the  country  as  a 
whole,  church  attendance  does  not  keep  pace  with  the  growth  of 
population. 

The  observance  of  the  Sabbath  as  it  was,  or  the  Sunday  as  it 
is  now  usually,  called,  furnishes  another  test.  The  strictness 
of  Puritan  practice  has  quite  disappeared,  even  in  New  Eng¬ 
land,  but  there  are  still  a  few  out  of  the  way  places,  especially 
in  the  South,  where  the  American  part  of  the  rural  population 
refrains  from  amusement  as  well  as  from  work.1  It  is  otherwise 


1  An  interesting  summary  of  the  laws  for  the  observance  of  Sunday  may 
be  found  in  a  paper  read  by  Mr.  Henry  E.  Young  at  the  Third  Annual  Meet¬ 
ing  of  the  American  Bar  Association  (1880).  These  laws,  which  seem  to  exist 
in  every  State,  were  stated  to  be  in  many  cases  very  strict,  forbidding  all  labour, 
except  works  of  necessity  and  mercy,  and  sometimes  forbidding  also  travelling 
and  nearly  every  kind  of  amusement.  Vermont  and  South  Carolina  went 
farthest  in  this  direction.  The  former  prescribed,  under  a  fine  of  $2,  that  no 
one  shall  “visit  from  house  to  house,  except  from  motives  of  humanity  or  charity, 
or  travel  from  midnight  of  Saturday  to  midnight  of  Sunday,  or  hold  or  attend 
any  ball  or  dance,  or  use  any  game,  sport,  or  play,  or  resort  to  any  house  of  enter¬ 
tainment  for  amusement  or  recreation.” 

In  Indiana,  where  all  labour  and  “engaging  in  one’s  usual  avocation”  are 
prohibited,  it  has  been  held  by  the  Courts  that  “selling  a  cigar  to  one  who  has 
contracted  the  habit  of  smoking  is  a  work  of  necessity.” 

South  Carolina  winds  up  a  minute  series  of  prohibitions  by  ordering  all  per- 


CHAP.  CXI 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RELIGION 


783 


with  the  Germans ;  and  in  some  parts  of  the  country  their  exam¬ 
ple  has  brought  in  laxity  as  regards  amusement.  Such  cities  as 
Chicago,  Cincinnati,  New  Orleans,  and  San  Francisco  have  a 
Sunday  quite  unlike  that  of  New  England,  and  more  resembling 
what  one  finds  in  Germany  or  France.  Nowhere,  however,  does 
one  see  the  shops  open  or  ordinary  work  done.  On  many  rail¬ 
roads  there  are  few,  on  some  branch  lines  no,  Sunday  trains,  and 
museums  are  in  some  cities  closed.  But  in  two  respects  the  prac¬ 
tice  is  more  lax  than  in  Great  Britain.  Most  of  the  leading 
newspapers  publish  Sunday  editions,  which  contain  a  great 
deal  of  general  reading  matter,  stories,  comic  pictures,  gossip, 
and  so  forth,  over  and  above  the  news  of  the  day ;  and  in  the 
great  cities  theatres  are  now  open  on  Sunday  evenings.1 

The  interest  in  theological  questions  is  less  keen  than  it  was 
in  New  England  a  century  ago,  but  probably  as  keen  as  it  has 
generally  been  in  England  since  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth. 
Much  of  the  ordinary  reading  of  the  average  family  has  a  reli¬ 
gious  tinge,  being  supplied  in  religious  or  semi-religious  weekly  and 
monthly  magazines.  Till  recently  in  parts  of  the  West  the  old 
problems  of  predestination,  reprobation,  and  election  continued  to 
be  discussed  by  farmers  and  shopkeepers  in  their  leisure  moments 
with  the  old  eagerness,  and  gave  a  sombre  tinge  to  their  views  of 
religion.  The  ordinary  man  used  to  know  the  Bible  better,  and 
took  up  an  allusion  to  it  more  quickly  than  the  ordinary  Eng¬ 
lishman,  though  perhaps  not  better  than  the  ordinary  Scotch¬ 
man.  Indeed  I  may  say  once  for  all  that  the  native  American 
in  everything  concerning  theology  reminds  one  rather  more  of 
Scotland  than  of  England,  although  in  the  general  cast  and 
turn  of  his  mind  he  is  far  more  English  than  Scotch.  One 
is  told,  however,  that  nowadays  the  knowledge  of  Scripture 
has  declined.  It  is  hard  to  state  any  general  view  as  to  the 

sons  to  apply  themselves  to  the  observance  of  the  day  by  exercising  themselves 
thereon  in  the  duties  of  piety  and  true  religion.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  these 
laws  are  practically  obsolete,  except  so  far  as  they  forbid  ordinary  and  unneces¬ 
sary  traffic  and  labour.  To  that  extent  they  are  supported  by  public  sentiment, 
and  are  justified  as  being  in  the  nature  not  so  much  of  religious  as  of  socially  and 
economically  useful  regulations.  The  habit  of  playing  outdoor  games  and  that 
of  resorting  to  places  of  public  amusement  on  Sunday  have  much  increased  of 
late  years. 

1  One  hears  that  it  is  now  becoming  the  custom  to  make  a  week’s  engage¬ 
ment  of  an  operatic  or  theatrical  company  —  there  are  many  traversing  the 
country  —  begin  on  Sunday  instead  of,  as  formerly,  on  Monday  night. 

Boston,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York  have  opened  their  public  libraries, 
museums,  and  art  galleries  on  Sunday. 


784 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


substance  of  pulpit  teaching,  because  the  differences  between 
different  denominations  are  marked ;  but  the  tendency  has 
been,  and  daily  grows  alike  among  Congregationalists,  Bap¬ 
tists,  Northern  Presbyterians,  and  Episcopalians,  for  sermons 
to  be  less  metaphysical  and  less  markedly  doctrinal  than 
formerly,  and  to  become  either  expository  or  else  of  a  practical 
and  hortatory  character.  This  is  less  the  case  among  the 
Presbyterians  of  the  South,  who  are  more  stringently  orthodox, 
and  in  all  respects  more  conservative  than  their  brethren  of 
the  North.  The  discussion  of  the  leading  theological  ques¬ 
tions  of  the  day,  such  as  those  of  the  authority  of  Scripture, 
the  relation  of  natural  science  to  the  teachings  of  the  Bible,  the 
existence  of  rewards  and  punishments  in  a  future  state,  goes  on 
much  as  in  England.  Some  of  the  leading  reviews  and  magazines 
publish  articles  on  these  subjects,  which  are  read  more  widely 
than  corresponding  articles  in  England,  but  do  not,  I  think, 
absorb  any  more  of  the  thought  and  attention  of  the  average 
educated  man  and  woman. 

Whether  scepticism  makes  any  sensible  advance  either  in 
affecting  a  larger  number  of  minds,  or  in  cutting  more  deeply 
at  the  roots  of  their  belief  in  God  and  immortality,  is  a  question 
which  it  is  to-day  extremely  difficult  for  any  one  to  answer  even 
as  regards  his  own  country.  There  are  many  phenomena  in 
every  part  of  Europe  which  appear  to  indicate  that  it  does 
advance ;  there  are  others  which  point  in  the  opposite  direction. 
Much  more  difficult,  then,  must  it  be  -for  a  stranger  to  express 
a  positive  opinion  as  regards  America  on  this  gravest  of  all  sub¬ 
jects  of  enquiry.  The  conditions  of  England  and  America  appear 
to  me  very  similar  ;  whatever  tendency  prevails  in  either  country 
is  likely  to  prevail  in  the  other  and  like  changes  of  taste  in  theo¬ 
logical  literature  have  shown  themselves.  The  mental  habits  of 
the  people  are  the  same  ;  their  fundamental  religious  conceptions 
are  the  same,  except  that  those  who  prize  a  visible  Church  and 
bow  to  her  authority  are  relatively  fewer  among  American  Prot¬ 
estants;  their  theological  literature  is  the  same.  In  discussing 
a  theological  question  with  an  American  one  never  feels  that 
slight  difference  of  point  of  view,  or,  so  to  speak,  of  mental 
atmosphere,  which  is  sure  to  crop  up  in  talking  to  a  Frenchman 
or  an  Italian,  or  even  to  a  German.  Considerations  of  specula¬ 
tive  argument,  considerations  of  religious  feeling,  affect  the  two 
nations  in  the  same  way :  the  course  of  their  religious  history 


CHAP.  CXI 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RELIGION 


785 


is  not  likely  to  diverge.  If  there  be  a  difference  at  all  in  their 
present  attitude,  it  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  this,  that  whereas 
Americans  are  more  frequently  disposed  to  treat  minor  issues 
in  a  bold  spirit,  they  are  more  apt  to  recoil  from  blank  nega¬ 
tion.  As  an  American  once  said  to  me  —  they  are  apt  to  put 
serious  views  into  familiar  words —  “We  don’t  mind  going  a 
good  way  along  the  plank,  but  we  like  to  stop  short  of  the 
jump-off.” 

Whether  pronounced  theological  unbelief,  which  can  now  be 
preached  by  lectures  and  in  pamphlets  with  a  freedom  unknown 
half  a  century  ago,  has  made  substantial  progress  among  the 
thinking  part  of  the  working  class  is  a  question  on  which  one 
hears  the  most  opposite  statements.  I  have  seen  statistics 
which  purport  to  show  that  the  proportion  of  members  of  Chris¬ 
tian  churches  to  the  total  population  rose  in  the  Protestant 
churches  from  1  in  14^  in  a.d.  1800  to  1  in  5  in  a.d.  1880 ;  and 
which  estimated  the  number  of  communicants  in  1880  at 
12,000,000,  the  total  adult  population  in  that  year  being  taken  at 
25,000,000.  So  the  census  of  churches  of  1906  gives  the  number 
of  church  members  or  communicants  at  33,000,000  or  39.1 
of  the  total  estimated  population.  But  one  also  hears  many 
lamentations  over  the  diminished  attendance  at  city  churches; 
and  in  ecclesiastical  circles  people  say,  just  as  they  say  in  Eng¬ 
land,  that  the  great  problem  is  how  to  reach  the  masses.  The 
most  probable  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  while  in  cities  like 
New  York  and  Chicago  the  bulk  of  the  humbler  classes  (except 
the  Roman  Catholics,  who  are  largely  recent  immigrants) 
are  practically  heathen  to  the  same  extent  as  in  London,  or 
Liverpool,-  or  Berlin,  the  proportion  of  working  men  who  belong 
to  some  religious  body  may  be  larger  in  towns  under  30,000  than 
it  is  in  the  similar  towns  of  Great  Britain  or  Germany. 

In  the  more  cultivated  circles  of  the  great  cities  one  finds  a 
number  of  people,  as  one  does  in  England,  who  have  virtually 
abandoned  Christianity,  and  a  much  larger  number  who  seem 
practically  indifferent,  and  seldom  accompany  their  wives  or 
sisters  to  church.  So  also  in  most  of  the  cities  there  is  said  to 
be  a  knot  of  men  who  profess  agnosticism,  and  sometimes  have 
a  meeting-place  where  secularist  lectures  are  delivered.  In  the 
middle  of  last  century  the  former  class  would  have  been  fewer 
and  more  reserved ;  the  latter  would  scarcely  have  existed. 
But  the  relaxation  of  the  old  strictness  of  orthodoxy  has 
3  E 


786 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


not  diminished  the  zeal  of  the  various  churches,  nor  their 
hold  upon  their  adherents,  nor  their  ardour  in  missionary 
work,  nor  their  attachment  to  the  fundamental  doctrines  of 
Christianity. 

This  zeal  and  attachment  happily  no  longer  show  themselves 
in  intolerance.  Except  perhaps  in  small  places  in  the  West  or 
South,  where  aggressive  scepticism  would  rouse  displeasure  and 
might  affect  a  man’s  position  in  society,  everybody  is  as  free  in 
America  as  in  London  to  hold  and  express  any  views  he  pleases. 
Within  the  churches  themselves  there  is  an  unmistakable 
tendency  to  loosen  the  bonds  of  subscription  required  from 
clergymen.  Prosecutions  for  heresy  of  course  come  before 
church  courts,  since  no  civil  court  would  take  cognizance  of 
such  matters  unless  when  invoked  by  some  one  alleging  that 
a  church  court  had  given  a  decision,  or  a  church  authority  had 
taken  an  executive  step,  which  prejudiced  him  in  some  civil  right, 
and  was  unjust  because  violating  an  obligation  contracted  with 
him.1  Such  prosecutions  have  latterly  become  uncommon,  but 
the  sympathy  of  the  public  is  usually  with  the  accused  minister, 
and  the  latitude  allowed  to  divergence  from  the  old  standards 
becomes  constantly  greater.  At  present  it  is  in  the  Congrega- 
tionalist  church  pretty  much  the  same  as  in  that  church  in 
England ;  in  the  Presbyterian  church  of  the  North,  and  among 
Baptists  and  Methodists,  slightly  less  than  in  the  un established 
Presbyterian  church  of  Scotland.  Most  of  the  churches  usually 
called  orthodox  have  allowed  less  latitude  in  doctrine  and  in 
ritual  than  recent  decisions  of  the  courts  of  law,  beginning  from 
the  “ Essays  and  Reviews”  case,  have  allowed  to  the  clergy  of 
the  Anglican  Establishment  in  England ;  but  I  could  not  gather 
that  the  clergy  of  the  various  Protestant  bodies  feel  themselves 
fettered,  or  that  the  free  development  of  religious  thought  is 
seriously  checked,  except  in  the  South,  where  orthodoxy  remained 
more  rigid,  and  long  forbade  a  clergyman  to  hold  Mr.  Darwin’s 
views  regarding  the  descent  of  man.2  A  pastor  who  begins  to 
chafe  under  the  formularies  or  liturgy  of  his  denomination  would 
be  expected  to  leave  the  denomination  and  join  some  other  in 
which  he  could  feel  more  at  home.  He  would  not  suffer  socially 

1  Including  the  case  in  which  a  church  court  had  disregarded  its  own  regu¬ 
lations,  or  acted  in  violation  of  the  plain  principles  of  judicial  procedure. 

2  Some  while  ago,  a  professor,  not  in  the  theological  faculty,  was  removed 
from  his  chair  in  the  University  of  South  Carolina  for  holding  Unitarian  views. 


CHAP.  CXI 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RELIGION 


787 


by  doing  so,  as  an  Anglican  clergyman  possibly  might  in  the 
like  case  in  England.  In  the  Roman  Catholic  church  there  is, 
of  course,  no  similar  indulgence  to  a  deviation  from  the 
ancient  dogmatic  standards ;  but  there  is  a  greater  disposition 
to  welcome  the  newer  forms  of  learning  and  culture  than  one 
finds  in  England  or  Ireland,  and  what  may  be  called  a  more 
pronounced  democratic  spirit.  So  among  the  younger  Prot¬ 
estant  clergy  there  has  been  of  late  years  a  tendency,  if  not  to 
socialism,  yet  to  a  marked  discontent  with  existing  economic 
conditions,  resembling  what  is  now  perceptible  among  the 
younger  clergy  in  Britain. 

As  respects  what  may  be  called  the  every-day  religious  life 
and  usages  of  the  United  States,  there  are  differences  from  those 
of  England  or  Scotland  which  it  is  easy  to  feel  but  hard  to  define 
or  describe.  There  is  rather  less  conventionalism  or  constraint 
in  speaking  of  religious  experiences,  less  of  a  formal  separation 
between  the  church  and  the  world,  less  disposition  to  treat  the 
clergy  as  a  caste  and  expect  them  to  conform  to  a  standard  not 
prescribed  for  the  layman,1  less  reticence  about  sacred  things, 
perhaps  less  sense  of  the  refinement  with  which  sacred  things 
ought  to  be  surrounded.  The  letting  by  auction  of  sittings  in 
a  popular  church,  though  I  think  very  rare,  excites  less  disap¬ 
proval  than  it  would  in  Europe.  Some  fashionable  churches 
are  supplied  with  sofas,  carpets,  and  the  other  comforts  of  a  draw¬ 
ing-room  ;  a  well-trained  choir  is  provided,  and  the  congregation 
would  not  think  of  spoiling  the  performance  by  joining  in  the 
singing.  The  social  side  of  church  life  is  more  fully  developed 
than  in  Protestant  Europe.  A  congregation,  particularly 
among  the  Methodists,  Baptists,  and  Congregationalists,  is 
the  centre  of  a  group  of  societies,  literary  and  recreative  as  well 
as  religious  and  philanthropic,  which  not  only  stimulate  chari¬ 
table  work,  but  bring  the  poorer  and  richer  members  into  friendly 
relations  with  one  another,  and  form  a  large  part  of  the  social 
enjoyments  of  the  young  people,  keeping  them  out  of  harm’s 
way,  and  giving  them  a  means  of  forming  acquaintances.  Often 
a  sort  of  informal  evening  party,  called  a  “ sociable,”  is  given 
once  a  month,  at  which  all  ages  and  classes  meet  on  an  easy 

1  Although  total  abstinence  is  much  more  generally  expected  from  a  clergy¬ 
man  than  it  would  be  in  Great  Britain.  In  most  denominations,  including  Bap¬ 
tists  and  Methodists,  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians,  it  is  practically 
universal  among  the  clergy. 


788 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


footing.1  The  Young  Men’s  Christian  Association  movement 
which  has  attained  vast  dimensions  does  much  to  attract  the 
young  people  by  providing  facilities  for  exercise  and  amusement 
as  well  by  work  of  a  more  definitely  religious  character.  Reli¬ 
gion  seems  to  associate  itself  better  with  the  interests  of  the 
young  in  America,  and  to  have  come  within  the  last  forty  years  to 
wear  a  less  forbidding  countenance  than  it  has  generally  done 
in  Britain,  at  least  among  English  Nonconformists  and  in  the 
churches  of  Scotland. 

A  still  more  peculiar  feature  of  the  American  churches  is  the 
propensity  to  what  may  be  called  Revivalism  which  some  of 
them,  and  especially  the  Methodist  churches,  show.  That 
exciting  preaching  and  those  external  demonstrations  of  feeling 
which  have  occasionally  appeared  in  Britain  were  long  chronic 
there,  appearing  chiefly  in  the  form  of  the  camp-meeting, 
a  gathering  of  people  usually  in  the  woods  or  on  the  sea¬ 
shore,  where  open-air  preaching  goes  on  perhaps  for  days 
together.  One  hears  many  stories  about  these  camp-meetings, 
not  always  to  their  credit,  which  agree  at  least  in  this,  that 
they  exercised  a  powerful  even  if  transient  influence  upon  the 
humbler  classes  who  flock  to  them.  In  the  West  they  have 
been  serviceable  in  evangelizing  districts  where  few  regular 
churches  had  yet  been  established.  Of  late  years  they  have 
tended  to  pass  into  mere  summer  outings,  except  in  some  parts 
of  the  South,  where  however  it  is  now  chiefly  among  the  humbler 
classes,  and  of  course  still  more  among  the  negroes,  that  they 
flourish.  All  denominations  are  more  prone  to  emotionalism 
in  religion,  and  have  less  reserve  in  displaying  it,  than  in  Eng¬ 
land  or  Scotland.  I  remember  in  1870  to  have  been  a  passenger 
by  one  of  the  splendid  steamers  which  ply  along  the  Sound 
between  New  York  and  Fall  River.  A  Unitarian  Congress  was 
being  held  in  New  York,  and  a  company  of  New  England  Uni¬ 
tarians  were  going  to  attend  it.  Now  New  England  Unitarians 
are  of  all  Americans  perhaps  the  most  staid  and  sober  in  their 
thoughts  and  habits,  the  least  inclined  to  a  demonstrative  ex- 

1  Even  dances  may  be  given,  but  not  by  all  denominations.  When  a  Pres¬ 
byterian  congregation  in  a  great  Western  city  was  giving  a  “reception”  in  honour 
of  the  opening  of  its  new  church  building  —  prosperous  churches  always  have  a 
building  with  a  set  of  rooms  for  meetings  —  the  sexton  (as  he  is  called  in  Amer¬ 
ica),  who  had  come  from  a  Protestant  Episcopal  church  in  the  East,  observed, 
as  he  surveyed  the  spacious  hall,  “What  a  pity  you  are  not  Episcopalians  ;  you 
might  have  given  a  ball  in  this  room  !” 


CHAP.  CXI 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RELIGION 


789 


pression  of  their  faith.  This  company,  however,  installed  itself 
round  the  piano  in  the  great  saloon  of  the  vessel  and  sang  hymns, 
hymns  full  of  effusion,  for  nearly  two  hours,  many  of  the  other 
passengers  joining,  and  all  looking  on  with  sympathy.  Our 
English  party  assumed  at  first  that  the  singers  belonged  to  some 
Methodist  body,  in  which  case  there  would  have  been  nothing  to 
remark  except  the  attitude  of  the  bystanders.  But  they  were 
Unitarians. 

European  travellers  have  in  one  point  greatly  exaggerated 
the  differences  between  their  own  continent  and  the  United 
States.  They  have  represented  the  latter  as  pre-eminently  a 
land  of  strange  sects  and  abnormal  religious  developments. 
Such  sects  and  developments  there  certainly  are,  but  they  play 
no  greater,  part  in  the  whole  life  of  the  nation  than  similar 
sects  do  in  Germany  and  England,  far  less  than  the  various  dis¬ 
senting  communities  do  in  Russia.  The  Mormons  drew  the 
eyes  of  the  world  because  they  attempted  to  form  a  sort  of 
religious  commonwealth,  and  revived  one  ancient  practice  which 
modern  ethics  condemn,  and  which  severe  congressional  legisla¬ 
tion  is  supposed  to  have  now  stamped  out.  But  the  Mormon 
church  is  chiefly  recruited  from  Europe.  In  1881  I  found 
few  native  Americans  among  the  Mormons  in  Salt  Lake  City, 
and  those  few  from  among  the  poor  whites  of  the  South.1  The 
number  of  recruits  from  all  quarters  began  soon  thereafter  to 
decrease.  The  Shakers  are  an  interesting  and  well-conducted 
folk,  but  there  are  very  few  of  them,  and  they  decrease  —  there 
were  in  1906  only  516  persons  in  their  eleven  communities ; 
while  of  the  other  communistic  religious  bodies  one  hears  more 
in  Europe  than  in  America.  Here  and  there  some  strange 
little  sect  emerges  and  lives  for  a  few  years ; 2  but  in  a  country 
seething  with  religious  emotion,  and  whose  conditions  seem 


1  There  is  a  non-polygamous  Mormon  church,  rejecting  Brigham  Young 
and  his  successors  in  Utah,  which  returned  itself  to  the  census  of  1906  as  having 
40,851  members.  Some  Southern  States  punish  the  preaching  of  Mormonism. 

2  Near  Walla  Walla  in  the  State  of  Washington  I  came  in  1881  across  a  curious 
sect  formed  by  a  Welshman  who  fell  into  trances  and  delivered  revelations.  He 
had  two  sons,  and  asserted  one  of  them  to  be  an  incarnation  of  Christ,  and  the 
other  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  and  gathered  about  fifty  disciples,  whom  he  en¬ 
deavoured  to  form  into  a  society  having  all  things  in  common.  However,  both 
the  children  died  ;  and  in  1881  most  of  his  disciples  had  deserted  him.  Probably 
such  phenomena  are  not  uncommon  ;  there  is  a  good  deal  of  proneness  to  super¬ 
stition  among  the  less  educated  Westerns,  especially  the  immigrants  from  Europe. 
They  lead  a  solitary  life  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  nature. 


790 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


to  tempt  to  new  departures  and  experiments  of  all  kinds,  the 
philosophic  traveller  may  rather  wonder  that  men  have  stood 
so  generally  upon  the  old  paths.1 

We  have  already  seen  that  Christianity  has  in  the  United 
States  maintained,  so  far  as  externals  go,  its  authority  and 
dignity,  planting  its  houses  of  worship  all  over  the  country, 
and  raising  enormous  revenues  from  its  adherents.  Such  a 
position  of  apparent  influence  might,  however,  rest  upon  ancient 
habit  and  convention,  and  imply  no  dominion  over  the  souls 
•  of  men.  The  Roman  Empire  in  the  days  of  Augustus  was 
covered  from  end  to  end  with  superb  temples  to  many  gods ; 
the  priests  were  numerous  and  wealthy,  and  enjoyed  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  State;  processions  retained  their  pomp,  and  sac¬ 
rifices  drew  crowds  of  admiring  worshippers.  But  the  old 
religions  had  lost  their  hold  on  the  belief  of  the  educated  and 
on  the  conscience  of  all  classes.  If  therefore  we  desire  to  know 
what  place  Christianity  really  fills  in  America,  and  how  far  it 
gives  stability  to  the  commonwealth,  we  must  enquire  how  far 
it  governs  the  life  and  moulds  the  mind  of  the  country. 

Such  an  enquiry  may  address  itself  to  two  points.  It  may 
examine  into  the  influence  which  religion  has  on  the  conduct 
of  the  people,  on  their  moral  standard  and  the  way  they  con¬ 
form  themselves  thereto.  And  it  may  ask  how  far  religion 
touches  and  gilds  the  imagination  of  the  people,  redeeming  their 
lives  from  commonness  and  bathing  their  souls  in  “the  light 
that  never  was  on  sea  or  land.” 

In  works  of  active  beneficence  no  country  has  surpassed, 
perhaps  none  has  equalled,  the  United  States.  Not  only  are 
the  sums  collected  for  all  sorts  of  philanthropic  purposes  larger 
relatively  to  the  wealth  of  America  than  in  any  European  coun¬ 
try,  but  the  amount  of  personal  interest  shown  in  good  works 
and  personal  effort  devoted  to  them  seems  to  a  European  visitor 
to  equal  what  he  knows  at  home.  How  much  of  this  interest 
and  effort  would  be  given  were  no  religious  motive  present  it 
is  impossible  to  say.  Not  all,  but  I  think  nearly  all  of  it,  is  in 
fact  given  by  religious  people,  and,  as  they  themselves  suppose, 
under  a  religious  impulse.  This  religious  impulse  is  less  fre¬ 
quently  than  in  England  a  sectarian  impulse,  for  all  Protestants, 

1  As  regards  new  sects  the  most  noticeable  feature  of  recent  years  has  been  the 
growth  of  the  body  which  calls  itself  by  the  name  of  “Christian  Science.”  It  is 
said  to  claim  a  million  of  adherents,  many  of  them  in  New  England. 


CHAP.  CXI 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RELIGION 


791 


and  to  some  extent  Roman  Catholics  also,  are  wont  to  join 
hands  for  most  works  of  benevolence. 

The  ethical  standard  of  the  average  man  is  of  course  the 
Christian  standard,  modified  to  some  slight  extent  by  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  of  American  life,  which  have  been  different  from 
those  of  Protestant  Europe.  The  average  man  has  not  thought 
of  any  other  standard,  and  religious  teaching,  though  it  has 
become  less  definite  and  less  dogmatic,  is  still  to  him  the  source 
whence  he  believes  himself  to  have  drawn  his  ideas  of  duty 
and  conduct.  In  Puritan  days  there  must  have  been  some  little 
conscious  and  much  more  unconscious  hypocrisy,  the  profession 
of  religion  being  universal,  and  the  exactitude  of  practice  required 
by  opinion,  and  even  by  law,  being  above  what  ordinary  human 
nature  seems  capable  of  attaining.  The  fault  of  antinomianism 
which  used  to  be  charged  on  high  Calvinists  is  now  sometimes 
charged  on  those  who  become,  under  the  influence  of  revivals, 
extreme  emotionalists  in  religion.  But  taking  the  native  Ameri¬ 
cans  as  a  whole,  no  people  seems  to-day  less  open  to  the  charge 
of  pharisaism  or  hypocrisy.  They  are  perhaps  rather  more 
prone  to  the  opposite  error  of  good-natured  indulgence  to  offences 
of  which  they  are  not  themselves  guilty. 

That  there  is  less  crime  among  native  Americans  than  among 
the  foreign-born  is  a  point  not  to  be  greatly  pressed,  for  it  may 
be  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  latter  are  the  poorer  and  more 
ignorant  part  of  the  population  ;  and  in  parts  of  the  South  and 
West  violence  and  even  homicide  are  common  enough  among 
the  native-born.  If,  however,  we  take  matters  which  do  not 
fall  within  the  scope  of  penal  law,  the  general  impression  of 
those  who  have  lived  long  both  in  Protestant  Europe  and 
in  America  seems  to  be  that  as  respects  veracity,  temperance, 
the  purity  of  domestic  life,1  tenderness  to  children  and  the 


1  The  great  frequency  of  divorce  in  many  States  —  there  are  districts  where 
the  proportion  of  divorces  to  marriages  is  1  to  7  —  does  not  appear  to  betoken 
immorality,  but  to  be  due  to  the  extreme  facility  with  which  the  law  allows  one 
or  both  of  a  married  pair  to  indulge  their  caprice.  Divorce  is  said  to  be  less 
frequent  in  proportion  among  the  middle  classes  than  among  the  richer  and  the 
humbler  and  is,  speaking  generally,  more  frequent  the  further  West  one  goes, 
though  it  is  unhappily  frequent  in  some  of  the  Middle  States  and  in  some  Eastern 
also.  It  is  increasing  everywhere  ;  but  it  increases  also  in  those  European 
countries  which  permit  it.  Some  remarks  on  this  subject,  and  a  comparison  of 
the  conditions  which  prevailed  in  the  Roman  Empire  may  be  found  in  an  essay 
entitled  “Marriage  and  Divorce  in  Roman  and  English  Law”  in  my  Studies  in 
History  and  Jurisprudence. 


792 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


weak,  and  general  kindliness  of  behaviour,  the  native  Ameri¬ 
cans  stand  rather  higher  than  either  the  English  or  the  Ger¬ 
mans.1  And  those  whose  opinion  I  am  quoting  seem  generally, 
though  not  universally,  disposed  to  think  that  the  influence 
of  religious  belief,  which  may  survive  in  its  effect  upon  the  charac¬ 
ter  when  a  man  has  dropped  his  connection  with  any  religious 
body,  counts  for  a  good  deal  in  this.  There  is  now  a  general 
feeling  that  the  State  judges  administer  in  too  lax  and  easy 
a  way  laws  which  are  themselves  too  lax.  The  abuse  of  divorce 
procedure  amounts  in  some  States  to  a  scandal. 

If  we  ask  how  far  religion  exerts  a  stimulating  influence  on 
the  thought  and  imagination  of  a  nation,  we  are  met  by  the 
difficulty  of  determining  what  is  the  condition  of  mankind 
where  no  such  influence  is  present.  There  has  never  been  a 
civilized  nation  without  a  religion ;  and  though  many  highly 
civilized  individual  men  live  without  one,  they  are  so  obviously 
the  children  of  a  state  of  sentiment  and  thought  in  which 
religion  has  been  a  powerful  factor,  that  no  one  can  conjecture 
what  a  race  of  men  would  be  like  who  had  during  several  gener¬ 
ations  believed  themselves  to  be  the  highest  beings  in  the  universe, 
or  at  least  entirely  out  of  relation  to  any  other  higher  being,  and 
to  be  therewithal  destined  to  no  kind  of  existence  after  death. 
Some  may  hold  that  respect  for  public  opinion,  sympathy,  and 
interest  in  the  future  of  mankind  would  do  for  such  a  people 
what  religion  has  done  in  the  past ;  or  that  they  might  even  be, 
as  Lucretius  expected,  the  happier  for  the  extinction  of  possible 
supernatural  terrors.  Others  may  hold  that  life  would  seem 
narrow  and  insignificant,  and  that  the  wings  of  imagination 
would  droop  in  a  universe  felt  to  be  void.  All  that  need  be 
here  said  is  that  a  people  with  comparatively  little  around  it  in 
the  way  of  historic  memories  and  associations  to  touch  its  emo¬ 
tion,  a  people  whose  energy  is  chiefly  absorbed  in  commerce  and 
the  development  of  the  material  resources  of  its  territory,  a 
people  consumed  by  a  feverish  activity  that  gives  little  opportu¬ 
nity  for  reflection  or  for  the  contemplation  of  nature,  seems  most 
of  all  to  need  to  have  its  horizon  widened,  its  sense  of  awe  and 
mystery  touched,  by.  whatever  calls  it  away  from  the  busy 
world  of  sight  and  sound  into  the  stillness  of  faith  and  medita- 

1  This  cannot  be  said  as  regards  commercial  uprightness,  in  which  respect 
the  United  States  stand  certainly  on  no  higher  level  than  England  and  Germany, 
and  possibly  below  France  and  Scandinavia. 


CHAP.  CXI 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  RELIGION 


793 


tion.  A  perusal  of  the  literature  which  the  American  of  the 
educated  farming  class  reads,  and  a  study  of  the  kind  of  litera¬ 
ture  which  those  who  are  least  coloured  by  European  influences 
produce,  led  one  to  think  that  the  Bible  and  Christian  theology 
altogether  have  in  the  past  done  more  in  the  way  of  forming  the 
imaginative  background  to  an  average  American  view  of  the 
world  of  man  and  nature  than  they  have  in  most  European 
countries. 

No  one  is  so  thoughtless  as  not  to  sometimes  ask  himself 
what  would  befall  mankind  if  the  solid  fabric  of  belief  on  which 
their  morality  has  hitherto  rested,  or  at  least  been  deemed  by 
them  to  rest,  were  suddenly  to  break  up  and  vanish  under  the 
influence  of  new  views  of  nature,  as  the  ice-fields  split  and  melt 
when  they  have  floated  down  into  a  warmer  sea.  Moral¬ 
ity  with  religion  for  its  sanction  has  hitherto  been  the  basis 
of  social  polity,  except  under  military  despotisms  :  would  moral¬ 
ity  be  so  far  weakened  as  to  make  social  polity  unstable  ?  and  if 
so,  would  a  reign  of  violence  return  ?  In  Europe  this  question 
does  not  seem  urgent,  because  in  Europe  the  physical  force  of 
armed  men  which  maintains  order  is  usually  conspicuous,  and 
because  obedience  to  authority  is  everywhere  in  Europe  matter 
of  ancient  habit,  having  come  down  little  impaired  from  ages 
when  men  obeyed  without  asking  for  a  reason.  But  in  America, 
the  whole  system  of  government  seems  to  rest  not  on  armed  force, 
but  on  the  will  of  the  numerical  majority,  a  majority  many  of 
whom  might  well  think  that  its  overthrow  would  be  for  them  a 
gain.  So  sometimes,  standing  in  the  midst  of  a  great  American 
city,  and  watching  the  throngs  of  eager  figures  streaming  hither 
and  thither,  marking  the  sharp  contrasts  of  poverty  and  wealth , 
an  increasing  mass  of  wretchedness  and  an  increasing  display  of 
luxury,  knowing  that  before  long  a  hundred  millions  of  men  will 
be  living  between  ocean  and  ocean  under  this  one  government  , 
—  a  government  which  their  own  hands  have  made,  and  which 
they  feel  to  be  the  work  of  their  own  hands,  —  one  is  startled 
by  the  thought  of  what  might  befall  this  huge  yet  delicate  fabric 
of  laws  and  commerce  and  social  institutions  were  the  foundation 
it  has  rested  on  to  crumble  away.  Suppose  that  all  these 
men  ceased  to  believe  that  there  was  any  power  above  them, 
any  future  before  them,  anything  in  heaven  or  earth  but  what 
their  senses  told  them  of ;  suppose  that  their  consciousness  of 
individual  force  and  responsibility,  already  dwarfed  by  the  over- 


794 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


whelming  power  of  the  multitude,  and  the  fatalistic  submission 
it  engenders,  were  further  weakened  by  the  feeling  that  their 
swiftly  fleeting  life  was  rounded  by  a  perpetual  sleep  — 

Soles  occidere  et  redire  possunt : 

Nobis,  quum  semel  occidit  brevis  lux 

Nox  est  perpetua  una  dormienda. 

Would  the  moral  code  stand  unshaken,  and  with  it  the  rever¬ 
ence  for  law,  the  sense  of  duty  towards  the  community,  and  even 
towards  the  generations  yet  to  come?  Would  men  say,  “Let 
us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die  ”  ?  Or  would  custom 
and  sympathy,  and  a  perception  of  the  advantages  which 
stable  government  offers  to  the  citizens  as  a  whole,  and  which 
orderly  self-restraint  offers  to  each  one,  replace  supernatural 
sanctions,  and  hold  in  check  the  violence  of  masses  and  the 
self-indulgent  impulses  of  the  individual?  History  cannot 
answer  this  question.  The  most  she  can  tell  us  is  that 
hitherto  civilized  society  has  rested  on  religion,  and  that  free 
government  has  prospered  best  among  religious  peoples. 

America  is  no  doubt  the  country  in  which  intellectual  move¬ 
ments  work  most  swiftly  upon  the  masses,  and  the  country  in 
which  the  loss  of  faith  in  the  invisible  might  produce  the  com- 
pletest  revolution,  because  it  is  the  country  where  men  have 
been  least  wont  to  revere  anything  in  the  visible  world.  Yet 
America  seems  as  unlikely  to  drift  from  her  ancient  moorings 
as  any  country  of  the  Old  World.  It  was  religious  zeal  and  the 
religious  conscience  which  led  to  the  founding  of  the  New 
England  colonies  nearly  three  centuries  ago  —  those  colonies 
whose  spirit  has  in  such  a  large  measure  passed  into  the  whole 
nation.  Religion  and  conscience  have  been  a  constantly  active 
force  in  the  American  commonwealth  ever  since,  not,  indeed, 
strong  enough  to  avert  many  moral  and  political  evils,  yet  at 
the  worst  times  inspiring  a  minority  with  a  courage  and  ardour 
by  which  moral  and  political  evils  have  been  held  at  bay,  and 
in  the  long  run  generally  overcome. 

It  is  an  old  saying  that  monarchies  live  by  honour  and  repub¬ 
lics  by  virtue.  The  more  democratic  republics  become,  the  more 
themasses  grow  conscious  of  their  own  power,  the  more  do  they 
need  to  live,  not  only  by  patriotism,  but  by  reverence  and  self- 
control,  and  the  more  essential  to  their  well-being  are  those 
sources  whence  reverence  and  self-control  flow. 


CHAPTER  CXII 


THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  position  which  women  hold 
in  a  country  is,  if  not  a  complete  test,  yet  one  of  the  best  tests 
of  the  progress  it  has  made  in  civilization.  When  one  compares 
nomad  man  with  settled  man,  heathen  man  with  Christian 
man,  the  ancient  world  with  the  modern,  the  Eastern  world 
with  the  Western,  it  is  plain  that  in  every  case  the  advance  in 
public  order,  in  material  comfort,  in  wealth,  in  decency  and  re¬ 
finement  of  manners,  among  the  whole  population  of  a  country 
—  for  in  these  matters  one  must  not  look  merely  at  the  upper 
class  —  has  been  accompanied  by  a  greater  respect  for  women, 
by  a  greater  freedom  accorded  to  them,  by  a  fuller  participation 
on  their  part  in  the  best  work  of  the  world.  Americans  are  fond 
of  pointing,  and  can  with  perfect  justice  point,  to  the  position 
their  women  hold  as  an  evidence  of  the  high  level  their  civiliza¬ 
tion  has  reached.  Certainly  nothing  in  the  country  is  more 
characteristic  of  the  peculiar  type  their  civilization  has  taken. 

The  subject  may  be  regarded  in  so  many  aspects  that  it  is 
convenient  to  take  up  each  separately. 

As  respects  the  legal  rights  of  women,  these,  of  course,  depend 
on  the  legislative  enactments  of  each  State  of  the  Union,  for  in 
no  case  has  the  matter  been  left  under  the  rigour  of  the  common 
law.  With  much  diversity  in  minor  details,  the  general  princi¬ 
ples  of  the  law  are  in  all  or  nearly  all  the  States  similar.  Women 
have  been  placed  in  an  equality  with  men  as  respects  all  private 
rights.  In  some  States  husband  and  wife  can  sue  one  another 
at  law.  Married  as  well  as  unmarried  women  have  long  since 
(and  I  think  everywhere)  obtained  full  control  of  their  property, 
whether  obtained  by  gift  or  descent,  or  by  their  own  labour. 
This  has  been  deemed  so  important  a  point  that,  instead  of  being 
left  to  ordinary  legislation,  it  has  in  several  States  been  directly 
enacted  by  the  people  in  the  Constitution.  Women  have  in 
most,  possibly  not  yet  in  all,  States  rights  of  guardianship  over 

795 


796 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


their  children  which  the  law  of  England  denied  to  them  till 
the  Act  of  1886;  and  in  some  States  the  mother’s  rights  are 
equal,  where  there  has  been  a  voluntary  separation,  to  those  of 
the  father.  The  law  of  divorce  is  in  many  States  far  from  satis¬ 
factory,  but  it  always  aims  at  doing  equal  justice  as  between 
husbands  and  wives.  Special  protection  as  respects  hours  of 
labour  is  given  to  women  by  the  laws  of  many  States,  and  a  good 
deal  of  recent  legislation  has  been  passed  with  intent  to  benefit 
them,  though  not  always  by  well-chosen  means. 

Women  have  made  their  way  into  most  of  the  professions 
more  largely  than  in  Europe.  In  many  of  the  Northern  cities 
they  practise  as  physicians,  and  seem  to  have  found  little  or  no 
prejudice  to  overcome.  Medical  schools  have  been  provided 
for  them  in  some  universities.1  It  was  less  easy  to  obtain  admis¬ 
sion  to  the  bar,  yet  several  have  secured  this,  and  the  number 
seems  to  increase.  They  mostly  devote  themselves  to  the 
attorney’s  part  of  the  work  rather  than  to  court  practice.  One 
edited  the  Illinois  Law  Journal  with  great  acceptance.  Several 
have  entered  the  Christian  ministry,  though,  I  think,  chiefly  in 
what  may  be  called  the  minor  sects,  rather  than  in  any  of  the 
five  or  six  great  denominations,  whose  spirit  is  more  conserva¬ 
tive.  Some  have  obtained  success  as  professional  lecturers, 
and  not  a  few  are  journalists  or  reporters.  One  hears  little 
of  them  in  engineering.  They  are  seldom  to  be  seen  in  the 
offices  of  hotels,  but  many,  more  than  in  Europe,  are  employed 
as  clerks  or  secretaries,  both  in  some  of  the  Government  depart¬ 
ments,  and  by  telegraphic  and  other  companies,  as  well  as  in 
publishing  houses  and  other  kinds  of  business  where  physical 
strength  is  not  needed.  Typewriting  work  is  largely  in  their 
hands.  They  form  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  teachers 
in  public  schools  for  boys  as  well  as  for  girls,  and  are  thought 
to  be  better  teachers,  at  least  for  the  younger  sort,  than  men 
are.2  No  class  prejudice  forbids  the  daughters  of  clergymen  or 


1  In  1909  there  were  805  women  returned  as  studying  medicine  in  the  medical 
schools,  and  95  in  the  dentistry  schools. 

2  The  number  of  teachers  in  the  common  schools  is  given  by  the  United  States 
Bureau  of  Education  Report  for  1909  at  104,495  men  and  390,988  women. 
As  male  teachers  are  in  a  majority  in  a  very  few  Southern  States  (Tennessee, 
West  Virginia,  and  Arkansas),  and  in  New  Mexico,  the  preponderance  of  women 
in  the  Northern  States  generally  is  very  great.  It  has  increased  sensibly  of  late 
years  over  the  whole  country.  In  Massachusetts  women  teachers  are  ten  and 
one-half  times  as  numerous  as  men. 


CHAP.  CXII 


THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 


797 


lawyers  of  the  best  standing  to  teach  in  elementary  schools. 
Taking  one  thing  with  another,  it  is  easier  for  women  to  find 
a  career,  to  obtain  remunerative  work  either  of  literary  or  of 
a  commercial  or  mechanical  kind,  than  in  any  part  of  Europe. 
Popular  sentiment  is  entirely  in  favour  of  giving  them  every 
chance,  as  witness  the  Constitutions  of  those  Western  States 
(including  Washington,  which  has  refused  them  the  suffrage) 
which  expressly  provide  that  they  shall  be  equally  admissible 
to  all  professions  or  employments.  They  have  long  borne  a 
conspicuous  part  in  the  promotion  of  moral  and  philanthropic 
causes.  They  were  among  the  earliest,  most  zealous,  and 
most  effective  apostles  of  the  anti-slavery  movement,  and 
have  taken  an  equally  active  share  in  the  temperance  agi¬ 
tation.  Not  only  has  the  Women’s  Christian  Temperance 
Union  with  its  numerous  branches  been  the  most  powerful 
agency  directed  against  the  traffic  in  intoxicants,  particularly 
in  the  Western  States,  but  individual  women  have  thrown 
themselves  into  the  struggle  with  extraordinary  zeal.  Some 
time  ago,  during  what  was  called  the  women’s  whiskey  war, 
they  forced  their  way  into  the  drinking  saloons,  bearded  the 
dealers,  adjured  the  tipplers  to  come  out.  At  elections  in  which 
the  Prohibitionist  issue  is  prominent,  ladies  will  sometimes 
assemble  outside  the  polls  and  sing  hymns  at  the  voters.  Their 
services  in  dealing  with  pauperism,  charities,  and  reforma¬ 
tory  institutions  have  been  inestimable.  In  New  York  when 
legislation  was  needed  for  improving  the  administration  of 
the  charities,  it  was  a  lady  (belonging  to  one  of  the  oldest 
and  most  respected  families  in  the  country)  who  went  to 
Albany,  and  by  placing  the  case  forcibly  before  the  State 
legislature  there,  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  required  measure. 
Many  others  have  followed  her  example  with  the  best  results. 
The  Charity  Organization  societies  of  the  great  cities  are  largely 
managed  by  women ;  and  the  freedom  they  enjoy  makes  them 
invaluable  agents  in  this  work,  which  the  inrush  of  new  and 
ignorant  immigrants  renders  daily  more  important.  So  too 
when  it  became  necessary  after  the  war  to  find  teachers  for 
the  negroes  in  the  institutions  founded  for  their  benefit  in  the 
South,  it  was  chiefly  Northern  girls  who  volunteered  for  the 
duty,  and  discharged  it  with  single-minded  zeal. 

American  women  take  far  less  part  in  politics  than  their  Eng¬ 
lish  sisters,  although  more  than  the  women  of  Germany, 


798 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


France,  or  Italy.  That  they  talk  less  about  politics  may  be 
partly  ascribed  to  the  fact  that  politics  come  less  into  ordinary 
conversation  in  America  (except  during  a  presidental  election) 
than  in  England.  But  the  practice  of  canvassing  at  elections, 
recently  developed  by  English  ladies  with  eminent  success, 
seems  unknown.  Women  have  seldom  been  chosen  members 
of  either  Republican  or  Democratic  conventions.  However, 
at  the  National  Convention  of  the  Prohibitionist  party  at 
Pittsburg  in  1884  some  presented  credentials  as  delegates 
from  local  organizations,  and  were  admitted  to  sit.  One  of 
the  two  secretaries  of  that  Convention  was  a  woman.  In  1908 
a  woman  served  as  alternate  to  the  Republican  National  Con¬ 
vention.  So  women  have  in  some  cities  borne  a  useful  and  influ¬ 
ential,  albeit  comparatively  inconspicuous,  part  in  movements 
for  the  reform  of  municipal  government.  Here  we  are  on  the 
debatable  ground  between  pure  party  politics  and  philan¬ 
thropic  agitation.  Women  have  been  so  effective  in  the  latter 
that  they  cannot  easily  be  excluded  when  persuasion  passes 
into  constitutional  action,  and  one  is  not  surprised  to  find  the 
Prohibition  party  declare  in  their  platform  of  1884  that  “they 
alone  recognize  the  influence  of  women,  and  offer  to  her  equal 
rights  with  man  in  the  management  of  national  affairs.” 
At  some  gatherings  in  the  West  which  gave  expression  to  the 
discontent  of  the  farming  class,  women  appeared,  and  were 
treated  with  a  deference  which  anywhere  but  in  America  would 
have  contrasted  strangely  with  the  roughness  of  the  crowd. 
One  of  them  signalized  herself  by  denouncing  a  proposed  ban¬ 
quet,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  being  got  up  in  the  interest  of 
the  brewers.  Presidential  candidates  have -often  “receptions” 
given  in  their  honour  by  ladies.  Attempts  have  been  made, 
but  with  little  success,  to  establish  political  “salons”  at  Wash¬ 
ington,  nor  has  the  influence  of  social  gatherings  anywhere 
attained  the  importance  it  has  often  possessed  in  France,  though 
occasionally  the  wife  of  a  politician  makes  his  fortune  by  her 
tact  and  skill  in  winning  support  for  him  among  professional 
politicians  or  the  members  of  a  State  legislature.  There  was 
another  and  less  auspicious  sphere  of  political  action  into 
which  women  found  their  way  at  the  national  capital.  The 
solicitation  of  members  of  a  legislature  with  a  view  to  the  pass¬ 
ing  of  bills,  especially  private  bills,  and  to  the  obtaining  of 
places,  has  become  a  profession  there,  and  the  persuasive  assidu- 


CHAP.  CXII 


THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 


799 


ity  which  had  long  been  recognized  by  poets  as  characteristic 
of  the  female  sex  made  them  at  one  time  widely  employed  and 
efficient  in  this  work. 

I  have  already,  in  treating  of  the  woman  suffrage  movement 
(Chapter  XCIX),  referred  to  the  various  public  offices  which 
have  been  in  many  States  thrown  open  to  women.  It  is  ad¬ 
mitted  that  wherever  the  suffrage  has  been  granted  the  gift 
carries  with  it  the  right  of  obtaining  those  posts  for  which 
votes  are  cast. 

The  subject  of  women’s  education  opens  up  a  large  field. 
Want  of  space  obliges  me  to  omit  a  description,  for  which  I 
have  accumulated  abundant  materials,  and  to  confine  myself 
to  a  few  concise  remarks. 

The  public  provision  for  the  instruction  of  girls  is  quite  as 
ample  and  adequate  as  that  made  for  boys.  Elementary  schools 
are  of  course  provided  alike  for  both  sexes,  grammar  schools 
and  high  schools  are  organized  for  the  reception  of  girls  some¬ 
times  under  the  same  roof  or  even  in  the  same  classes,  some¬ 
times  in  a  distinct  building,  but  always,  I  think,  with  an  equally 
complete  staff  of  teachers  and  equipment  of  educational  ap¬ 
pliances.  The  great  majority  of  the  daughters  of  mercantile 
and  professional  men,  especially  of  course  in  the  West,1  re¬ 
ceive  their  education  in  these  public  secondary  schools ;  and, 
what  is  more  remarkable,  the  number  of  girls  who  continue 
their  education  in  the  higher  branches,  including  the  ancient 
classics  and  physical  science,  up  to  the  age  of  seventeen  or 
eighteen,  is  as  large,  in  many  places  larger,  than  that  of  the 
boys,  the  latter  being  drafted  off  into  practical  life,  while  the 
former  indulge  their  more  lively  interest  in  the  things  of  the 
mind.  In  the  Western  universities  the  ancient  classics  are 
now  more  largely  studied  by  women  than  by  men,  partly 
because  the  latter  form  a  majority  of  the  teachers.  One  some¬ 
times  hears  it  charged  as  a  fault  on  the  American  school  sys¬ 
tem  that  its  liberal  provision  of  gratuitous  instruction  in  the 
advanced  subjects  tends  to  raise  girls  of  the  humbler  classes 
out  of  the  sphere  to  which  their  pecuniary  means  would  destine 
them,  makes  them  discontented  'with  their  lot,  implants  tastes 
which  fate  will  forever  forbid  them  to  gratify. 

1  There  are  many  private  boarding  schools  as  well  as  private  day  schools  for 
girls  in  the  Eastern  States.  Comparatively  few  children  are  educated  at  home 
by  governesses. 


800 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


As  stated  in  a  previous  chapter  (Chapter  CVIII),  Univer¬ 
sity  education  is  provided  for  women  in  the  Eastern  States  by 
colleges  expressly  erected  for  their  benefit,  and  in  the  Western 
States  by  State  universities,  whose  regulations  usually  provide 
for  the  admission  of  female  equally  with  male  students  to 
instruction  in  all  subjects.  There  are  also  some  colleges  of 
private  foundation  which  receive  young  men  and  maidens 
together,  teaching  them  in  the  same  classes,  but  providing 
separate  buildings  for  their  lodging. 

I  must  not  attempt  to  set  forth  and  discuss  the  evidence  re¬ 
garding  the  working  of  this  system  of  co-education,  interest¬ 
ing  as  the  facts  are,  but  be  content  with  stating  the  general 
result  of  the  inquiries  I  made. 

Co-education  has  worked  well  in  institutions  like  Antioch 
and  Oberlin  in  Ohio,  where  manners  are  plain  and  simple, 
where  the  students  all  come  from  a  class  in  which  the  inter¬ 
course  of  young  men  and  young  women  is  easy  and  natural, 
and  where  there  is  a  strong  religious  influence  pervading  the 
life  of  the  place.  No  moral  difficulties  are  found  to  arise. 
Each  sex  is  said  to  improve  the  other :  the  men  become  more 
refined,  and  the  women  more  manly.  Now  and  then  students 
fall  in  love  with  one  another,  and  marry  when  they  have 
graduated.  But  why  not  ?  Such  marriages  are  based  upon 
a  better  reciprocal  knowledge  of  character  than  is  usually 
attainable  in  the  great  world,  and  are  reported  to  be  almost 
invariably  happy.  So  also  in  the  Western  State  universities 
co-education  is  generally,  if  not  quite  invariably,  well  reported 
of.  In  these  establishments  the  students  mostly  lodge  where 
they  will  in  the  city,  and  are  therefore  brought  into  social 
relations  only  in  the  hours  of  public  instruction ;  but  the  ten¬ 
dency  of  late  years  has  been,  while  leaving  men  to  find  their 
own  quarters,  to  provide  places  of  residence  for  the  women. 
Of  late  years  a  resort  to  them  has  become  so  fashionable  that 
the  authorities  express  some  anxiety  lest  the  interest  in  social 
enjoyments  may  with  some  women  students  be  found  to  exceed 
their  devotion  to  study.  Should  this  happen  to  any  great  ex¬ 
tent,  difficulties  might  arise.  But  so  far  there  has  been  little 
to  do  in  the  way  of  discipline  or  supervision,  and  the  heads  of 
the  universities  have  raised  few  objections  to  the  system  of  co¬ 
education.  I  did  find,  however,  that  the  youths  in  some  cases 
expressed  aversion  to  it,  saying  they  would  rather  be  in  classes  by 


CHAP.  CXII 


THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 


801 


themselves  ;  the  reason  apparently  being  that  it  was  disagreeable 
to  see  a  man  whom  men  thought  meanly  of  standing  high  in 
favour  of  women  students.  In  these  Western  States  there  is 
so  much  freedom  allowed  in  the  intercourse  of  youths  and  girls, 
and  girls  are  so  well  able  to  take  care  of  themselves,  that 
the  objections  which  occur  to  a  European  have  little  weight. 
Whether  a  system  which  has  borne  good  fruits  in  the  simple 
society  of  the  West  is  fit  to  be  adopted  in  the  Eastern  States, 
where  the  conditions  of  life  approach  nearer  to  those  of  Europe,  is 
a  question  warmly  debated  in  America.  The  need  for  it  is  at 
any  rate  not  urgent,  because  the  liberality  of  founders  and  bene¬ 
factors  has  provided  in  at  least  five  women’s  colleges  —  one 
of  them  a  department  of  Harvard  University  —  places  where 
an  excellent  education,  surpassing  that  of  most  of  the  Western 
universities,  stands  open  to  women.  These  colleges  are  at 
present  so  efficient  and  popular,  and  the  life  of  their  students 
is  in  some  respects  so  much  freer  than  it  could  well  be,  con¬ 
sidering  the  etiquette  of  Eastern  society,  in  universities  fre¬ 
quented  -by  both  sexes,  that  they  will  probably  continue  to 
satisfy  the  practical  needs  of  the  community  and  the  wishes 
of  all  but  the  advocates  of  complete  equality. 

It  will  be  seen  from  what  has  been  said  that  the  provision 
for  women’s  education  in  the  United  States  is  ampler  and  better 
than  that  made  in  any  European  countries,  and  that  the  making 
of  it  has  been  far  more  distinctly  recognized  as  a  matter  of 
public  concern.  To  these  advantages,  and  to  the  spirit  they 
proceed  from,  much  of  the  influence  which  women  exert  must 
be  ascribed.  They  feel  more  independent,  they  have  a  fuller 
consciousness  of  their  place  in  the  world  of  thought  as  well  as 
in  the  world  of  action.  The  practice  of  educating  the  two  sexes 
together  in  the  same  colleges  tends,  in  those  sections  of  the 
country  where  it  prevails,  in  the  same  direction,  placing  women 
and  men  on  a  level  as  regards  attainments,  and  giving  them 
a  greater  number  of  common  intellectual  interests.  It  is  not 
deemed  to  have  made  women  either  pedantic  or  masculine, 
or  to  have  diminished  the  differences  between  their  mental  and 
moral  habits  and  those  or  men.  Nature  is  quite  strong  enough 
to  make  the  differences  of  temperament  she  creates  persistent, 
even  under  influences  which  might  seem  likely  to  reduce  them. 

Custom  allows  to  women  a  greater  measure  of  freedom  in 
doing  what  they  will  and  going  where  they  please  than  they 


802 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


have  in  any  European  country,  except,  perhaps,  in  Russia.  No 
one  is  surprised  to  see  a  lady  travel  alone  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific,  nor  a  girl  of  the  richer  class  walking  alone  through 
the  streets  of  a  city.  If  a  lady  enters  some  occupation  hereto¬ 
fore  usually  reserved  to  men,  she  is  subject  to  less  censorious 
remark  than  would  follow  her  in  Europe,  though  in  this  matter 
the  society  of  Eastern  cities  is  hardly  so  liberal  as  that  of  the 
West. 

Social  intercourse  between  youths  and  maidens  is  everywhere 
more  easy  and  unrestrained  than  in  England  or  Germany,  not 
to  speak  of  France.  Yet  there  are  considerable  differences 
between  the  Eastern  cities,  whose  usages  have  begun  to  approx¬ 
imate  to  those  of  Europe,  and  other  parts  of  the  country.  In 
the  rural  districts,  and  generally  all  over  the  West,  young  men 
and  girls  are  permitted  to  walk  together,  drive  together,  go 
out  to  parties,  and  even  to  public  entertainments  together, 
without  the  presence  of  any  third  person,  who  can  be  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  looking  after  or  taking  charge  of  the  girl.  So 
a  girl  may,  if  she  pleases,  keep  up  a  correspondence  with  a 
young  man,  nor  will  her  parents  think  of  interfering.  She 
will  have  her  own  friends,  who,  when  they  call  at  her  house, 
ask  for  her,  and  are  received  by  her,  it  may  be  alone ;  be¬ 
cause  they  are  not  deemed  to  be  necessarily  the  friends  of 
her  parents  also,  nor  even  of  her  sisters.  In  the  cities  of 
the  Atlantic  States,  it  is  perhaps  less  usual  than  it  would 
once  have  been  for  a  young  man  to  take  a  young  lady  out 
for  a  solitary  drive ;  and  he  would  not  in  all  sets  be  per¬ 
mitted  to  escort  her  alone  to  the  theatre.  But  girls  still  go 
without  chaperons  to  dances,  the  hostess  being  deemed  to  act 
as  chaperon  for  all  her  guests ;  and  as  regards  both  correspon¬ 
dence  and  the  right  to  have  one’s  own  circle  of  acquaintances, 
the  usage  even  of  New  York  or  Boston  allows  more  liberty 
than  does  that  of  London  or  Edinburgh.  It  was  at  one  time, 
and  it  may  possibly  still  be,  not  uncommon  for  a  group  of  young 
people  who  know  one  another  well  to  make  up  an  autumn 
“  party  in  the  woods.”  They  choose  some  mountain  and  forest 
region,  such  as  the  Adirondack  Wilderness  west  of  Lake  Cham¬ 
plain,  engage  three  or  four  guides,  embark  with  guns  and  fish¬ 
ing  rods,  tents,  blankets,  and  a  stock  of  groceries,  and  pass  in 
boats  up  the  rivers  and  across  the  lakes  of  this  wild  country 
through  sixty  or  seventy  miles  of  trackless  forest  to  their  chosen 


CHAP.  CXII 


THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 


803 


camping  ground  at  the  foot  of  some  tall  rock  that  rises  from 
the  still  crystal  of  the  lake.  Plere  they  build  their  bark  hut, 
and  spread  their  beds  of  the  elastic  and  fragrant  hemlock 
boughs ;  the  youths  roam  about  during  the  day,  tracking  the 
deer,  the  girls  read  and  work  and  bake  the  corn  cakes  ;  at  night 
there  is  a  merry  gathering  round  the  fire  or  a  row  in  the  soft 
moonlight.  On  these  expeditions  brothers  will  take  their  sis¬ 
ters  and  cousins,  who  bring  perhaps  some  women  friends  with 
them ;  the  brothers’  friends  will  come  too ;  and  all  will  live 
together  in  a  fraternal  way  for  weeks  or  months,  though  no 
elderly  relative  or  married  lady  be  of  the  party. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  pleasure  of  life  is  sensibly 
increased  by  the  greater  freedom  which  transatlantic  custom 
permits ;  and  as  the  Americans  insist  that  no  bad  results  have 
followed,1  one  notes  with  regret  that  freedom  declines  in  the 
places  which  deem  themselves  most  civilized.  American  girls 
have  been,  so  far  as  a  stranger  can  ascertain,  less  disposed  to 
what  are  called  “fast  ways”  than  girls  of  the  corresponding 
classes  in  England,2  and  exercise  in  this  respect  a  pretty  rigor¬ 
ous  censorship  over  one  another.  But  when  two  young  people 
find  pleasure  in  one  another’s  company,  they  can  see  as  much  of 
each  other  as  they  please,  can  talk  and  walk  together  frequently, 
can  show  that  they  are  mutually  interested,  and  yet  need  have 
little  fear  of  being  misunderstood  either  by  one  another  or  by 
the  rest  of  the  world.3  It  is  all  a  matter  of  custom.  In  the 
West,  custom  sanctions  this  easy  friendship  ;  while  in  the  Atlan¬ 
tic  cities,  so  soon  as  people  have  come  to  find  something  excep¬ 
tional  in  it,  constraint  is  felt,  and  a  conventional  etiquette  like 
that  of  the  Old  World  begins  to  replace  the  innocent  simplicity 
of  the  older  time,  the  test  of  whose  merit  may  be  gathered  from 

1  I  may  be  reminded  of  the  prevalence  and  growing  frequency  of  divorce, 
but  think  that  this  grave  evil  is  due  not  to  the  comparative  freedom  of  Trans¬ 
atlantic  matters.  The  cause  is  rather  to  be  sought  in  the  habit  which  men  no 
less  than  women  have  formed  of  lightly,  almost  capriciously,  entering  into  and 
dissolving  the  marriage  tie.  I  have,  however,  discussed  this  subject  in  another 
book  ( Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence). 

2  The  habit  of  smoking  cigarettes  which  began  to  spread  among  English  wo¬ 
men  of  the  richer  class  in  the  end  of  last  century  seems  to  be  less  frequent  among 
American  girls. 

3  Between  fastness  and  freedom  there  is  in  American  eyes  all  the  difference 
in  the  world,  but  new-comers  from  Europe  are  startled.  I  remember  to  have 
once  heard  a  German  lady  settled  in  a  Western  city  characterize  American 
women  as  “  furchtbar  frei  und  furchtbar  fromm"  (frightfully  free  and  fright¬ 
fully  pious) . 


804 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


the  persuasion  in  America  that  the  generally  happy  marriages  in 
the  society  of  the  rural  districts,  no  less  than  the  idyllic  charm 
of  the  life  of  young  people  there,  were  due  to  the  ampler  op¬ 
portunities  which  young  men  and  women  had  of  learning  one 
another’s  characters  and  habits  before  becoming  betrothed. 
Most  girls  have  a  larger  range  of  intimate  acquaintances  than 
girls  have  in  Europe,  intercourse  is  franker,  there  is  less  differ¬ 
ence  between  the  manners  of  home  and  the  manners  of  general 
society. 

In  no  country  are  women,  and  especially  young  women,  so 
much  made  of.  The  world  is  at  their  feet.  Society  seems 
organized  for  the  purpose  of  providing  enjoyment  for  them. 
Parents,  uncles,  aunts,  elderly  friends,  even  brothers,  are  ready 
to  make  their  comfort  and  convenience  bend  to  the  girls’  wishes. 
The  wife’s  opportunities  are  circumscribed,  except  among  the 
richest  people,  by  the  duties  of  household  management,  owing 
to  the  great  difficulty  of  obtaining  domestic  “  help.”  But  she 
holds  in  her  own  house  a  more  prominent,  if  not  a  more  sub¬ 
stantially  powerful,  position  than  in  England  or  even  in  France. 
With  the  German  Hausfrau,  who  is  too  often  content  to  be  a 
mere  housewife,  there  is  of  course  no  comparison.  The  best 
proof  of  the  superior  place  American  ladies  occupy  is  to  be 
found  in  the  notions  they  profess  to  entertain  of  the  relations 
of  an  English  married  pair.  They  talk  of  the  English  wife  as 
little  better  than  a  slave,  declaring  that  when  they  stay  with 
English  friends,  or  receive  an  English  couple  in  America,  they 
see  the  wife  always  deferring  to  the  husband  and  the  husband 
always  assuming  that  his  pleasure  and  convenience  are  to  pre¬ 
vail.  The  European  wife,  they  admit,  often  gets  her  own  way, 
but  she  gets  it  by  tactful  arts,  by  flattery  or  wheedling  or  play¬ 
ing  on  the  man’s  weaknesses  ;  whereas  in  America  the  husband’s 
duty  and  desire  is  to  gratify  the  wife  and  render  to  her  those 
services  which  the  English  tyrant  exacts  from  his  consort.1 
One  may  often  hear  an  American  matron  commiserate  a  friend 
who  has  married  in  Europe,  while  the  daughters  declare  in 
chorus  that  they  will  never  follow  the  example.  Laughable 
as  all  this  may  seem  to  Englishwomen,  it  is  perfectly  true  that 


1 1  have  heard  American  ladies  say,  for  instance,  that  they  have  observed 
that  an  Englishman  who  has  forgotten  his  keys  sends  his  wife  to  the  top  of  the 
house  to  fetch  them  ;  whereas  an  American  would  do  the  like  errand  for  his  wife, 
and  never  suffer  her  to  do  it  for  him. 


CHAP.  CXII 


THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 


805 


the  theory  as  well  as  the  practice  of  conjugal  life  is  not  the 
same  in  America  as  in  England.  There  are  overbearing  hus¬ 
bands  in  America,  but  they  are  more  condemned  by  the  opinion 
of  the  neighbourhood  than  in  England.  There  are  exacting 
wives  in  England,  but  their  husbands  are  more  pitied  than 
would  be  the  case  in  America.  In  neither  country  can  one 
say  that  the  principle  of  perfect  equality  reigns,  for  in  America 
the  balance  inclines  as  much  in  favour  of  the  wife  as  it  does 
in  England  in  favour  of  the  husband.  No  one  man  can  have 
a  sufficiently  large  acquaintance  in  both  countries  to  entitle 
his  individual  opinion  on  the  results  to  much  weight.  Those 
observers  who,  having  lived  in  both  countries,  favour  the 
American  practice,  do  so  because  the  theory  it  is  based  on 
departs  less  from  pure  equality  than  does  that  of  England. 
Such  observers  do  not  mean  that  the  recognition  of  women  as 
equals  or  superiors  makes  them  any  better  or  sweeter  or  wiser 
than  Englishwomen ;  but  rather  that  the  principle  of  equality, 
by  correcting  the  characteristic  faults  of  men,  and  especially 
their  selfishness  and  vanity,  is  more  conducive  to  the  concord 
and  happiness  of  a  home.  This  may  be  true,  but  I  have  heard 
others  declare  that  there  is,  at  least  among  the  richer  class,  a 
growing  detachment  of  the  wife  from  the  husband’s  life  and 
interests,  so  that  she  is  more  disposed  to  absent  herself  for 
long  periods  from  him  ;  and  some  observers  maintain  that  the 
American  system,  since  it  does  not  require  the  wife  habitually 
to  forego  her  own  wishes,  tends,  if  not  to  make  her  self-indulgent 
and  capricious,  yet  slightly  to  impair  the  more  delicate  charms 
of  character;  as  it  is  written,  “It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than 
to  receive.” 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  in  all  cases  where  the  two  sexes 
come  into  competition  for  comfort,  the  provision  is  made  first 
for  women.  Before  drawing-room  cars  had  become  common, 
the  end  car  in  railroad  trains,  being  that  farthest  removed 
from  the  smoke  of  the  locomotive,  was  often  reserved  for  them 
(though  men  accompanying  a  lady  could  enter  it),  and  at  hotels 
their  sitting-room  is  the  best  and  sometimes  the  only  available 
public  room,  ladyless  guests  being  driven  to  the  bar  or  the  hall. 
It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  privileges  yielded  to  American 
women  have  disposed  them  to  claim  as  a  right  what  was  only 
a  courtesy,  and  have  told  unfavourably  upon  their  manners. 
Instances,  such  as  that  of  women  entering  public  vehicles 


806 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


already  overcrowded,  are  cited  in  support  of  this  view,  but  I 
cannot  on  the  whole  think  it  well  founded.  The  better  bred 
women  do  not  presume  on  their  sex;  and  the  area  of  good 
breeding  is  always  widening.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that 
the  community  at  large  gains  by  the  softening  and  restraining 
influence  which  the  reverence  for  womanhood  diffuses.  Noth¬ 
ing  so  quickly  incenses  the  people  as  any  insult  offered  to  a 
woman.  Wife-beating,  and  indeed  any  kind  of  rough  violence 
offered  to  a  woman,  is  far  less  common  among  the  rudest 
class  than  it  is  in  England.  Field  work  or  work  at  the  pit- 
mouth  of  mines  is  seldom  or  never  done  by  women  in  America  ; 
and  the  American  traveller  who  in  some  parts  of  Europe  finds 
women  performing  severe  manual  labour  is  revolted  by  the 
sight  in  a  way  which  Europeans  find  surprising. 

In  the  farther  West,  that  is  to  say,  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
in  the  Rocky  Mountain  and  Pacific  States,  one  is  much  struck 
by  what  seems  the  absence  of  the  humblest  class  of  women. 
The  trains  are  full  of  poorly  dressed  and  sometimes  (though 
less  frequently)  rough-mannered  men.  One  discovers  no  wo¬ 
men  whose  dress  or  air  marks  them  out  as  the  wives,  daugh¬ 
ters,  or  sisters  of  these  men,  and  wonders  whether  the  male 
population  is  celibate,  and  if  so,  why  there  are  so  many  women. 
Closer  observation  shows  that  the  wives,  daughters,  and  sisters 
are  there,  only  their  attire  and  manner  are  those  of  what  Euro¬ 
peans  would  call  middle  class  and  not  working  class  people. 
This  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  Western  men  affect  a  rough 
dress.  Still  one  may  say  that  the  remark  so  often  made  that 
the  masses  of  the  American  people  correspond  to  the  middle 
class  of  Europe  is  more  true  of  the  women  than  of  the  men, 
and  is  more  true  of  them  in  the  rural  districts  and  in  the  West 
than  it  is  of  the  inhabitants  of  Atlantic  cities.  I  remember  to 
have  been  dawdling  in  a  book-store  in  a  small  town  in  Oregon 
when  a  lady  entered  to  inquire  if  a  monthly  magazine,  whose 
name  was  unknown  to  me,  had  yet  arrived.  When  she  was 
gone  I  asked  the  salesman  who  she  was,  and  what  was  the 
periodical  she  wanted.  He  answered  that  she  was  the  wife 
of  a  railway  workman,  that  the  magazine  was  a  journal  of 
fashions,  and  that  the  demand  for  such  journals  was  large  and 
constant  among  women  of  the  wage-earning  class  in  the  town. 
This  set  me  to  observing  female  dress  more  closely,  and  it  turned 
out  to  be  perfectly  true  that  the  women  in  these  little  towns 


CHAP.  CXII 


THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 


807 


were  following  the  Parisian  fashions  very  closely,  and  were,  in 
fact,  ahead  of  the  majority  of  English  ladies  belonging  to  the 
professional  and  mercantile  classes.1  Of  course  in  such  a  town 
as  I  refer  to  there  are  no  domestic  servants  except  in  the  hotels 
(indeed,  almost  the  only  domestic  service  to  be  had  in  the 
Pacific  States  was  then  that  of  Chinese),  so  these  votaries  of 
fashion  did  all  their  own  housework  and  looked  after  their 
own  babies. 

Three  causes  combine  to  create  among  American  women  an 
average  of  literary  taste  and  influence  higher  than  that  of 
women  in  any  European  country.  These  are,  the  educational 
facilities  they  enjoy,  the  recognition  of  the  equality  of  the 
sexes  in  the  whole  social  and  intellectual  sphere,  and  the  leisure 
which  they  possess  as  compared  with  men.  In  a  country  where 
men  are  incessantly  occupied  at  their  business  or  profession, 
the  function  of  keeping  up  the  level  of  culture  devolves  upon 
women.  It  is  safe  in  their  hands.  They  are  quick  and  keen¬ 
witted,  less  fond  of  open-air  life  and  physical  exertion  than 
Englishwomen  are,  and  obliged  by  the  climate  to  pass  a  greater 
part  of  their  time  under  shelter  from  the  cold  of  winter  and 
the  sun  of  summer.  For  music  and  for  the  pictorial  arts  they 
do  not  yet  seem  to  have  formed  so  strong  a  taste  as  for  litera¬ 
ture,  partly  perhaps  owing  to  the  fact  that  in  America  the  op¬ 
portunities  of  seeing  and  hearing  masterpieces,  except  indeed 
operas,  are  rarer  than  in  Europe.  But  they  are  eager  and 
assiduous  readers  of  all  such  books  and  periodicals  as  do  not 
presuppose  special  knowledge  in  some  branch  of  science  or 
learning,  while  the  number  who  have  devoted  themselves  to 
some  special  study  and  attained  proficiency  in  it  is  large.  They 
love  society,  and  now  there  is  hardly  a  village  that  has  not  its 
women’s  club  where  papers  are  read  and  all  sorts  of  current 
questions  discussed,  often  with  the  incidental  result  of  enabling 
those  of  slender  means  but  cultivated  tastes  to  come  into  social 
contact  with  those  of  higher  position.  The  fondness  for  senti¬ 
ment,  especially  moral  and  domestic  sentiment,  which  is 
often  observed  as  characterizing  American  taste  in  litera¬ 
ture,  seems  to  be  mainly  due  to  the  influence  of  women, 
for  they  form  not  only  the  larger  part  of  the  reading  public, 

1  The  above,  of  course,  does  not  apply  to  the  latest  immigrants  from  Europe, 
who  are  still  European  in  their  dress  and  ways,  though  in  a  town  they  become 
quickly  Americanized. 


808 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


but  an  indepenclent-mincled  part,  not  disposed  to  adopt  the 
canons  laid  down  by  men,  and  their  preferences  count  for  more 
in  the  opinions  and  predilections  of  the  whole  nation  than  is 
the  case  in  England.  Similarly  the  number  of  women  who 
write  is  much  larger  in  America  than  in  Europe.  Fiction, 
essays,  and  poetry  are  naturally  their  favourite  provinces. 
In  poetry  more  particularly,  many  whose  names  are  quite  un¬ 
known  in  Europe  have  attained  widespread  fame. 

Some  one  may  ask  how  far  the  differences  between  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  women  in  America  and  their  position  in  Europe  are 
due  to  democracy,  or  if  not  to  this,  then  to  what  other  cause. 

They  are  due  to  democratic  feeling  in  so  far  as  they  spring 
from  the  notion  that  all  men  are  free  and  equal,  possessed  of 
certain  inalienable  rights,  and  owing  certain  corresponding 
duties.  This  root  idea  of  democracy  cannot  stop  at  defining 
men  as  male  human  beings,  any  more  than  it  could  ultimately 
stop  at  defining  them  as  white  human  beings.  For  many  years 
the  Americans  believed  in  equality  with  the  pride  of  discoverers 
as  well  as  with  the  fervour  of  apostles.  Accustomed  to  apply 
it  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  they  were  naturally  the 
first  to  apply  it  to  women  also ;  not,  indeed,  as  respects  poli¬ 
tics,  but  in  all  the  social  as  well  as  legal  relations  of  life.  De¬ 
mocracy  is  in  America  more  respectful  of  the  individual,  less 
disposed  to  infringe  his  freedom  or  subject  him  to  any  sort 
of  legal  or  family  control,  than  it  has  shown  itself  in  Conti¬ 
nental  Europe,  and  this  regard  for  the  individual  enured  to 
the  benefit  of  women.  Of  the  other  causes  that  have  worked 
in  the  same  direction  two  may  be  mentioned.  One  is  the 
usage  of  the  Congregationalist,  Presbyterian,  and  Baptist 
churches,  under  which  a  woman  who  is  a  member  of  the  con¬ 
gregation  has  the  same  rights  in  choosing  a  deacon,  elder,  or 
pastor,  as  a  man  has.  Another  is  the  fact  that  among  the 
westward-moving  settlers  women  were  at  first  few  in  number, 
and  were  therefore  treated  with  special  respect.  The  habit 
then  formed  was  retained  as  the  communities  grew,  and  propa¬ 
gated  itself  all  over  the  country. 

What  have  been  the  results  on  the  character  and  usefulness 
of  women  themselves? 

On  the  whole  favourable.  Though  critics  dwell  on  some 
drawbacks,  it  is  a  gain  that  American  women  have  been  ad¬ 
mitted  to  a  wider  life  and  more  variety  of  career  than  is 


CHAP.  CXII 


THE  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 


809 


enjoyed  in  Continental  Europe.  Thus  there  has  been  pro¬ 
duced  a  sort  of  independence  and  a  capacity  for  self-help 
which  are  increasingly  valuable  as  the  number  of  unmarried 
women  increases.  Many  resources  are  now  open  to  an  Ameri¬ 
can  woman  who  has  to  lead  a  solitary  life,  not  merely  in  the 
way  of  employment,  but  for  the  occupation  of  her  mind  and 
tastes;  while  her  education  has  not  rendered  the  American 
wife  less  competent  for  the  discharge  of  household  duties. 

Plow  has  the  nation  at  large  been  affected  by  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  this  new  type  of  womanhood,  or  rather  perhaps  of 
this  variation  on  the  English  type? 

If  women  have  on  the  whole  gained,  it  is  clear  that  the  nation 
gains  through  them.  As  mothers  they  mould  the  character 
of  their  children,  while  the  function  of  forming  the  habits 
of  society  and  determining  its  moral  tone  rests  greatly  in  their 
hands.  But  there  is  reason  to  think  that  the  influence  of  the 
American  system  tells  directly  for  good  upon  men  as  well  as 
upon  the  whole  community.  The  respect  for  women  which 
every  American  man  either  feels  or  is  obliged  by  public  senti¬ 
ment  to  profess  has  a  wholesome  effect  on  his  conduct  and 
character,  and  serves  to  check  the  cynicism  which  some  other 
peculiarities  of  the  country  foster,  The  nation  as  a  whole  owes 
to  the  active  benevolence  of  its  women,  and  their  zeal  in  promot¬ 
ing  social  reforms,  benefits  which  the  customs  of  Continental 
Europe  would  scarcely  have  permitted  women  to  confer.  Euro¬ 
peans  have  of  late  years  begun  to  render  a  well-deserved  ad¬ 
miration  to  the  brightness  and  vivacity  of  American  ladies. 
Those  who  know  the  work  they  have  done  and  are  doing  in 
many  a  noble  cause  will  admire  still  more  their  energy,  their 
courage,  their  self-devotion.  No  country  seems  to  owe  more 
to  its  women  than  America  does,  nor  to  owe  to  them  so  much 
of  what  is  best  in  social  institutions  and  in  the  beliefs  that 
govern  conduct. 


CHAPTER  CXIII 


EQUALITY 

The  United  States  are  deemed  all  the  world  over  to  be  pre¬ 
eminently  the  land  of  equality.  This  was  the  first  feature 
which  struck  Europeans  when  they  began,  after  the  peace  of 
1815  had  left  them  time  to  look  beyond  the  Atlantic,  to  feel 
curious  about  the  phenomena  of  a  new  society.  This  was  the 
great  theme  of  Tocqueville’s  description,  and  the  starting- 
point  of  his  speculations ;  this  has  been  the  most  constant 
boast  of  the  Americans  themselves,  who  have  believed  their 
liberty  more  complete  than  that  of  any  other  people,  because 
equality  has  been  more  fully  blended  with  it.  Yet  some  phi¬ 
losophers  say  that  equality  is  impossible,  and  others,  who  ex¬ 
press  themselves  more  precisely,  insist  that  distinctions  of 
rank  are  so  inevitable,  that  however  you  try  to  expunge  them, 
they  are  sure  to  reappear.  Before  we  discuss  this  question, 
let  us  see  in  what  senses  the  word  is  used. 

First  there  is  legal  equality,  including  both  what  one  may 
call  passive  or  private  equality,  i.e.  the  equal  possession  of 
civil  private  rights  by  all  inhabitants,  and  active  or  public 
equality,  the  equal  possession  by  all  of  rights  to  a  share  in  the 
government,  such  as  the  electoral  franchise  and  eligibility 
to  public  office.  Both  kinds  of  political  equality  exist  in 
America,  in  the  amplest  measure,  and  may  be  dismissed  from 
the  present  discussion. 

Next  there  is  the  equality  of  material  conditions,  that  is,  of 
wealth,  and  all  that  wealth  gives ;  there  is  the  equality  of  edu¬ 
cation  and  intelligence ;  there  is  the  equality  of  social  status 
or  rank ;  and  there  is  (what  comes  near  to,  but  is  not  exactly 
the  same  as,  this  last)  the  equality  of  estimation,  i.e.  of  the 
value  which  men  set  upon  one  another,  whatever  be  the  ele¬ 
ments  that  come  into  this  value,  whether  wealth,  or  education, 
or  official  rank,  or  social  rank,  or  any  other  species  of  excellence. 
In  how  many  and  which  of  these  senses  of  the  word  does  equality 
exist  in  the  United  States  ? 


810 


CHAP.  CXIII 


EQUALITY 


811 


Not  as  regards  material  conditions.  Till  about  the  middle 
of  last  century  there  were  no  great  fortunes  in  America,  few 
large  fortunes,  no  poverty.  Now  there  is  some  poverty  (though 
only  in  a  few  places  can  it  be  called  pauperism),  many  large 
fortunes,  and  a  greater  number  of  gigantic  fortunes  than  in  any 
other  country  in  the  world.  The  class  of  persons  who  are 
passably  well  off  but  not  rich  is  much  larger  than  in  the  great 
countries  of  Europe.  Between  the  houses,  the  dress,  and  the 
way  of  life  of  these  persons,  and  those  of  the  r  cher  sort,  there 
is  less  difference  than  in  Europe.  The  very  rich  do  not  (except 
in  a  few  places)  make  an  ostentatious  display  of  their  wealth, 
because  they  have  no  means  of  doing  so,  and  a  visitor  is  there¬ 
fore  apt  to  overrate  the  extent  to  which  equality  of  wealth, 
and  of  material  conditions  generally,  still  prevails.  The  most 
remarkable  phenomenon  of  the  last  half  century  has  been  the 
appearance,  not  only  of  those  colossal  millionaires  who  fill 
the  public  eye,  but  of  a  crowd  of  millionaires  of  the  second 
order,  men  with  fortunes  ranging  from  $5,000,000  to  $20,000,- 
000.  At  a  seaside  resort  like  Newport,  where  one  sees  the 
finished  luxury  of  the  villas,  and  counts  the  well-appointed 
equipages,  with  their  superb  horses,  which  turn  out  in  the 
afternoon,  one  gets  some  impression  of  the  vast  and  growing 
wealth  of  the  Eastern  cities.  But  through  the  country  gen¬ 
erally  there  is  little  to  mark  out  the  man  with  an  income  of 
$100,000  a  year  from  the  man  of  $20,000,  as  he  is  marked 
out  in  England  by  his  country  house  with  its  park,  or  in  France 
by  the  opportunities  for  display  which  Paris  affords.  The 
number  of  these  fortunes  seems  likely  to  go  on  increasing,  for 
they  are  due  not  merely  to  the  sudden  development  of  the 
West,  with  the  chances  of  making  vast  sums  by  land  speculation - 
or  in  railway  construction,  but  to  the  field  for  doing  business 
on  a  great  scale,  which  the  size  of  the  county  presents.  Where 
a  merchant  or  manufacturer  in  France  or  England  could  realize 
thousands,  an  American,  operating  more  boldly,  and  on  this 
far  wider  theatre,  may  realize  tens  of  thousands.  We  may 
therefore  expect  these  inequalities  of  wealth  to  grow;  nor  will 
even  the  habit  of  equal  division  among  children  keep  them 
down,  for  families  are  often  small,  and  though  some  of  those 
who  inherit  wealth  may  renounce  business,  others  will  pursue 
it,  since  the  attractions  of  other  kinds  of  life  are  fewer  than  in 
Europe.  Politics  are  less  interesting,  there  is  no  great  land- 


812 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


holding  class  with  the  duties  towards  tenants  and  neighbours 
which  an  English  squire  may,  if  he  pleases,  usefully  discharge ; 
the  pursuit  of  collecting  pictures  or  other  objects  of  curiosity  im¬ 
plies  frequent  visits  to  Europe,  and  although  the  killing  of  birds 
prevails  in  the  Middle  States  and  the  killing  of  deer  in  Maine 
and  the  West,  this  rather  barbarous  form  of  pleasure  is  likely  in 
time  to  die  out  from  a  civilized  people.  Other  kinds  of  what  is 
called  “ sport”  no  doubt  remain,  such  as  horse-racing,  eagerly 
pursued  in  the  form  of  trotting  matches,1  “ rushing  round” 
in  an  automobile,  and  the  manlier  amusements  of  yacht-racing, 
rowing,  and  base-ball,  but  these  can  be  followed  only  during 
part  of  the  year,  and  some  of  them  only  by  the  young.  To 
lead  a  life  of  so-called  pleasure  gives  much  more  trouble  in 
an  American  city  than  it  does  in  Paris  or  Vienna  or  London. 
Accordingly,  while  many  great  fortunes  will  continue  to  be 
made,  they  will  be  less  easily  and  quickly  spent  than  in  Europe, 
and  one  may  surmise  that  the  equality  of  material  conditions, 
almost  universal  in  the  eighteenth  century,  still  general  in 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth,  will  more  and  more  diminish 
by  the  growth  of  a  very  rich  class  at  one  end  of  the  line,  and 
of  a  very  poor  class  at  the  other  end.2 

As  respects  education,  the  profusion  of  superior  as  well  as 
elementary  schools  tends  to  raise  the  mass  to  a  somewhat  higher 
point  than  in  Europe,  while  the  stimulus  of  life  being  keener 
and  the  habit  of  reading  more  general,  the  number  of  persons  one 
finds  on  the  same  general  level  of  brightness,  keenness,  and  a 
superficially  competent  knowledge  of  common  facts,  whether 
in  science,  history,  geography,  or  literature,  is  extremely  large. 
This  general  level  tends  to  rise.  But  the  level  of  exceptional 
attainment  in  that  still  relatively  small  though  increasing 
class  who  have  studied  at  the  best  native  universities  or  in 
Europe,  and  who  pursue  learning  and  science  either  as  a  pro¬ 
fession  or  as  a  source  of  pleasure,  rises  faster  than  does  the 
general  level  of  the  multitude,  so  that  in  this  regard  also  it 
appears  that  equality  has  diminished  and  will  diminish  further. 

So  far  we  have  been  on  comparatively  smooth  and  easy 

1  The  trotting  horse  is  driven,  not  ridden,  a  return  to  the  earliest  forms  of 
horse-racing  we  know  of. 

2  How  far  extreme  inequality  of  material  conditions,  coexisting  with  political 
equality,  is  likely  to  prove  a  source  of  political  danger  is  a  question  discussed 
in  other  chapters.  Hitherto  it  has  not  proved  serious.  Cf.  Aristotle,  Polit.  V., 


CHAP.  CXIII 


EQUALITY 


813 


ground.  Equality  of  wealth  is  a  concrete  thing;  equality  of 
intellectual  possession  and  resource  is  a  thing  which  can  be 
perceived  and  gauged.  Of  social  equality,  of  distinctions  of 
standing  and  estimation  in  private  life,  it  is  far  more  difficult 
to  speak,  and  in  what  follows  I  speak  with  some  hesitation. 

One  thing,  and  perhaps  one  thing  only,  may  be  asserted  with 
confidence.  There  is  no  rank  in  America,  that  is  to  say,  no 
external  and  recognized  stamp,  marking  one  man  as  entitled  to 
any  social  privileges,  or  to  deference  and  respect  from  others. 
No  man  is  entitled  to  think  himself  better  than  his  fellows,  or 
to  expect  any  exceptional  consideration  to  be  shown  by  them  to 
him.  Except  in  the  national  capital,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
recognized  order  of  precedence,  either  on  public  occasions  or 
at  a  private  party,  save  that  yielded  to  a  few  official  persons,  such 
as  the  governor  and  chief  judges  of  a  State  within  that  State,  as 
well  as  to  the  President  and  Vice-President,  the  Speaker  of  the 
House,  the  Federal  senators,  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Federal 
Court,  and  the  members  of  the  President’s  cabinet  everywhere 
through  the  Union.  In  fact,  the  idea  of  a  regular  “rule  of 
precedence”  displeases  the  Americans,1  and  one  finds  them 
slow  to  believe  that  the  application  of  such  rules  in  Europe 
gives  no  offence  to  persons  who  possess  no  conventional  rank, 
but  may  be  personally  older  or  more  distinguished  than  those 
who  have  it. 

What,  then,  is  the  effect  or  influence  for  social  purposes  of 
such  distinctions  as  do  exist  between  men,  distinctions  of  birth, 
of  wealth,  of  official  position,  of  intellectual  eminence? 

To  be  sprung  from  an  ancient  stock,  or  from  a  stock  which 
can  count  persons  of  eminence  among  its  ancestors,  is  of  course 
a  satisfaction  to  the  man  himself.  There  is  at  present  a  passion 
among  Americans  for  genealogical  researches.  A'  good  many 
families  can  trace  themselves  back  to  English  families  of  the 
sixteenth  or  seventeenth  century,  and  of  course  a  great  many 
more  profess  to  do  so.  For  a  man’s  ancestors  to  have  come 
over  in  the  Mayflower  is  in  America  much  what  their  hav¬ 
ing  come  over  with  William  the  Conqueror  used  to  be  in  Eng¬ 
land  and  is  often  claimed  on  equally  flimsy  grounds.  The 

1  In  private  parties,  so  far  as  there  is  any  rule  of  precedence,  it  is  that  of 
age,  with  a  tendency  to  make  an  exception  in  favour  of  clergymen  or  of  any  per¬ 
son  of  special  eminence.  It  is  only  in  Washington,  where  senators,  judges, 
ministers,  and  congressmen  are  sensitive  on  these  points,  that  such  questions 
seem  to  arise,  or  to  be  regarded  as  deserving  the  attention  of  a  rational  mind. 


814 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


descendants  of  any  of  the  revolutionary  heroes,  such  as  John 
Adams,  Edmund  Randolph,  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  the 
descendants  of  any  famous  man  of  colonial  times,  such  as  the 
early  governors  of  Massachusetts  from  William  Endicott 
downwards,  or  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  or  of  Eliot,  the  apostle 
of  the  Indians,  are  regarded  by  their  neighbours  with  a  certain 
amount  of  interest,  and  their  legitimate  pride  in  such  an  an¬ 
cestry  excites  no  disapproval.1  In  the  Eastern  cities  and  at 
fashionable  summer  resorts  one  begins  to  see  carriages  with 
armorial  bearings  on  their  panels,  but  most  people  appear  to 
disapprove  or  ridicule  this  as  a  piece  of  Anglomania,  more  likely 
to  be  practised  by  a  parvenu  than  by  the  scion  of  a  really  old 
family.  Virginians  used  to  set  much  store  by  their  pedigrees, 
and  the  letters  F.F.V.  (First  Families  of  Virginia)  had  become 
a  sort  of  jest  against  persons  pluming  themselves  on  their 
social  position  in  the  Old  Dominion.2  Since  the  war,  however, 
which  shattered  old  Virginian  society  from  its  foundations,  one 
hears  less  of  such  pretensions.3 

The  fault  which  Americans  are  most  frequently  accused  of 
is  the  worship  of  wealth.  The  amazing  fuss  which  is  made 
about  very  rich  men,  the  descriptions  of  their  doings,  the  spec¬ 
ulation  as  to  their  intentions,  the  gossip  about  their  private 
life,  lend  colour  to  the  reproach.  He  who  builds  up  a  huge 
fortune,  especially  if  he  does  it  suddenly,  is  no  doubt  a  sort 
of  hero,  because  an  enormous  number  of  men  have  the  same 
ambition.  Having  done  best  what  millions  are  trying  to  do, 
he  is  discussed,  admired,  and  envied  in  the  same  way  as  the 
captain  of  a  cricket  eleven  is  at  an  English  school,  or  the  stroke 
of  the  university  boat  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  If  he  be  a 


1  In  all  the  cases  mentioned  in  the  text,  I  remember  to  have  been  told  by 
others,  but  never  by  the  persons  concerned,  of  the  ancestry.  This  is  an  illus¬ 
tration  of  the  fact  that  while  such  ancestry  is  felt  to  be  a  distinction  it  would 
be  thought  bad  taste  for  those  who  possess  it  to  mention  it  unless  a  necessity 
arose  for  them  to  do  so. 

2  An  anecdote  is  told  of  the  captain  of  a  steamer  plying  at  a  ferry  from  Mary¬ 
land  into  Virginia,  who,  being  asked  by  a  needy  Virginian  to  give  him  a  free  pas¬ 
sage  across,  enquired  if  the  applicant  belonged  to  one  of  the  F.F.V.  “No,” 
answered  the  man,  “I  can’t  exactly  say  that ;  rather  to  one  of  the  second  fami¬ 
lies.”  “Jump  on  board,”  said  the  captain;  “I  never  met  one  of  your  sort 
before.” 

3  Clubs  have  been  formed  in  Eastern  cities  including  only  persons  who  could 
prove  that  their  progenitors  were  settled  in  the  State  before  the  Revolution, 
and  one  widely  spread  women’s  association  (the  Colonial  Dames)  has  a  like 
basis. 


CHAP.  CXIII 


EQUALITY 


815 


great  financier,  or  the  owner  of  a  great  railroad  or  a  great  news¬ 
paper,  he  exercises  vast  power,  and  is  therefore  well  worth  court¬ 
ing  by  those  who  desire  his  help  or  would  avert  his  enmity. 
Admitting  all  this,  it  may  seem  a  paradox  to  observe  that  a 
millionaire  has  a  better  and  easier  social  career  open  to  him  in 
England  than  in  America.  Nevertheless  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  this  is  true.  In  America,  if  his  private  character  be 
bad,  if  he  be  mean,  or  openly  immoral,  or  personally  vulgar,  or 
dishonest,  the  best  society  may  keep  its  doors  closed  against 
him.  In  England  great  wealth,  skilfully  employed,  will  more 
readily  force  these  doors  to  open.  For  in  England  great  wealth 
can,  by  using  the  appropriate  methods,  practically  buy  rank 
from  those  who  bestow  it ;  or  by  obliging  persons  whose  posi¬ 
tion  enables  them  to  command  fashionable  society,  can  induce 
them  to  stand  sponsors  for  the  upstart,  and  force  him  into 
society,  a  thing  which  no  person  in  America  has  the  power  of 
doing.  To  effect  such  a  stroke  in  England  the  rich  man  must 
of  course  have  stopped  short  of  positive  frauds,  that  is,  of  such 
frauds  as  could  be  proved  in  court.  But  he  may  be  still  dis¬ 
trusted  and  disliked  by  the  elite  of  the  commercial  world,  he 
may  be  vulgar  and  ill-educated,  and  indeed  have  nothing  to 
recommend  him  except  hisywealth  and  his  willingness  to  spend 
it  in  providing  amusement  for  fashionable  people.  All  this 
will  not  prevent  him  from  becoming  a  baronet,  or  possibly  a 
peer,  and  thereby  acquiring  a  position  of  assured  dignity  which 
he  can  transmit  to  his  offspring.  The  existence  of  a  system 
of  artificial  rank  enables  a  stamp  to  be  given  to  base  metal  in 
Europe  which  cannot  be  given  in  a  thoroughly  republican 
country.1  The  feeling  of  the  American  public  towards  the 
very  rich  is,  so  far  as  a  stranger  can  judge,  one  of  curiosity  and 
wonder  rather  than  of  respect.  There  is  less  snobbishness 
shown  towards  them  than  in  England.  They  are  admired  as 
a  famous  runner  or  jockey  is  admired,  and  the  talents  they 
have  shown,  say,  in  railroad  management  or  in  finance,  are  felt 
to  reflect  lustre  on  the  nation.  But  they  do  not  necessarily 
receive  either  flattery  or  social  deference,  and  sometimes, 
where  it  can  be  alleged  that  they  have  won  their  wealth  as 

1  The  English  system  of  hereditary  titles  tends  to  maintain  the  distinction 
of  ancient  lineage  far  less  perfectly  than  that  simple  use  of  a  family  name  which 
prevailed  in  Italy  during  the  Middle  Ages,  or  in  ancient  Rome.  A  Colonna  or  a 
Doria,  like  a  Cornelius  or  a  Valerius,  carried  the  glory  of  his  nobility  in  his  name, 
whereas  any  upstart  may  be  created  a  duke. 


816 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


the  leading  spirits  in  monopolistic  combinations,  they  are 
made  targets  for  attack,  though  they  may  have  done  nothing 
more  than  what  other  business  men  have  attempted,  with  less 
ability  and  less  success. 

The  persons  to  whom  official  rank  gives  importance  are  very 
few  indeed,  being  for  the  nation  at  large  only  about  one  hun¬ 
dred  persons  at  the  top  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  in 
each  State  less  than  a  dozen  of  its  highest  State  functionaries. 
For  these  State  functionaries,  indeed,  the  respect  shown  is 
extremely  scanty,  and  much  more  official  than  personal.  A 
high  Federal  officer,  a  senator,  or  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
or  cabinet  minister,  is  conspicuous  while  he  holds  his  place, 
and  is  of  course  a  personage  in  any  private  society  he  may 
enter ;  but  less  so  than  a  corresponding  official  would  be  in 
Europe.  A  simple  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  is 
nobody.  Even  men  of  the  highest  official  rank  do  not  give 
themselves  airs  on  the  score  of  their  position.  Long  ago,  in 
Washington,  I  was  taken  to  be  presented  to  the  then  head  of 
the  United  States  army,  a  great  soldier  whose  fame  all  the 
world  knows.  We  found  him  standing  at  a  desk  in  a  bare 
room  in  the  War  Department,  at  work  with  one  clerk.  While 
he  was  talking  to  us  the  door  of  the  room  was  pushed  open, 
and  there  appeared  the  figure  of  a  Western  sight-seer  belong¬ 
ing  to  what  Europeans  would  call  the  lower  middle  class,  fol¬ 
lowed  by  his  wife  and  sister,  who  were  “ doing”  Washington. 
Perceiving  that  the  room  was  occupied  they  began  to  retreat, 
but  the  Commander-in-chief  called  them  back.  “Walk  in, 
ladies/’  he  said.  “You  can  look  around.  You  won’t  dis¬ 
turb  me;  make  yourselves  at  home.” 

Intellectual  attainment  does  not  excite  much  notice  till  it 
becomes  eminent,  that  is  to  say,  till  it  either  places  its  possessor 
in  a  conspicuous  position,  such  as  that  of  president  of  one  of 
the  greatest  universities,  or  till  it  has  made  him  well  known  to 
the  world  as  a  preacher,  or  writer,  or  scientific  discoverer. 
When  this  kind  of  eminence  has  been  reached,  it  receives,  I 
think,  more  respect  than  anywhere  in  Europe,  except  possibly 
in  Italy,  where  the  interest  in  learned  men,  or  poets,  or  artists, 
seems  to' be  greater  than  anywhere  else  in  Europe.1  A  famous 

1  In  Germany  great  respect  is  no  doubt  felt  for  the  leaders  of  learning  and 
science  ;  but  they  are  regarded  as  belonging  to  a  world  of  their  own,  separated 
by  a  wide  gulf  from  the  territorial  aristocracy,  which  still  deems  itself  (as  in 


CHAP.  CXIII 


EQUALITY 


817 


writer  or  divine  is  known  by  name  to  a  far  greater  number  of 
persons  in  America  than  would  know  a  similar  person  in  any 
European  country.  He  is  one  of  the  glories  of  the  country. 
There  is  no  artificial  rank  to  cast  him  into  the  shade.  He  is 
possibly  less  famous  than  the  railroad  magnates  or  the  manip¬ 
ulators  of  the  stock  markets ;  but  he  excites  a  different  kind 
of  sentiment ;  and  people  are  willing  to  honour  him  in  a  way, 
sometimes  distasteful  to  himself,  which  would  not  be  applied 
to  the  millionaire  except  by  those  who  sought  to  gain  some¬ 
thing  from  him. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  of  explaining  how  some  of  the  differ¬ 
ences  above  mentioned,  in  wealth  or  official  position  or  intel¬ 
lectual  eminence,  affect  social  equality  is  by  reverting  to  what 
was  called,  a  few  pages  back,  equality  of  estimation  —  the 
idea  which  men  form  of  other  men  as  compared  with  them¬ 
selves.  It  is  in  this  that  the  real  sense  of  equality  comes  out. 
In  America  men  hold  others  to  be  at  bottom  exactly  the  same 
as  themselves.1  If  a  man  is  enormously  rich,  or  if  he  is  a  great 
orator,  like  Daniel  Webster  or  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  or  a  great 
soldier  like  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  or  a  great  writer  like  R.  W.  Em¬ 
erson,  or  President,  so  much  the  better  for  him.  He  is  an  ob¬ 
ject  of  interest,  perhaps  of  admiration,  possibly  even  of  rev¬ 
erence.  But  he  is  deemed  to  be  still  of  the  same  flesh  and 
blood  as  other  men.  The  admiration  felt  for  him  may  be  a 
reason  for  going  to  see  him  and  longing  to  shake  hands  with 
him,  a  longing  frequent  in  America.  But  it  is  not  a  reason 
for  bowing  down  to  him,  or  addressing  him  in  deferential  terms, 
or  treating  him  as  if  he  were  porcelain  and  yourself  only  earth¬ 
enware.2  In  this  respect  there  is,  I  think,  a  difference,  slight 
but  perceptible,  between  the  sentiment  of  equality  as  it  exists 


the  days  of  Candide’s  brother-in-law)  a  different  form  of  mankind  from  those 
who  have  not  sixteen  quarterings  to  show. 

1  Some  one  has  said  that  there  are  in  America  two  classes  only,  those  who 
have  succeeded  and  those  who  have  failed. 

2  This  is  seen  even  in  the  manner  of  American  servants.  Although  there  is 
an  aversion  among  native  Americans  of  both  sexes  to  enter  regular  domestic 
service,  the  temporary  discharge  of  personal  service  does  not  necessarily  involve 
loss  of  caste.  Many  years  ago  I  found  all  the  waiting  in  a  large  hotel  in  the 
White  Mountains  done  by  the  daughters  of  respectable  New  England  farmers  in 
the  low  country  who  had  come  up  for  their  summer  change  of  air  to  this  place  of 
resort,  and  were  earning  their  board  and  lodging  by  acting  as  waitresses.  They 
were  treated  by  the  guests  as  equals,  and  were  indeed  cultivated  and  well-man¬ 
nered  young  women.  So  college  students  sometimes  do  waiting,  and  do  not  feel 
humbled  thereby. 


818  SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS  part  vi 


in  the  United  States,  and  as  one  finds  it  in  France  and  Switz¬ 
erland,  the  countries  of  the  Old  World  where  (if  we  except 
Norway,  which  has  never  had  an  aristocracy)  social  equality 
has  made  the  greatest  progress.  In  France  and  Switzerland 
there  lingers  a  kind  of  feeling  as  if  the  old  noblesse  were  not 
quite  like  other  men.  The  Swiss  peasant,  with  all  his  manly 
independence,  has  in  many  cantons  a  touch  of  instinctive  rev¬ 
erence  for  the  old  families ;  or  perhaps,  in  some  other  cantons, 
a  touch  of  jealousy  which  makes  him  desire  to  exclude  their 
members  from  office,  because  he  feels  that  they  still  think 
themselves  better  than  he  is.  Nothing  like  this  is  possible 
in  America,  where  the  very  notion  of  such  distinctions  excites 
a  wondering  curiosity  as  to  what  sort  of  creature  the  titled 
noble  of  Europe  can  be. 

The  total  absence  of  rank  and  the  universal  acceptance  of 
equality  do  not  however  prevent  the  existence  of  grades  and 
distinctions  in  society  which,  though  they  may  find  no  tang  ble 
expression,  are  sometimes  as  sharply  drawn  as  in  Europe. 
Except  in  the  newer  parts  of  the  West,  those  who  deem  them¬ 
selves  ladies  and  gentlemen  draw  just  the  same  line  between 
themselves  and  the  multitude  as  is  drawn  in  England,  and  draw 
it  in  much  the  same  way.  The  nature  of  a  man’s  occupation, 
his  education,  his  manners  and  breeding,  his  income,  his  con¬ 
nections,  all  come  into  view  in  determining  whether  he  is  in 
this  narrow  sense  of  the  word  “ a  gentleman,”  almost  as  they 
would  in  England,1  though  in  most  parts  of  the  United  States 
personal  qualities  count  for  rather  more  than  in  England,  and 
occupation  for  hardly  anything.  The  word  is  equally  indefin¬ 
able  in  both  countries,  but  in  America  the  expression  “not  quite 
a  lady”  seems  to  be  less  frequently  employed.  One  is  told, 
however,  that  the  son  of  cultivated  parents  would  prefer  not  to 
enter  a  retail  store :  and  even  in  a  Western  city  like  Detroit 
the  best  people  will  say  of  a  party  that  it  was  “very  mixed.” 
In  some  of  the  older  cities  society  was,  till  the  sudden  growth 
of  huge  fortunes  towards  the  end  of  last  century,  as  exclusive 
as  in  the  more  old-fashioned  English  counties,  the  “best  set” 

1  On  the  New  York  elevated  railroad  smoking  is  not  permitted  in  any  car. 
When  I  asked  a  conductor  how  he  was  able  to  enforce  this  rule,  considering 
that  on  every  other  railway  smoking  was  practised,  he  answered,  “I  always 
say  when  any  one  seems  disposed  to  insist,  ‘  Sir,  I  am  sure  that  if  you  are  a  gentle¬ 
man  you  will  not  wish  to  bring  me  into  a  difficulty,’  and  then  they  always  leave 
off.” 


CHAP.  CXIII 


EQUALITY 


819 


considering  itself  very  select  indeed.  In  such  a  city  I  remem¬ 
ber  to  have  heard  a  family  belonging  to  the  best  set,  which  is 
mostly  to  be  found  in  a  particular  quarter  of  the  city,  speak 
of  the  inhabitants  of  a  handsome  suburb  two  miles  away  just 
as  Belgravians  might  speak  of  Islington ;  and  the  son  of  the 
family  who,  having  made  in  Europe  the  acquaintance  of  some 
of  the  dwellers  in  this  suburb,  had  gone  to  a  ball  there,  was 
questioned  by  his  sisters  about  their  manners  and  customs  much 
as  if  he  had  returned  from  visiting  a  tribe  in  Central  Africa. 
On  inquiry  I  discovered  that  these  North  Side  people  were  as 
rich  and  doubtless  thought  themselves  as  cultivated  as  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  my  friend’s  quarter.  But  all  the  city  knew  that  the  latter 
were  the  “best  set.”  People  used  to  say  that  fhis  exclusive¬ 
ness  spreads  steadily  from  East  to  West,  and  that  before  long 
there  would  be  such  sets  in  all  the  greater  cities.  So  indeed 
there  are  sets,  but  great  wealth  now  so  generally  secures  en¬ 
trance  to  them  that  they  can  scarcely  be  called  exclusive. 

Europeans  have  been  known  to  ask  whether  the  United 
States  do  not  suffer  from  the  absence  of  a  hereditary  nobility. 
As  may  be  supposed,  such  a  question  excites  mirth  in  America ; 
it  is  as  if  you  were  to  offer  them  a  Court  and  an  Established 
Church.  They  remark,  with  truth,  that  since  Pitt  in  England 
and  the  Napoleons  in  France  prostituted  hereditary  titles, 
these  have  ceased  to  be  either  respectable  or  useful.  “They 
do  not,”  say  the  Americans,  “suggest  antiquity,  for  the  English 
families  that  enjoy  them  are  mostly  new ;  they  are  not  associated, 
like  the  ancient  titles,  with  the  history  of  your  nation ;  they  are 
merely  a  prize  offered  to  wealth,  the  expression  of  a  desire  for 
gilding  that  plutocracy  which  has  replaced  the  ancient  aris¬ 
tocracy  of  your  country.  Seeing  how  little  service  hereditary 
nobility  renders  in  maintaining  the  standard  either  of  manners, 
or  morals,  or  honour,  or  public  duty,  few  sensible  men  would 
create  it  in  any  European  country  where  it  did  not  exist ;  much 
less  then  should  we  dream  of  creating  it  in  America,  which 
possesses  none  of  the  materials  or  conditions  which  could  make 
it  tolerable.  If  a  peerage  is  purchaseable  even  in  England, 
where  the  dignity  of  the  older  nobility  might  have  suggested 
some  care  in  bestowal,  purchaseable  not  so  openly  as  in  Portu¬ 
gal  or  a  German  principality,  but  practically  purchaseable  by 
party  services  and  by  large  subscriptions  to  public  purposes, 
much  more  would  it  be  purchaseable  here,  where  there  are  no 


820 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  YI 


traditions  to  break  down,  where  wealth  accumulates  rapidly, 
and  the  wealthy  seek  every  avenue  for  display.  Titles  in  this 
country  would  be  simply  an  additional  prize  offered  to  wealth 
and  ambition.  They  could  not  be  respected.  They  would 
make  us  as  snobbish  as  you  are.”  A  European  observer  will 
not  quarrel  with  this  judgment.  There  is  a  growing  disposi¬ 
tion  in  America,  as  everywhere  else,  to  relish  and  make  the 
most  of  such  professional  or  official  titles  as  can  be  had ;  it  is 
a  harmless  way  of  trying  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  the  world. 
If  there  be,  as  no  doubt  there  is,  less  disposition  than  in  Eng¬ 
land  to  run  after  and  pay  court  to  the  great  or  the  fashionable, 
this  is  perhaps  due  not  to  any  superior  virtue,  but  to  the 
absence  of  those  opportunities  and  temptations  which  their 
hereditary  titles  and  other  social  institutions  set  before  the 
English.  It  would  be  the  very  wantonness  of  folly  to  create 
in  the  new  country  what  most  thinking  people  would  gladly 
be  rid  of  in  the  old  one. 

Another  question  is  more  serious  and  less  easily  answered. 
What  is  the  effect  of  social  equality  upon  manners?  Many 
causes  go  to  the  making  of  manners,  as  one  may  see  by  noting 
how  much  better  they  are  in  some  parts  of  Europe  than  in 
other  parts  where,  nevertheless,  the  structure  of  society  is 
equally  aristocratic,  or  democratic,  as  the  case  may  be.  One 
must  therefore  be  careful  not  to  ascribe  to  this  source  only 
such  peculiarities  as  America  shows.1  On  the  whole,  bearing 
in  mind  that  the  English  race  has  less  than  some  other  races 
of  that  quickness  of  perception  and  sympathy  which  goes 
far  to  make  manners  good,  the  Americans  have  gained  more 
than  they  have  lost  by  equality.  The  upper  class  does  not 
lose  in  grace,  and  the  humbler  class  gains  in  independence. 
The  manners  of  the  “best  people”  are  exactly  those  of 
England,  with  a  thought  more  of  consideration  towards 
inferiors  and  of  frankness  towards  equals.  Among  the  masses 
there  is,  generally  speaking,  as  much  real  courtesy  and  good 
nature  as  anywhere  else  in  the  world.2  There  is  less  out- 

1  It  was  an  old  reproach  in  Europe  against  republics  that  their  citizens  were 
rude:  witness  the  phrases,  “manures  d’un  Suisse,”  “civilise  en  Hollande” 
(Roscher,  Politik,  p.  314). 

2  There  are  parts  of  the  West  which  still  lack  polish;  and  the  behaviour  of 
the  whites  to  the  Chinese  often  incenses  a  stranger  from  the  Atlantic  States 
of  Europe.  I  remember  in  Oregon  to  have  seen  a  huge  navvy  turn  an  inoffen¬ 
sive  Chinaman  out  of  his  seat  in  a  railway  car,  and  when  I  went  to  the  conductor 


CHAP.  CXIII 


EQUALITY 


821 


ward  politeness  than  in  some  parts  of  Europe,  Portugal  for 
instance,  or  Tuscany,  or  Sweden.  There  is  a  certain  coolness 
or  off-handness  which  at  first  annoys  the  European  visitor, 
who  still  thinks  himself  “a  superior”;  but  when  he  perceives 
that  it  is  not  meant  for  insolence,  and  that  native  Americans 
do  not  notice  it,  he  learns  to  acquiesce.  Perhaps  the  worst 
manners  are  those  of  persons  dressed  in  some  rag  of  authority. 
The  railroad  car-conductor  has  a  bad  name ;  but  personally  I 
have  always  been  well  treated  by  him,  and  remember  with 
pleasure  one  on  a  Southern  railroad  (an  ex-Confederate  sol¬ 
dier)  who  did  the  honours  of  his  car  with  a  dignified  courtesy 
worthy  of  those  Hungarian  nobles  who  are  said  to  have  the 
best  manners  in  Europe.  The  hotel  clerk  used  to  be  supercili¬ 
ous,  but  when  one  frankly  admitted  his  superiority,  his  patron¬ 
age  became  friendly,  and  he  would  even  condescend  to  interest 
himself  in  making  your  stay  in  the  city  agreeable.  One  finds 
most  courtesy  among  the  rural  population  of  New  England  and 
the  Middle  States,  least  among  the  recent  immigrants  in  the  cities 
and  the  unsettled  population  of  the  West.  However,  the  most 
material  point  to  remark  is  the  improvement  of  recent  years. 
The  concurrent  testimony  of  European  travellers,  including 
both  admirers  and  detractors  of  democracy,  proves  that  man¬ 
ners  must  have  been  disagreeable  in  the  days  when  Dickens 
and  Lyell  travelled  through  the  country,  and  one  finds  now¬ 
adays  an  equally  general  admission  that  the  Americans  are 
as  pleasant  to  one  another  and  to  strangers  as  are  the  French 
or  the  Germans  or  the  English.  The  least  agreeable  feature 
to  the  visitors  of  former  years,  an  incessant  vaunting  of  their 
own  country  and  disparagement  of  others,  has  disappeared, 
and  the  tinge  of  self-assertion  which  the  sense  of  equality  used 
to  give  is  now  but  faintly  noticeable. 

and  tried  to  induce  him  to  interfere,  he  calmly  remarked,  “Yes,  I  know  those 
things  do  make  the  English  mad.”  On  the  other  hand,  on  the  Pacific  slope, 
coloured  people  often  sit  down  to  table  with  whites. 


CHAPTER  CXIV 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  DEMOCRACY  ON  THOUGHT 

Two  opposite  theories  regarding  the  influence  of  democratic 
institutions  on  intellectual  activity  have  found  currency.  One 
theory  extols  them  because  they  stimulate  the  mind  of  a  peo¬ 
ple,  not  only  sharpening  men’s  wits  by  continual  struggle  and 
unrest,  but  giving  to  each  citizen  a  sense  of  his  own  powers  and 
duties  in  the  world,  which  spurs  him  on  to  exertions  in  ever- 
widening  fields.  This  theory  is  commonly  applied  to  Athens 
and  other  democracies  of  the  ancient  world,  as  contrasted 
with  Sparta  and  the  oligarchic  cities,  whose  intellectual  pro¬ 
duction  was  scanty  or  altogether  wanting.  It  compares  the 
Rome  of  Cicero,  Lucretius,  and  Catullus,  and  the  Augustan 
age,  whose  great  figures  were  born  under  the  Republic,  with 
the  vaster  but  comparatively  sterile  Roman  world  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  or  Constantine,  when  freedom  had  long  since  vanished. 
It  notes  the  outburst  of  literary  and  artistic  splendour  that 
fell  in  the  later  age  of  the  republics  of  mediaeval  Italy,  and  dwells 
with  especial  pleasure  on  the  achievements  of  Florence,  the 
longest-lived  and  the  most  glorious  of  the  free  commonwealths 
of  Italy. 

According  to  the  other  theory,  Democracy  is  the  child  of 
ignorance,  the  parent  of  dulness  and  conceit.  The  opinion  of 
the  greatest  number  being  the  universal  standard,  everything 
is  reduced  to  the  level  of  vulgar  minds.  Originality  is  stunted, 
variety  disappears,  no  man  thinks  for  himself,  or,  if  he  does, 
fears  to  express  what  he  thinks.  A  drear  pall  of  monotony 
covers  the  sky. 

“Thy  hand,  great  Anarch,  lets  the  curtain  fall, 

And  universal  darkness  buries  all.” 

This  doctrine  seems  to  date  from  the  appearance  of  Tocque- 
ville’s  book,  though  his  professed  disciples  have  pushed  it 
much  further  than  his  words  warrant.  It  is  really  an  a  priori 

822 


chap,  cxi v  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


823 


doctrine,  drawn  from  imagining  what  the  consequences  of  a 
complete  equality  of  material  conditions  and  political  powers 
ought  to  be.  But  it  claims  to  rest  upon  the  observed  phenom¬ 
ena  of  the  United  States,  which,  in  the  middle  of  last  century, 
were  still  the  only  great  modern  democracy ;  and  it  was  with 
reference  to  the  United  States  that  it  was  enunciated  by  Mr. 
Robert  Lowe  in  one  of  those  speeches  of  1866  which  so  greatly 
impressed  his  contemporaries. 

Both  these  theories  will  be  found  on  examination  to  be  base¬ 
less.  Both,  so  far  as  they  are  a  priori  theories,  are  fanciful ; 
both,  in  so  far  as  they  purport  to  rest  upon  the  facts  of  history, 
err  by  regarding  one  set  of  facts  only,  and  ignoring  a  great 
number  of  concomitant  conditions  which  have  probably  more 
to  do  with  the  result  than  the  few  conditions  which  have  been 
arbitrarily  taken  to  be  sufficient  causes.  None  of  the  Greek 
republics  was  a  democracy  in  the  modern  sense,  for  all  rested 
upon  slavery ;  nor,  indeed,  can  the  name  be  applied,  except  at 
passing  moments,  to  any  of  the  Italian  cities.  Many  circum¬ 
stances  besides  their  popular  government  combined  to  place 
the  imperishable  crown  of  literary  and  artistic  glory  upon  the 
brows  of  the  city  of  the  Violet  and  the  city  of  the  Lily.  So 
also  the  view  that  a  democratic  land  is  necessarily  a  land  of 
barren  monotony,  while  unsound  even  as  a  deduction  from 
general  principles,  is  still  more  unsound  in  its  assumption  of 
certain  phenomena  as  true  of  America,  and  in  the  face  it  puts 
on  the  phenomena  it  has  assumed.  The  theorists  who  have 
propounded  it  give  us,  like  Daniel,  the  dream  as  well  as  their 
interpretation  of  it.  But  the  dream  is  one  of  their  own  in¬ 
venting;  and  such  as  it  is,  it  is  wrongly  interpreted. 

It  is  a  common  mistake  to  exaggerate  the  influence  of  forms 
of  government.  As  there  are  historians  and  politicians  who, 
when  they,  come  across  a  trait  of  national  character  for  which 
no  obvious  explanation  presents  itself,  set  it  down  to  “race,” 
so  there  are  writers  and  speakers  who,  too  indolent  to  examine 
the  whole  facts  of  the  case,  or  too  ill-trained  to  feel  the  need 
of  such  examination,  pounce  upon  the  political  institutions  of  a 
country  as  the  easiest  way  to  account  for  its  social  and  intel¬ 
lectual,  perhaps  even  for  its  moral  and  religious,  peculiarities. 
Few  problems  are  in  reality  more  complex  than  the  relation 
between  the  political  and  the  intellectual  life  of  a  country ; 
few  things  more  difficult  to  distinguish  than  the  influences 


824 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  Vf 


respectively  attributable  to  an  equality  of  political  rights  and 
powers  on  the  one  hand,  and  an  equality  of  material  and  social 
conditions  on  the  other.  It  is  commonly  assumed  that  Democ¬ 
racy  and  Equality  go  hand  in  hand,  but  as  one  may  have  popular 
government  along  with  enormous  differences  of  wealth  and 
dissimilarities  in  social  usage,  so  also  one  may  have  social 
equality  under  a  despot.  Doubtless,  when  social  and  political 
equality  go  hand  in  hand  they  intensify  one  another;  but 
when  inequality  of  material  conditions  becomes  marked,  social 
life  changes,  and  as  social  phenomena  become  more  complex 
their  analysis  becomes  more  difficult. 

Reverting  to  the  two  theories  from  which  we  set  out,  it  may 
be  said  that  the  United  States  furnish  little  support  to  either. 
American  democracy  has  certainly  produced  no  age  of  Peri¬ 
cles.  Neither  has  it  dwarfed  literature  and  led  a  wretched 
people,  so  dull  as  not  even  to  realize  their  dulness,  into  a  barren 
plain  of  featureless  mediocrity.  To  ascribe  the  deficiencies, 
such  as  they  are,  of  art  and  culture  in  America,  solely  or  even 
mainly  to  her  form  of  government,  is  not  less  absurd  than  to 
ascribe,  as  many  Americans  of  what  I  may  call  the  trumpet¬ 
ing  school  do,  her  marvellous  material  progress  to  the  same 
cause.  It  is  not  Democracy  that  has  paid  off  a  gigantic  debt 
and  raised  Chicago  out  of  a  swamp.  Neither  is  it  Democ¬ 
racy  that  has  hitherto  denied  the  United  States  philosophers 
like  Burke  and  poets  like  Wordsworth. 

Most  writers  who  have  dealt  with  these  matters  have  not 
only  laid  more  upon  the  shoulders  of  democratic  government 
than  it  ought  to  bear,  but  have  preferred  abstract  speculations 
to  the  humbler  task  of  ascertaining  and  weighing  the  facts. 
They  have  spun  ingenious  theories  about  democracy  as  the 
source  of  this  or  that,  or  whatever  it  pleased  them  to  assume ; 
they  have  not  tried  to  determine  by  a  wide  induction  what 
specific  results  appear  in  countries  which,  differing  in  other 
respects,  agree  in  being  democratically  governed.  Such  spec¬ 
ulations  may  have  their  use  in  suggesting  to  us  what  phe¬ 
nomena  we  ought  to  look  for  in  democratic  countries ;  but  if 
any  positive  results  are  to  be  reached,  they  must  be  reached 
by  carefully  verifying  the  intellectual  phenomena  of  more 
than  one  country,  and  establishing  an  unmistakable  relation 
between  them  and  the  political  institutions  under  which  they 
prevail. 


chap,  cxiv  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


825 


If  some  one,  starting  from  the  current  conception  of  democ¬ 
racy,  were  to  say  that  in  a  democratic  nation  we  should  find  a 
disposition  to  bold  and  unbridled  speculations,  sparing  neither 
theology  nor  morals,  a  total  absence  of  rule,  tradition,  and  prec¬ 
edent,  each  man  thinking  and  writing  as  responsible  to  no 
criticism,  “every  poet  his  own  Aristotle,”  a  taste  for  strong 
effects  and  garish  colours,  valuing  force  rather  than  fineness, 
grandeur  rather  than  beauty,  a  vigorous,  hasty,  impetuous 
style  of  speaking  and  writing,  a  grandiose  and  perhaps  sen¬ 
sational  art :  he  would  say  what  would  be  quite  as  natural  and 
reasonable  a  priori  as  most  of  the  pictures  given  us  of  democratic 
societies.  Yet  many  of  the  suggested  features  would  be  the 
opposite  of  those  which  America  presents. 

Every  such  picture  must  be  fanciful.  He  who  starts  from  so 
simple  and  (so  to  speak)  bare  a  conception  as  that  of  equal 
civil  rights  .and  equal  political  powers  vested  in  every  member 
of  the  community  cannot  but  have  recourse  to  his  fancy  in 
trying  to  body  forth  the  results  of  this  principle.  Let  any  one 
study  the  portrait  of  the  democratic  man  and  democratic 
city  which  the  first  and  greatest  of  all  the  hostile  critics  of 
democracy  has  left  us,1  and  compare  it  with  the  very  different 
descriptions  of  life  and  culture  under  a  popular  government 
in  which  European  speculation  has  disported  itself  since  Tocque- 
ville’s  time.  He  will  find  each  theory  plausible  in  the  abstract, 
and  each  equally  unlike  the  facts  which  contemporary  America 
sets  before  us. 

Let  us,  bidding  farewell  to  fancy,  try  to  discover  the  salient 
intellectual  features  of  the  mass  of  the  native  population  in  the 
United  States. 

As  there  is  much  difference  of  opinion  regarding  them,  I 
present  with  diffidence  the  following  list :  — 

1.  A  desire  to  be  abreast  of  the  best  thought  and  work  of 
the  world  everywhere,  to  have  every  form  of  literature  and  art 
adequately  represented,  and  excellent  of  its  kind,  so  that  America 
shall  be  felt  to  hold  her  own  among  the  nations. 

2.  A  fondness  for  bold  and  striking  effects,  a  preference  for  large 
generalizations  and  theories  which  have  an  air  of  completeness. 

1  Plato  indeed  indulges  his  fancy  so  far  as  to  describe  the  very  mules  and 
asses  of  ^  democracy  as  prancing  along  the  roads,  scarcely  deigning  to  bear 
their  burdens.  The  passion  for  unrestrained  licence,  for  novelty,  for  variety, 
is  to  him  the  note  of  democracy,  whereas  monotony  and  even  obstinate  conserva¬ 
tism  are  the  faults  which  the  latest  European  critics  bid  us  expect. 


826 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  YI 


3.  An  absence  among  the  multitude  of  refined  taste,  with  a 
disposition  to  be  attracted  rather  by  brilliance  than  by  delicacy 
of  workmanship ;  a  want  of  mellowness  and  inadequate  percep¬ 
tion  of  the  difference  between  first-rate  work  in  a  quiet  style 
and  mere  flatness. 

4.  Little  respect  for  canons  or  traditions,  accompanied  by 
the  notion  that  new  conditions  must  of  necessity  produce  new 
ideas. 

5.  An  undervaluing  of  special  knowledge  or  experience,  ex¬ 
cept  in  applied  science  and  in  commerce,  an  idea  that  an  able 
man  can  do  one  thing  pretty  much  as  well  as  another,  as  Dr. 
Johnson  thought  that  if  he  had  taken  to  politics  he  would  have 
been  as  distinguished  therein  as  he  was  in  tragic  poetry. 

6.  An  admiration  for  literary  or  scientific  eminence,  an  en¬ 

thusiasm  for  anything  that  can  be  called  genius,  with  undue 
eagerness  to  discover  it.  4 

7.  A  passion  for  novelties. 

8.  An  intellectual  impatience,  and  desire  for  quick  and  patent 
results. 

9.  An  over-valuing  of  the  judgments  of  the  multitude ;  a 
disposition  to  judge  by  newspaper  success  work  which  has 
not  been  produced  with  a  view  to  such  success. 

10.  A  tendency  to  mistake  bigness  for  greatness. 

Contrariwise,  if  we  regard  not  the  people  generally  but  the 

most  cultivated  class,  we  shall  find,  together  with  a  few  of  the 
above-mentioned  qualities,  others  which  indicate  a  reaction 
against  the  popular  tendencies.  This  class  relishes  subtlety 
of  thought  and  highly  finished  art,  whether  in  literature  or 
painting.  Afraid  of  crudity  and  vagueness,  it  is  prone  to  de¬ 
vote  itself  to  minute  and  careful  study  of  subjects  unattractive 
to  the  masses. 

Of  these  characteristics  of  the  people  at  large  some  may  at 
first  sight  seem  inconsistent  with  others,  as  for  instance  the 
admiration  for  intellectual  gifts  with  the  undervaluing  of  special 
knowledge ;  nevertheless  it  could  be  shown  that  both  are  dis¬ 
coverable  in  Americans  as  compared  with  Englishmen.  The 
former  admire  intelligence  more  than  the  latter  do ;  but  they 
defer  less  to  special  competence.  However,  assuming  for  the 
moment  that  there  is  something  true  in  these  suggestions,  which 
it  would  take  too  long  to  attempt  to  establish  one  by  one,  be  it 
observed  that  very  few  of  them  can  be  directly  connected  with 


chap,  cxiv  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


827 


democratic  government.  Even  these  few  might  take  a  different 
form  in  a  differently  situated  democracy.  The  seventh  and 
eighth  seem  due  to  the  general  intelligence  and  education  of  the 
people,  while  the  remainder,  though  not  wholly  uninfluenced  by 
the  habits  which  popular  government  tends  to  breed,  must  be 
mainly  ascribed  to  the  vast  size  of  the  country,  the  immense  num¬ 
bers  and  intellectual  homogeneity  of  its  native  white  population, 
the  prevalence  of  social  equality,  a  busy  industrialism,  a  restless 
changefulness  of  occupation,  and  the  absence  of  a  leisured  class 
dominant  in  matters  of  taste  —  conditions  that  have  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  political  institutions.  The  prevalence  of 
evangelical  Protestantism  has  been  quite  as  important  a  factor 
in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  nation  as  its  form  of  government. 

Some  one  may  say  —  I  wish  to  state  the  view  fairly  though 
I  do  not  entirely  agree  with  it  —  that  assuming  the  foregoing 
analysis  to  be  correct,  the  influence  of  democracy,  apart  from 
its  tendency  to  secure  an  ample  provision  of  education,  is  dis¬ 
cernible  in  two  points.  It  produces  self-confidence  and  self- 
complacency,  national  and  personal,  with  the  result  both  of 
stimulating  a  certain  amount  of  thought  and  of  preventing  the 
thought  that  is  so  produced  from  being  subjected  to  proper  tests. 
Ambition  and  self-esteem  will  call  out  what  might  have  lain 
dormant,  but  they  will  hinder  a  nation  as  well  as  a  man  from  duly 
judging  its  own  work,  and  in  so  far  will  retard  its  progress. 
Those  who  are  naturally  led  to  trust  and  obey  common  sense  and 
the  numerical  majority  in  matters  of  state,  overvalue  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  the  majority  in  other  matters.  Now  the  judgment  of  the 
masses  is  a  poor  standard  for  the  thinker  or  the  artist  to  set  before 
him.  It  may  narrow  his  view  and  debase  his  style.  He  fears 
to  tread  in  new  paths  or  express  unpopular  opinions ;  or  if  he 
despises  the  multitude  he  may  take  refuge  in  an  acrid  cynicism. 
Where  the  mass  rules,  a  writer  cannot  but  think  of  the  mass, 
and  if  refinements  are  not  appreciated  he  will  eschew  them, 
making  himself  at  all  hazards  intelligible  to  the  common  mind, 
and  seeking  to  attract  by  broad,  perhaps  coarsely  broad,  effects, 
the  hasty  reader,  who  passes  by  Walter  Scott  or  Thackeray  to 
fasten  on  the  latest  sketch  of  fashionable  life  or  mysterious 
crime. 

There  is  some  force  in  this  way  of  putting  the  case.  Though 
democracy  tends  to  produce  a  superficially  active  public,  and 
perhaps  also  a  jubilant  and  self-confident  public,  yet  there 


828 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


may  be  a  democratic  people  neither  fond  of  letters  nor  disposed 
to  trust  its  own  taste  in  judging  them.  Much  will  depend  on 
the  other  features  of  the  situation.  In  the  United  States  the 
cultivated  public  increases  rapidly,  and  the  very  reaction  which 
goes  on  within  it  against  the  defects  of  the  multitude  becomes 
an  important  factor.  All  things  considered,  I  doubt  whether 
democracy  tends  to  discourage  originality,  subtlety,  refinement, 
in  thought  and  in  expression,  whether  literary  or  artistic. 
Monotony  or  vulgarity  under  any  and  every  form  of  govern¬ 
ment  have  appeared  and  may  appear.  The  causes  of  these 
things  lie  deeper.  Art  and  literature  have  been  base  and 
vulgar  under  absolute  monarchies  and  under  oligarchies.  For 
two  centuries  the  society  of  Vienna  was  one  of  the  most  pol¬ 
ished  and  aristocratic  societies  in  Europe.  Yet  what  society 
could  have  been  intellectually  duller  or  less  productive  ?  Venice 
was  almost  the  only  Italian  city  of  the  first  rank  that  contrib¬ 
uted  nothing  to  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the 
Renaissance.  Moreover,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
habits  of  popular  government  which  open  a  career  to  talent  in 
public  life,  open  it  in  literature  also.  No  man  need  lean  on 
a  faction  or  propitiate  a  coterie.  A  pure  clear  voice  with  an 
unwonted  message  may  at'  first  fail  to  make  itself  heard  over 
the  din  of  competitors  for  popular  favour ;  but  once  heard,  it 
and  its  message  will  probably  be  judged  on  their  own  merits. 

Passing  away  from  this  question  as  to  the  supposed  narcotic 
power  of  democracy,  the  further  question  may  be  asked,  What 
is  the  distinctive  note  of  democratic  thought  and  art  as  they 
actually  appear  in  the  United  States?  What  is  the  peculiar 
quality  or  flavour  which  springs  from  this  political  element 
in  their  condition  ?  I  cannot  tell.  I  find  no  such  note.  I  have 
searched  for  it,  and,  as  the  Americans  say,  it  is  hard  work  looking 
for  what  is  not  there.  Some  Europeans  and  many  Americans 
profess  to  have  found  it,  and  will  tell  you  that  this  or  that 
peculiarity  of  American  literature  is  due  to  democracy.  No 
doubt,  if  you  take  individual  writers,  you  may  discover  in  several 
of  them  something,  though  not  always  the  same  thing,  which 
savours  of  democratic  feeling  and  tinges  their  way  of  regarding 
human  life.  But  that  is  not  enough.  What  must  be  shown  is 
a  general  quality  running  through  the  majority  of  these  writers 
—  a  quality  which  is  at  once  recognized  as  racy  of  the  soil,  and 
which  can  be  traced  back  to  the  democratic  element  which  the 


chap,  cxiv  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


829 


soil  undoubtedly  contains.  Has  any  such  quality  been  shown  ? 
That  there  is  a  distinctive  note  in  many  —  not,  perhaps,  in 
all  —  of  the  best  American  books  may  be  admitted.  It  may 
be  caught  by  ears  not  the  most  delicate.  But  is  this  note  the 
voice  of  democracy?  Is  it  even  the  voice  of  democracy  and 
equality  combined  ?  There  is  a  difference,  slight  yet  perceptible, 
in  the  part  which  both  sentiment  and  humour  play  in  American 
books,  when  we  compare  them  with  English  books  of  equivalent 
strength.  The  humour  has  a  vein  of  oddity,  and  the  contrast 
between  the  soft  copiousness  of  the  sentiment  and  the  rigid  lines 
of  lingering  Puritanism  which  it  suffuses,  is  rarely  met  with 
in  England.  Perhaps  there  is  less  repose  in  the  American  style ; 
there  is  certainly  a  curious  unrestfulness  in  the  effort,  less  com¬ 
mon  in  English  writers,  to  bend  metaphors  to  unwonted  uses. 
But  are  these  differences,  with  others  I  might  mention  —  and, 
after  all,  they  are  slight  —  due  to  any  cause  connected  with 
politics  ?  Are  they  not  rather  due  to  a  mixed  and  curiously 
intertwined  variety  of  other  causes  which  have  moulded  the 
American  mind  during  the  last  two  centuries  ?  American 
imagination  has  produced  nothing  more  conspicuously  original 
than  the  romances  of  Hawthorne.  If  any  one  says  that  he  finds 
something  in  them  which  he  remembers  in  no  previous  English 
writer,  we  know  what  is  meant  and  probably  agree.  But  can 
it  be  said  that  there  is  anything  distinctively  American  in 
Hawthorne,  that  is  to  say,  that  his  specific  quality  is  of  a  kind 
which  reappears  in  other  American  writers  ?  The  most  pecul¬ 
iar,  and  therefore  I  suppose  the  most  characteristically  Ameri¬ 
can  school  of  thought,  has  been  what  used  to  be  called  the 
Concord  or  Transcendental  school  of  1830  to  1860;  among 
the  writings  produced  by  which  those  of  Emerson  and  Thoreau 
are  best  known  in  Europe.  Were  the  authors  of  that  school 
distinctively  democratic  either  in  the  colour  of  their  thought 
or  in  its  direction,  or  in  the  style  which  expresses  it  ?  And  if 
so,  can  the  same  democratic  tinge  be  discerned  in  the  authors 
of  to-day  ?  I  doubt  it ;  but  such  matters  do  not  admit  of  proof 
or  disproof.  One  must  leave  them  to  the  literary  feeling  of 
the  reader. 

A  very  distinguished  American  man  of  letters  once  said  to 
me  that  he  hated  nothing  so  much  as  to  hear  people  talk  about 
American  literature.  He  meant,  I  think,  that  those  who  did 
so  were  puzzling  themselves  unnecessarity  to  find  something 


830 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


which  belonged  to  a  new  country  and  a  democratic  country, 
and  were  forgetting  or  ignoring  the  natural  relation  of  works 
of  imagination  and  thought  produced  in  America  to  books 
written  in  the  same  language  by  men  of  the  same  race  in  the 
Old  World  before  and  since  1776. 

So  far,  then,  as  regards  American  literature  generally,  there 
may  be  discovered  in  it  something  that  is  distinctive  yet  little 
(if  anything)  specifically  democratic.  Nor,  if  we  look  at  the 
various  departments  of  speculative  thought,  such  as  metaphysics 
and  theology,  or  at  those  which  approach  nearer  to  the  exact 
sciences,  such  as  economics  and  jurisprudence,  shall  we  find  that 
the  character  and  substance  of  the  doctrines  propounded  bear 
marked  traces  of  a  democratic  influence.  Why  should  we  be 
surprised  at  this,  seeing  that  the  influence  of  a  form  of  govern¬ 
ment  is  only  one  among  many  influences,  even  where  a  nation 
stands  alone,  and  creates  a  literature  distinctively  local  ?  But 
can  books  written  in  the  United  States  be  deemed  to  constitute 
a  literature  locally  American  in  the  same  sense  as  the  literatures 
of  France  and  Germany,  of  Italy  and  Russia,  belong  to  those 
countries?  For  the  purposes  of  thought  and  art  the  United 
States  is  a  part  of  England,  and  England  is  a  part  of  America. 
Many  English  books  are  more  widely  read  and  strike  deeper  to 
the  heart  in  America  than  in  England.  Some  American  books 
have  a  like  fortune  in  England.  Differences  there  are,  but  dif¬ 
ferences  how  trivial  compared  with  the  resemblances  in  temper, 
in  feeling,  in  susceptibility  to  certain  forms  of  moral  and  phys¬ 
ical  beauty,  in  the  general  view  of  life  and  nature,  in  the  disposi¬ 
tion  to  revere  and  be  swayed  by  the  same  matchless  models  of 
that  elder  literature  which  both  branches  of  the  English  race  can 
equally  claim.  American  literature  does  not  to-day  differ  more 
from  English  literature  than  the  Scottish  writers  of  the  later  eigh¬ 
teenth  century  —  Burns,  Scott,  Adam  Smith,  Reid,  Hume, 
Robertson  —  differed  from  their  English  contemporaries.  There 
was  a  fondness  for  abstractions  and  generalizations  in  the 
Scottish  prose  writers ;  there  was  in  the  Scottish  poets  a  bloom 
and  fragrance  of  mountain  heather  which  gave  to  their  work 
a  charm  of  freshness  and  singularity,  like  that  which  a  faint 
touch  of  local  accent  gives  to  the  tongue  of  an  orator.  But  they 
were  English  as  well  as  Scottish  writers  :  they  belong  to  English 
literature  and  make  part  of  its  glory  to  the  world  beyond.  So 
Franklin,  Fenimore  Cooper,  Hawthorne,  Emerson,  Longfellow, 


chap,  cxiv  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  DEMOCRACY 


831 


Lowell,  and  those  on  whom  their  mantle  has  fallen,  belong  to 
England  as  well  as  to  America ;  and  English  writers,  as  they 
more  and  more  realize  the  vastness  of  the  American  public  they 
address,  will  more  and  more  feel  themselves  to  be  American  as 
well  as  English,  and  will  often  find  in  America  not  only  a  larger 
but  a  more  responsive  audience. 

We  have  been  here  concerned  not  to  discuss  the  merits  and 
estimate  the  place  of  American  thinkers  and  writers,  but  only 
to  examine  the  relation  in  which  they  stand  to  their  political 
and  social  environment.  That  relation,  however,  sets  before 
us  one  more  question.  The  English-speaking  population  of  the 
United  States  is  more  than  double  that  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
The  white  part  of  it  is  a  more  educated  population,  in  which  a 
greater  number  of  persons  come  under  the  influence  of  books  and 
might  therefore  be  stirred  up  to  intellectual  production.  Why 
then  does  it  not  make  more  important  contributions  to  the  com¬ 
mon  literary  wealth  of  the  race  ?  Is  there  a  want  of  creative 
power  ?  and  if  so,  to  what  is  the  want  due  ? 

This  is  a  question  frequently  propounded.  I  propose  to  con¬ 
sider  it  in  the  chapter  which  follows. 


CHAPTER  CXV 


CREATIVE  INTELLECTUAL  POWER 

There  is  a  street  in  Florence  on  each  side  of  which  stand 
statues  of  the  famous  Florentines  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  —  Dante,  Giotto,  Petrarch,  Boccaccio,  Ghiberti, 
Machiavelli,  Michael  Angelo,  and  others  scarcely  less  illustri¬ 
ous,  all  natives  of  the  little  city  which  in  their  days  had  never 
a  population  of  more  than  seventy  thousand  souls.1  No  one  can 
walk  between  these  rows  of  world-famous  figures,  matched  by 
no  other  city  of  the  modern  world,  without  asking  himself  what 
cause  determined  so  much  of  the  highest  genius  to  this  one  spot ; 
why  in  Italy  herself  populous  Milan  and  Naples  and  Venice  have 
no  such  list  to  show ;  why  the  succession  of  greatness  stopped 
with  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  has  never  been 
resumed?  Questions  substantially  the  same  constantly  rise 
to  the  mind  in  reading  the  history  of  other  countries.  Why 
did  England  produce  no  first-rate  poet  in  the  two  stirring  cen¬ 
turies  between  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare,  and  again  in  the  cen¬ 
tury  and  a  half  between  Milton’s  birth  and  Wordsworth’s? 
Why  have  epochs  of  comparative  sterility  more  than  once  fallen 
upon  Germany  and  France?  and  why  has  music  sometimes 
reached  its  highest  pitch  of  excellence  at  moments  when  the 
other  arts  were  languishing  ?  Why  does  the  sceptre  of  intel¬ 
lectual  and  artistic  leadership  pass  now  to  one  great  nation,  now 
to  another,  inconstant  and  unpredictable  as  are  the  shifting 
winds  ? 

These  questions  touch  the  deepest  and  most  complex  prob¬ 
lems  of  history ;  and  neither  historian  nor  physiologist  has 
yet  been  able  to  throw  any  real  light  upon  them.  Even  the 
commonplace  remark  that  times  of  effort  and  struggle  tend  to 
develop  an  unusually  active  intellectual  movement,  and  there¬ 
with  to  awaken  or  nourish  rare  geniuses,  is  not  altogether  true ; 

1  Petrarch  saw  the  light  in  Arezzo,  but  his  family  was  Florentine,  and  it  was 
by  a  mere  accident  that  he  was  born  away  from  his  own  city. 

832 


chap,  cxv  CREATIVE  INTELLECTUAL  POWER 


833 


for  some  of  the  geniuses  have  arisen  at  moments  when  there 
was  no  excitement  to  call  them  forth,  and  at  other  times  seasons 
of  storm  and  stress  have  raised  up  no  one  capable  of  directing 
the  efforts  or  interpreting  the  feelings  of  his  generation.  One 
thing,  however,  is  palpable :  numbers  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  matter.  There  is  no  average  of  one  man  of  genius  to  so  many 
thousands  or  millions  of  persons.  Out  of  the  sixty  thousand 
of  Florence  there  arise  during  two  centuries  more  men  of  undying 
fame  than  out  of  huge  London  during  the  last  three  centuries. 
Even  the  stock  of  solid  second-class  ability  does  not  necessarily 
increase  with  increasing  numbers ;  while  as  to  those  rare  combi¬ 
nations  of  gifts  which  produce  poetry  or  philosophy  of  the  first 
order,  they  are  revealed  no  more  frequently  in  a  great  European 
nation  now  than  they  were  in  a  Semitic  tribe  or  a  tiny  Greek  city 
twenty-five  or  thirty  centuries  ago. 

There  is  therefore  no  reason  why  the  absence  of  brilliant 
genius  among  the  ninety  millions  in  the  United  States  should 
excite  any  surprise ;  we  might  as  well  wonder  that  there  is  no 
Goethe  or  Schiller  or  Kant  or  Hegel  in  the  Germany  of  to-day ; 
so  much  more  populous  and  better  educated  than  the  Germany 
of  their  birth-time.  It  is  not  to  be  made  a  reproach  against 
America  that  men  like  Tennyson  or  Darwin  have  not  been  born 
there.  “The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth;”  the  rarest  gifts 
appear  no  one  can  tell  why  or  how.  In  broad  France  a  century 
ago  no  man  was  found  able  to  spring  upon  the  neck  of  the  Revo¬ 
lution  and  turn  it  to  his  will.  Fate  brought  her  favourite  from 
a  wild  Italian  island,  that  had  but  just  passed  under  the  yoke  of 
the  nation  to  which  it  gave  a  master. 

The  question  we  have  to  ask  as  regards  the  United  States  is 
therefore  not  why  it  has  given  us  few  men  of  the  highest  and 
rarest  literary  distinction,  but  whether  it  has  failed  to  produce 
its  fair  share  of  talents  of  the  second  rank,  that  is,  of  men  capa¬ 
ble  of  taking  a  lead  in  all  the  great  branches  of  literary  or 
artistic  or  scientific  activity,  men  who  instruct  and  delight  their 
own  generation,  though  possibly  future  generations  may  not 
hold  all  of  them  in  remembrance. 

Have  fewer  men  of  this  order  adorned  the  roll  of  fame  in  the 
United  States,  during  the  years  since  1776,  than  in  England,  or 
France,  or  Germany  during  the  same  period?  Obviously  this 
is  the  fact  as  regards  art  in  all  its  branches ;  and  also,  though 
less  distinctly  so,  as  regards  physical  and  mathematical  science. 


834 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


In  literature  there  is  less  disparity,  yet  most  candid  Americans 
will  agree  with  Englishmen  that  it  is  greater  than  those  who 
know  the  education  and  intelligence  of  the  younger  people 
would  have  expected.  I  pass  by  oratory  and  statesmanship, 
because  comparison  is  in  these  fields  very  difficult.  The  fact 
therefore  being  admitted,  we  have  to  endeavour  to  account 
for  it. 

If  the  matter  were  one  of  numerical  averages,  it  would  be 
pertinent  to  remark  that  of  the  total  population  of  the  United 
States  about  one-tenth  are  negroes,  at  present  altogether  below 
the  stratum  from  which  production  can  be  expected  ;  that  of  the 
whites  there  may  be  four  or  five  millions  to  whom  English  is 
virtually  a  foreign  language,  and  that  many  millions  are  recent 
immigrants  from  Europe  who  are  below  the  educational  stra¬ 
tum  in  which  literary  gifts  can  be  expected  to  germinate.  This 
diminishes  the  contrast  between  numbers  and  intellectual  re¬ 
sults.  But  numbers  have  so  little  to  do  with  the  question  that 
the  point  scarcely  deserves  a  passing  reference. 

Those  who  have  discussed  the  conditions  of  intellectual  pro¬ 
ductivity  have  often  remarked  that  epochs  of  stir  and  excite¬ 
ment  are  favourable,  because  they  stimulate  men’s  minds, 
setting  new  ideas  afloat,  and  awakening  new  ambitions.  It  is 
also  true  that  vigorous  unremitting  labour  is,  speaking  generally, 
needed  for  the  production  of  good  work,  and  that  one  is  there¬ 
fore  less  entitled  to  expect  it  in  an  indolent  time  and  from 
members  of  the  luxurious  classes.  But  it  is  not  less  true,  though 
less  frequently  observed,  that  tranquillity  and  repose  are  neces¬ 
sary  to  men  of  the  kind  we  are  considering,  and  often  helpful 
even  to  the  highest  geniuses,  for  the  evolving  of  new  thoughts 
and  the  creation  of  forms  of  finished  and  harmonious  beauty. 
He  who  is  to  do  such  work  must  have  time  to  meditate,  and  pause, 
and  meditate  again.  He  must  be  able  to  set  his  creation  aside, 
and  return  to  it  after  days  or  weeks  to  look  at  it  with  fresh  eyes. 
He  must  be  neither  distracted  from  his  main  purpose,  nor  hur¬ 
ried  in  effecting  it.  He  must  be  able  to  concentrate  the  whole 
force  of  his  reason  or  imagination  on  one  subject,  to  abstract 
himself  when  needful  from  the  flitting  sights  and  many-voiced 
clamour  of  the  outer  world.  Juvenal  said  this  long  ago  about 
the  poet ;  it  also  applies,  though  possibly  in  a  lower  degree,  both 
to  the  artist  and  to  the  serious  thinker,  or  delicate  workman,  in 
any  field  of  literature,  to  the  metaphysician,  the  theologian, 


chap,  cxv  CREATIVE  INTELLECTUAL  POWER 


835 


the  philosophic  historian,  the  economist,  the  philologist,  even  the 
novelist  and  the  statesman.  I  have  heard  men  who  had  gone 
from  a  quiet  life  into  politics  complain  that  they  found  their 
thinking  powers  wither,  and  that  while  they  became  far  more, 
expert  in  getting  up  subjects  and  speaking  forcibly  and  plausibly, 
they  found  it  harder  and  harder  to  form  sound  general  views 
and  penetrate  beneath  the  superficialities  of  the  newspaper  and 
the  platform.  Interrupted  thought,  trains  of  reflection  or  imagi¬ 
native  conceptions  constantly  broken  by  a  variety  of  petty 
transient  calls  of  business,  claims  of  society,  matters  passing  in 
the  world  to  note  and  think  of,  not  only  tire  the  mind  but  destroy 
its  chances  of  attaining  just  and  deep  views  of  life  and  nature, 
as  a  wind-ruffled  pool  ceases  to  reflect  the  rocks  and  woods  around 
it.  Mohammed  falling  into  trances  on  the  mountain  above 
Mecca,  Dante  in  the  sylvan  solitudes  of  Fonte  Avellana,  Cer¬ 
vantes  and  Bunyan  in  the  enforced  seclusion  of  a  prison,  Hegel 
so  wrapt  and  lost  in  his  speculations  that,  taking  his  manuscript 
to  the  publisher  in  Jena  on  the  day  of  the  great  battle,  he  was 
surprised  to  see  French  soldiers  in  the  streets;  these  are  types 
of  the  men  and  conditions  which  give  birth  to  thoughts  that 
occupy  succeeding  generations  :  and  what  is  true  of  these  greatest 
men  is  perhaps  even  more  true  of  men  of  the  next  rank.  Doubt¬ 
less  many  great  works  have  been  produced  among  inauspicious 
surroundings,  and  even  under  severe  pressure  of  time ;  but  it  will, 
I  think,  be  almost  invariably  found  that  the  producer  had  formed 
his  ideas  or  conceived  his  creations  in  hours  of  comparative  tran¬ 
quillity,  and  had  turned  on  them  the  full  stream  of  his  powers  to 
the  exclusion  of  whatever  could  break  or  divert  its  force. 

In  Europe  men  call  this  an  age  of  unrest.  But  the  United 
States  is  more  unrestful  than  Europe,  more  unrestful  than  any 
country  we  know  of  has  yet  been.  Nearly  every  one  is  busy; 
those  few  who  have  not  to  earn  their  living  and  do  not  feel  called 
to  serve  their  countrymen,  find  themselves  out  of  place,  and  have 
been  wont  either  to  make  amusement  into  a  business  or  to  trans¬ 
fer  themselves  to  the  ease  of  France  or  Italy.  The  earning  of 
one’s  living  is  not,  indeed,  incompatible  with  intellectually 
creative  work,  for  many  of  those  who  have  done  such  work  best 
have  done  it  in  addition  to  their  gainful  occupation,  or  have 
earned  their  living  by  it.  But  in  America  it  is  unusually  hard 
for  any  one  to  withdraw  his  mind  from  the  endless  variety  of 
external  impressions  and  interests  which  daily  life  presents,  and 


836 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


which  impinge  upon  the  mind,  I  will  not  say  to  vex  it,  but  to  keep 
it  constantly  vibrating  to  their  touch.  Life  is  that  of  the  squirrel 
in  his  revolving  cage,  never  still  even  when  it  does  not  seem  to 
change.  It  becomes  every  day  more  and  more  so  in  England, 
and  English  literature  and  art  show  increasing  marks  of  haste. 
In  the  United  States  the  ceaseless  stir  and  movement,  the  con¬ 
stant  presence  of  newspapers,  the  eagerness  which  looks  through 
every  pair  of  eyes,  even  that  active  intelligence  and  sense  of 
public  duty,  strongest  in  the  best  minds,  which  make  a  citizen 
feel  that  he  ought  to  know  what  is  passing  in  the  wider  world 
as  well  as  in  his  own,  all  these  render  life  more  exciting  to  the 
average  man  than  it  is  in  Europe,  but  chase  away  from  it  the 
opportunities  for  repose  and  meditation  which  art  and  philosophy 
need,  as  growing  plants  need  the  coolness  and  darkness  of  night 
no  less  than  the  blaze  of  day.  The  type  of  mind  which  American 
conditions  have  evolved  is  quick,  vigorous,  practical,  versatile ; 
but  it  is  unfavourable  to  the  natural  germination  and  slow  ripen¬ 
ing  of  large  and  luminous  ideas ;  it  wants  the  patience  that  will 
spend  weeks  or  months  on  bringing  details  to  an  exquisite 
perfection.  And  accordingly  we  see  that  the  most  rich  and 
finished  literary  work  America  has  given  us  has  proceeded  from 
the  older  regions  of  the  country,  where  the  pulsations  of  life 
are  slower  and  steadier  than  in  the  West  or  in  the  great  com¬ 
mercial  cities.  It  was  from  New  England  that  the  best  books 
of  the  last  generation  came ;  and  that  not  solely  because  the 
English  race  was  purest  there,  and  education  most  generally 
diffused,  for  the  New  Englanders  who  have  gone  West,  though 
they  have  carried  with  them  their  moral  standard  and  their 
bright  intelligence,  seem  either  to  have  left  behind  their  gift 
for  literary  creation,  or  to  care  to  employ  it  only  in  teaching  and 
in  journalism. 

It  may  be  objected  to  this  view  that  some  of  the  great  literary 
ages,  such  as  the  Periclean  age  at  Athens,  the  Meclicean  age  at 
Florence,  the  age  of  Elizabeth  in  England,  have  been  ages  full  of 
movement  and  excitement.  But  the  unrestfulness  which  pre¬ 
vails  in  America  is  altogether  different  from  the  large  variety 
of  life,  the  flow  of  stimulating  ideas  and  impressions  which 
marked  those  ages.  Life  is  not  as  interesting  in  America,  except 
as  regards  commercial  speculation,  as  it  is  in  Europe,  because 
society  and  the  environment  of  man  are  too  uniform.  It  is 
hurried  and  bustling ;  it  is  filled  with  a  multitude  of  duties  and 


chap,  cxv  CREATIVE  INTELLECTUAL  POWER 


837 


occupations  and  transient  impressions.  In  the  ages  I  have  re¬ 
ferred  to,  men  had  time  enough  for  all  there  was  to  do,  and  the 
very  scantiness  of  literature  and  rarity  of  news  made  that  which 
was  read  and  received  tell  more  powerfully  upon  the  imagination. 

Nor  is  it  only  the  distractions  of  American  life  that  clog 
the  wings  of  invention.  The  atmosphere  is  over  full  of  all  that 
pertains  to  material  progress.  Americans  themselves  say, 
when  excusing  the  comparative  poverty  of  learning  and  science, 
that  their  chief  occupation  is  at  present  the  subjugation  of  their 
continent,  that  it  is  an  occupation  large  enough  to  demand  most 
of  the  energy  and  ambition  of  the  nation,  but  that  presently, 
when  this  work  is  done,  the  same  energy  and  ambition  will  win 
similar  triumphs  in  the  fields  of  abstract  thought,  while  the  gifts 
which  now  make  them  the  first  nation  in  the  world  for  practical 
inventions,  will  then  assure  to  them  a  like  place  in  scientific 
discovery.  There  is  evidently  much  truth  in  this.  The  attrac¬ 
tions  of  practical  life  are  so  great  to  men  conscious  of  their  own 
vigour,  the  development  of  the  West  and  the  vast  operations  of 
commerce  and  finance  which  have  accompanied  that  develop¬ 
ment  have  absorbed  so  many  strenuous  talents,  that  the  supply 
of  ability  available  not  only  for  pure  science  (apart  from  its 
applications)  and  for  philosophical  and  historical  studies,  but 
even  for  statesmanship,  has  been  proportionately  reduced.  But, 
besides  this  withdrawal  of  an  unusually  large  part  of  the  nation’s 
force,  the  predominance  of  material  and  practical  interests  has 
turned  men’s  thoughts  and  conversation  into  a  channel  unfavour¬ 
able  to  the  growth  of  the  higher  and  more  solid  kinds  of  literature, 
perhaps  still  more  unfavourable  to  art.  Goethe  said,  “If a 
talent  is  to  be  speedily  and  happily  developed  the  chief  point  is 
that  a  great  deal  of  intellect  and  sound  culture  should  be  current 
in  a  nation.”  There  is  certainly  a  great  deal  of  intellect  current 
in  the  United  States.  But  it  is  chiefly  directed  to  business, 
that  is,  to  railways,  to  finance,  to  commerce,  to  inventions, 
to  manufactures  (as  well  as  to  practical  professions  like  law), 
things  which  play  a  relatively  larger  part  than  in  Europe,  as 
subjects  of  universal  attention  and  discussion.  There  is  abun¬ 
dance  of  sound  culture,  but  it  is  so  scattered  about  in  divers 
places  and  among  small  groups  which  seldom  meet  one  another, 
that  no  large  cultured  society  has  arisen  similar  to  that  of  Euro¬ 
pean  capitals  or  to  that  which  her  universities  have  created  for 
Germany.  In  Boston  in  1860  a  host  could  have  brought  together 


838 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


round  his  table  nine  men  as  interesting  and  cultivated  as  Paris 
or  London  would  have  furnished.  But  a  similar  party  of  eigh¬ 
teen  could  not  have  been  collected,  nor  even  the  nine  anywhere 
except  in  Boston.  At  present,  culture  is  more  diffused :  there 
are  many  cities  where  men  of  high  attainments  and  keen  intel¬ 
lectual  interests  are  found,  and  associate  themselves  in  literary 
or  scientific  clubs.  Societies  for  the  study  of  particular  authors 
are  frequent  among  women.  I  remember  to  have  been  told  of  a 
Homer  club  and  an  JEschylus  club,  formed  by  the  ladies  of  St. 
Louis,  and  of  Dante  clubs  in  some  Eastern  cities.  Nevertheless 
a  young  talent  gains  less  than  it  would  gain  in  Europe  from  the 
surroundings  into  which  it  is  born.  The  atmosphere  is  not 
charged  with  ideas  as  in  Germany,  nor  with  critical  finesse  as  in 
France.  Stimulative  it  is,  but  the  stimulus  drives  eager  youth 
away  from  the  groves  of  the  Muses  into  the  struggling  throng  of 
the  market-place. 

It  may  be  thought  fanciful  to  add  that  in  a  new  country  one 
whole  set  of  objects  which  appeal  to  the  imagination  are  absent, 
—  no  castles  gray  with  age ;  no  solemn  cathedrals  whose  altering 
styles  of  architecture  carry  the  mind  up  or  down  the  long 
stream  of  history  from  the  eleventh  to  the  seventeenth  century ; 
few  spots  or  edifices  consecrated  by  memories  of  famous  men  or 
deeds,  and  among  these  none  of  remote  date.  There  is  certainly 
no  want  of  interest  in  those  few  spots :  the  warmth  with  which 
Americans  cherish  them  puts  to  shame  the  indifference  of  the 
English  Parliament  to  the  historic  and  prehistoric  sites  and 
buildings  of  Britain.  But  not  one  American  youth  in  a  thousand 
comes  under  the  spell  of  any  such  associations.  In  the  city  or 
State  where  he  lives  there  is  nothing  to  call  him  away  from  the 
present.  All  he  sees  is  new,  and  has  no  glories  to  set  before  him 
save  those  of  accumulated  wealth  and  industry  skilfully  applied 
to  severely  practical  ends. 

Some  one  may  say  that  if  (as  was  observed  in  last  chapter) 
English  and  American  literature  are  practically  one,  there  is 
no  need  to  explain  the  fact  that  one  part  of  a  race  undivided 
for  literary  purposes  leaves  the  bulk  of  literary  production  to 
be  done  by  the  other  part,  seeing  that  it  can  enter  freely  into 
the  labours  of  the  latter  and  reckon  them  its  own.  To  argue 
thus  would  be  to  push  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  two 
branches  rather  too  far,  for  after  all  there  is  much  in  American 
conditions  and  life  which  needs  its  special  literary  and  artistic 


chap,  cxv  CREATIVE  INTELLECTUAL  POWER 


839 


interpretations;  and  the  question  would  still  confront  us,  why 
the  transatlantic  branch,  nowise  inferior  in  mental  force,  con¬ 
tributes  less  than  its  share  to  the  common  stock.  Still  it  is 
certainly  true  that  the  existence  of  a  great  body  of  producers, 
in  England  of  literature,  as  in  France  of  pictures,  diminishes 
the  need  for  production  in  America.  Or  to  put  the  same  thing 
in  another  way,  if  the  Americans  did  not  read  English  they 
would  evidently  feel  called  on  to  create  more  high  literature 
for  themselves.  Many  books  which  America  might  produce 
are  not  produced  because  the  men  qualified  to  write  them  know 
that  there  are  already  English  books  on  the  same  subject;  and 
the  higher  such  men’s  standard  is,  the  more  apt  are  they  to 
overrate  the  advantages  which  English  authors  enjoy  as  com¬ 
pared  with  themselves.  Many  feelings  and  ideas  which  now 
find  adequate  expression  through  the  English  books  which 
Americans  read  would  then  have  to  be  expressed  through 
American  books,  and  their  literature  would  be  not  only  more 
individual,  but  more  copious  and  energetic.  If  it  lost  in  breadth, 
it  would  gain  in  freshness  and  independence.  American  authors 
conceive  that  even  the  non-recognition  of  international  copy¬ 
right  told  for  evil  on  their  profession.  Since  the  native  writer 
was  undersold  by  reprints  of  English  and  French  books,  which, 
paying  nothing  to  the  European  author,  could  be  published 
at  the  cost  of  the  paper  and  printing  only,  native  authorship 
was  discouraged,  native  talent  diverted  into  other  fields,  while 
at  the  same  time  the  intellectual  standard  of  the  public  was 
lowered  and  its  taste  vulgarized.  It  might  have  been  thought 
that  the  profusion  of  cheap  reprints  would  quicken  thought  and 
diffuse  the  higher  kinds  of  knowledge  among  the  masses.  But 
by  far  the  largest  part  of  these  reprints,  and  the  part  most  ex¬ 
tensively  read,  were  novels,  and  among  them  many  flimsy  novels, 
which  drove  better  books,  including  some  of  the  best  American 
fiction,  out  of  the  market,  and  tended  to  Europeanize  the  Ameri¬ 
can  mind  in  the  worst  way.  One  may  smile  at  the  suggestion 
I  have  met  with  that  the  allegiance  of  the  working  classes  to 
their  democratic  institutions  will  be  seduced  by  descriptions 
of  English  duchesses ;  yet  it  is  probably  true  —  eminent  ob¬ 
servers  assure  one  of  it  —  that  the  profusion  of  new  frothy  or 
highly  spiced  fiction  offered  at  ten  or  twenty-five  cents  a  volume 
did  much  to  spoil  the  popular  palate  for  the  enjoyment  of  more 
wholesome  and  nutritious  food.  And  whatever  injures  the 


840 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


higher  literature  by  diminishing  the  demand,  may  further  in¬ 
jure  it  by  creating  an  atmosphere  unfavourable  to  the  growth 
of  pure  and  earnest  native  literary  talent. 

What  then  of  the  newspapers  ?  The  newspapers  would 
need  a  chapter  to  themselves,  and  their  influence  as  organs 
of  opinion  has  been  already  discussed.  The  vigour  and  bright¬ 
ness  of  many  among  them  are  surprising.  Nothing  escapes 
them :  everything  is  set  in  the  sharpest,  clearest  light.  Their 
want  of  reticence  and  delicacy  is  regretfully  admitted  by  all 
educated  Americans  —  the  editors,  I  think,  included.  The 
cause  of  this  deficiency  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that, 
whereas  the  first  European  journals  were  written  for  the  polite 
world  of  large  cities,  American  journals  were,  early  in  their 
career,  if  not  at  its  very  beginning,  written  for  the  bulk  of  the 
people,  and  published  in  communities  still  so  small  that  every¬ 
body’s  concerns  were  pretty  well  known  to  everybody  else. 
They  had  attained  no  high  level  of  literary  excellence  when 
towards  the  middle  of  last  century  an  enterprising  man  of 
unrefined  taste  created  a  new  type  of  “live”  newspaper,  which 
made  a  rapid  success  by  its  smartness,  copiousness,  and  variety, 
while  addressing  itself  entirely  to  the  multitude.  Other  papers 
were  almost  forced  to  shape  themselves  on  the  same  lines,  be¬ 
cause  the  class  which  desired  something  more  choice  was  still 
relatively  small ;  and  now  the  journals  of  the  chief  cities  have 
become  such  vast  commercial  concerns  that  they  still  think 
first  of  the  mass  and  are  controlled  by  its  tastes,  which  they 
have  themselves  done  so  much  to  create.  There  are  cities 
where  the  more  refined  readers  who  dislike  flippant  person¬ 
alities  are  counted  by  tens  of  thousands,  but  in  such  cities 
competition  is  now  too  severe  to  hold  out  much  prospect  of 
success  to  a  paper  which  does  not  expect  the  support  of  hun¬ 
dreds  of  thousands.  It  is  not,  however,  with  the  aesthetic  or 
moral  view  of  the  newspaper  that  we  are  here  concerned,  but 
with  the  effect  on  the  national  mind  of  the  enormous  ratio 
which  the  reading  of  newspapers  bears  to  all  other  reading,  a 
ratio  higher  than  even  in  France  or  England.  A  famous  Eng¬ 
lishman,  himself  a  powerful  and  fertile  thinker,  contrasted 
the  value  of  the  history  of  Thucydides  with  that  of  a  single 
number  of  the  Times  newspaper,  greatly  to  the  advantage  of 
the  latter.  Others  may  conceive  that  a  thoughtful  study  of 
Thucydides,  or,  not  to  go  beyond  our  own  tongue,  of  Bacon, 


chap,  cxv  CREATIVE  INTELLECTUAL  POWER 


841 


Milton,  Locke,  or  Burke,  perhaps  even  of  Gibbon,  Grote,  or 
Macaulay,  will  do  more  to  give  keenness  to  the  eye  and  strength 
to  the  wings  of  the  mind  than  a  whole  year’s  reading  of  the 
best  daily  newspaper.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  matter  is  of 
more  permanent  and  intrinsic  worth,  nor  that  the  manner 
and  style  form  the  student’s  taste ;  it  is  not  merely  that  in  the 
newspaper  we  are  in  contact  with  persons  like  ourselves,  in  the 
other  case  with  rare  and  splendid  intellects.  The  whole  atti¬ 
tude  of  the  reader  is  different.  His  attention  is  loose,  his 
mind  unbraced,  so  that  he  does  not  stop  to  scrutinize  an  argu¬ 
ment,  and  forgets  even  valuable  facts  as  quickly  as  he  has  learnt 
them.  If  he  read  Burke  as  he  reads  the  newspaper,  Burke 
would  do  him  little  good.  And  therefore  the  habit  of  mind 
produced  by  a  diet  largely  composed  of  newspapers  is  adverse 
to  solid  thinking  and  dulling  to  the  sense  of  beauty.  Scorched 
and  stony  is  the  soil  which  newspaper  reading  has  prepared  to 
receive  the  seeds  of  genius. 

Does  the  modern  world  really  gain,  so  far  as  creative  thought 
is  concerned,  by  the  profusion  of  cheap  literature?  It  is  a 
question  one  often  asks  in  watching  the  passengers  on  an 
American  railway.  A  boy  walks  up  and  down  the  car  scatter¬ 
ing  newspapers  and  books  in  paper  covers  right  and  left  as  he 
goes.  The  newspapers  are  glanced  at,  though  probably  most 
people  have  read  several  of  the  day’s  papers  already.  The 
books  are  nearly  all  novels.  They  are  not  bad  in  tone,  and 
sometimes  they  give  incidentally  a  superficial  knowledge  of 
things  outside  the  personal  experience  of  the  reader;  while 
from  their  newspapers  the  passengers  draw  a  stock  of  informa¬ 
tion  far  beyond  that  of  a  European  peasant,  or  even  of  an 
average  European  artisan.  Yet  one  feels  that  this  constant 
succession  of  transient  ideas,  none  of  them  impressively  though 
many  of  them  startlingly  stated,  all  of  them  flitting  swiftly 
past  the  mental  sight  as  the  trees  flit  past  the  eyes  when  one 
looks  out  of  the  car  window,  is  no  more  favourable  to  the 
development  of  serious  intellectual  interests  and  creative  intel¬ 
lectual  power  than  is  the  limited  knowledge  of  the  European 
artisan  or  peasant. 

.  Most  of  the  reasons  I  have  hazarded  to  account  for  a  phe¬ 
nomenon  surprising  to  one  who  recognizes  the  quantity  of 
intellect  current  in  America,  and  the  diffusion,  far  more  gen¬ 
eral  than  in  any  other  country,  of  intellectual  curiosity,  are 


842 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


reasons  valid  in  the  Europe  of  to-day  as  compared  with  the 
Europe  of  last  century,  and  still  more  true  of  the  modern  world 
as  compared  with  the  best  periods  of  the  ancient.  Printing 
is  by  no  means  pure  gain  to  the  creative  faculties,  whatever 
it  may  be  to  the  acquisitive ;  even  as  a  great  ancient  thinker 
seems  to  have  thought  that  the  invention  of  writing  in  Egypt 
had  weakened  the  reflective  powers  of  man.  The  question 
follows,  Are  these  causes,  supposing  them  to  be  true  causes, 
likely  to  be  more  or  less  operative  in  the  America  of  next  cen¬ 
tury  than  they  now  are?  Will  America  become  more  what 
Europe  is  now,  or  will  she  be  even  more  American  ? 

I  have  elsewhere  thrown  out  some  conjectures  on  this  point. 
Meantime  it  is  pertinent  to  ask  what  are  the  most  recent  devel¬ 
opments  of  American  thought  and  research,  for  this  will  help  us 
to  see  whether  the  tide  of  productive  endeavour  is  rising  or  falling. 

The  abundant  and  excellent  work  done  in  fiction  need  be 
mentioned  only  for  the  sake  of  calling  attention  to  the  interest 
it  has,  over  and  above  its  artistic  merit,  as  a  record  of  the 
local  manners  and  usages  and  types  of  character  in  various 
parts  of  the  Union  —  types  which  are  fast  disappearing.  The 
Creoles  of  Louisiana,  the  negroes  under  slavery,  with  African 
tales  still  surviving  in  their  memories,  the  rough  but  kindly 
backwoodsmen  of  early  Indiana,  the  bosses  of  rural  New  Eng¬ 
land,  the  mountain  folk  of  Tennessee,  the  humours  of  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi  steamboat  and  the  adventurous  life  of  the  Far  West, 
were  all  made  known  to  Europe  through  the  tales  of  writers  of 
the  last  or  present  generation,  as  the  Indians  of  long  ago  became 
known  through  the  romances  of  Fenimore  Cooper.  However, 
this  is  familiar  ground  to  European  readers,  so  I  pass  to  work 
of  a  less  generally  attractive  order. 

In  the  middle  of  last  century  the  standard  of  classical  scholar¬ 
ship  was  low,  and  even  the  school  commentaries  on  classical 
authors  fell  far  short  of  those  produced  in  Germany  or  Eng¬ 
land.  Nowadays  both  in  classical  and  in  Oriental  philology 
admirably  thorough  and  painstaking  work  is  produced.  I 
have  heard  high  European  authorities  observe  that  there  is 
an  almost  excessive  anxiety  among  American  scholars  to  mas¬ 
ter  all  that  has  been  written,  even  by  third-rate  Germans, 
and  that  the  desire  they  evince  to  overtake  Germany  in  respect 
of  knowledge  betrays  some  among  them  into  the  German  fault 
of  neglecting  merits  of  form  and  style.  In  the  sciences  of  nature, 


chap,  cxv  CREATIVE  INTELLECTUAL  POWER 


843 


especially  in  those  of  observation,  remarkable  advances  have  been 
made.  Dr.  Asa  Gray  was  one  of  the  two  or  three  greatest 
botanists  of  his  age,  and  Simon  Newcomb  one  of  the  greatest 
mathematical  astronomers.  Much  excellent  work  has  been 
done  in  geology  and  palaeontology,  particularly  in  exploring 
the  Rocky  Mountain  regions.  Both  for  the  excellence  of 
their  instruments  and  the  accuracy  of  their  work,  the  astro¬ 
nomical  observatories  stand  in  the  front  rank ;  nor  has  America 
fallen  behind  Europe  in  the  theoretical  part  of  this  science. 
In  some  branches  of  physics  and  chemistry,  such  as  spectrum 
analysis,  American  investigators  have  won  like  fame.  Com¬ 
petent  authorities  award  the  highest  praise  to  their  contri¬ 
butions  to  biology  and  to  medical  science  and  are  perhaps 
still  more  impressed  by  the  achievements  of  their  surgeons. 
In  economics  they  hold  their  place  with  England  and  France, 
both  as  regards  the  extent  to  which  the  subject  is  studied  in 
universities  and  as  regards  the  number  of  eminent  persons 
whom  it  occupies.  In  jurisprudence  and  law,  American  text¬ 
books  are  of  high  excellence ; 1  and  one  author,  Mr.  Justice 
Story,  deserves,  looking  to  the  quantity  as  well  as  to  the  qual¬ 
ity  of  his  work,  to  be  placed  at  the  head  of  all  who  handled 
these  topics  in  the  English  tongue  during  the  nineteenth  century. 
Political  science  has  begun  to  be  studied  more  energetically  than 
in  England,  where,  to  be  sure,  it  is  scarcely  studied  at  all ; 
and  every  year  sees  treatises  and  articles  of  permanent  value 
added  to  the  scanty  modern  literature  which  our  language 
possesses  on  this  subject.  Similarly  there  is  great  activity 
in  the  field  of  both  secular  and  ecclesiastical  history,  though 
as  the  work  done  has  largely  taken  the  direction  of  inquiries 
into  local  American  history,  and  has  altogether  been  more 
in  the  nature  of  research  than  of  treatises  attractive  to  the 
general  public,  its  quantity  and  its  merits  have  not  yet  been 
duly  appreciated  even  at  home,  much  less  in  Europe.  Indeed, 
it  is  remarkable  how  far  from  showy  and  sensational  is  the 
bulk  of  the  work  now  done  in  America.  It  is  mostly  work 
of  a  solid,  careful,  exact,  and  often  rather  dry  type,  not  at 
all  the  sort  of  work  which  theorists  about  democracy  would 


1  The  number  of  legal  journals  and  magazines  in  the  United  States  is  very 
much  larger  than  in  England,  and  the  average  of  workmanship  in  them  equally 
high.  Two  journals  are  dedicated  to  political  science,  a  subject  unrepresented 
in  the  British  press. 


844 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


have  looked  for,  since  it  appeals  rather  to  the  learned  few  than 
to  the  so-called  general  reader.  One  receives  the  impression 
that  the  class  of  intellectual  workers,  who  until  recently  wanted 
institutions  in  which  the  highest  and  fullest  training  could 
be  had,  have  now  become  sensible  that  their  country,  occupied 
in  developing  its  resources  and  educating  its  ordinary  citizens, 
had  fallen  behind  Europe  in  learning  and  science,  and  that 
they  are  therefore  the  more  eager  to  accumulate  knowledge 
and  spend  their  energy  in  minutely  laborious  special  studies.1 

I  may  be  reminded  that  neither  in  the  departments  above 
mentioned,  nor  in  statesmanship,  can  one  point  to  many 
brilliant  personalities.  Perhaps  this  is  true  of  Europe  also ; 
perhaps  the  world  is  passing  through  an  age  with  a  high  level 
of  mediocrity  in  literature,  art,  and  science  as  compared  with 
the  outstanding  figures  of  last  century.  There  have  been 
periods  in  history  when  striking  figures  were  lacking,  although 
great  events  seemed  to  call  for  them.  As  regards  America,  if 
there  be  few  persons  of  exceptional  gifts,  it  is  significant  that 
the  number  of  those  who  are  engaged  in  scientific  work,  whether 
in  the  investigation  of  nature  or  in  the  moral,  political,  and 
historical  sciences,  is  larger,  relatively  to  the  population  of 
the  country,  than  it  was  fifty  years  ago,  the  methods  better, 
the  work  done  more  solid,  the  spirit  more  earnest  and  eager. 
Nothing  more  strikes  a  stranger  who  visits  the  American  uni¬ 
versities  than  the  ardour  with  which  the  younger  generation 
has  thrown  itself  into  study,  even  kinds  of  study  which  will 
never  win  the  applause  of  the  multitude.  There  is  more  zeal 
and  heartiness  among  these  men,  more  freshness  of  mind,  more 
love  of  learning  for  its  own  sake,  more  willingness  to  forego 
the  chances  of  fame  and  wealth  for  the  sake  of  adding  to  the 
stock  of  human  knowledge,  than  is  to  be  found  to-day  in  Ox¬ 
ford  or  Cambridge,  or  in  the  universities  of  Scotland.  One 
is  reminded  of  the  scholars  of  the  Renaissance  flinging  them¬ 
selves  into  the  study  of  rediscovered  philology,  or  of  the  Ger¬ 
man  universities  after  the  War  of  Liberation.  And  under  the 
impressions  formed  in  mingling  with  such  men,  one  learns  to 
agree  with  the  conviction  of  the  Americans  that  for  a  nation 
so  abounding  in  fervid  force  there  is  reserved  a  fruitful  career 
in  science  and  letters,  no  less  than  in  whatever  makes  material 
prosperity. 

1  The  extreme  pains  taken  in  America  to  provide  every  library  with  a  classified 
catalogue  directing  readers  to  the  books  on  each  subject,  illustrates  this  tendency. 


CHAPTER  CXVI 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  TO  EUROPE 

One  cannot  discuss  American  literature  and  thought  with¬ 
out  asking,  What  is  the  intellectual  relation  of  the  United 
States  to  Europe  ?  Is  it  that  of  an  equal  member  of  the  great 
republic  of  letters  ?  Or  is  it  that  of  a  colony  towards  the 
mother  country,  or  of  a  province  towards  a  capital?  Is  it,  to 
take  instances  from  history,  such  a  relation  as  was  that  of 
Rome  to  Greece  in  the  second  and  first  centuries  before  Christ  ? 
or  of  Northern  and  Western  Europe  to  Italy  in  the  fifteenth? 
or  of  Germany  to  France  in  the  eighteenth  ?  in  all  of  which 
cases  there  was  a  measure  of  intellectual  dependence  on  the 
part  of  a  nation  which  felt  itself  in  other  respects  as  strong 
as  or  stronger  than  that  whose  models  it  followed,  and  from 
whose  hearth  it  lighted  its  own  flame. 

To  answer  this  question  we  must  first  answer  another  — • 
How  do  the  Americans  themselves  conceive  their  position 
towards  Europe  ?  and  this,  again,  suggests  a  third  —  What 
does  the  American  people  think  of  itself? 

The  conceit  of  the  people  was  at  one  time  a  byword.  It  was 
not  only  self-conscious  but  obtrusive  and  aggressive.  Every 
visitor  satirized  it,  Dickens  most  keenly  of  all,  in  forgiving 
whom  the  Americans  gave  the  strongest  proof  of  their  good 
nature.  Doubtless  all  nations  are  either  vain  or  proud,  or 
both ;  and  those  not  least  who  receive  scant  recognition  from 
their  neighbours.  A  nation  could  hardly  stand  without  this 
element  to  support  its  self-reliance ;  though  when  pushed 
to  an  extreme  it  may,  as  happens  with  the  Turks,  make  national 
decline  the  more  irretrievable.  But  American  conceit  has 
been  steadily  lessening  as  the  country  has  grown  older,  more 
aware  of  its  true  strength,  more  respected  by  other  countries.1 
There  was  less  conceit  after  the  Civil  War  than  before,  though 

1  Tocqueville  complains  that  the  Americans  would  not  permit  a  stranger  to 
pass  even  the  smallest  unfavourable  criticism  on  any  of  their  institutions, 
however  warmly  he  might  express  his  admiration  of  the  rest. 

845 


846 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


the  Civil  War  had  revealed  elements  of  greatness  unexpected 
by  foreigners;  there  is  less  now  than  there  was  at  the  close 
of  the  Civil  War.  An  impartially  unsparing  critic  from  some 
other  planet  might  say  of  the  Americans  that  they  are  at  this 
moment  less  priggishly  supercilious  than  the  Germans,  less 
restlessly  pretentious  than  the  French,  less  pharisaically  self- 
satisfied  than  the  English.  Among  the  upper  or  better-educated 
classes,  glorification  has  died  out,  except  of  course  in  Fourth 
of  July  and  other  public  addresses,  when  the  scream  of  the 
national  eagle  must  be  heard.  One  sometimes  finds  it  replaced 
by  undue  self-depreciation,  with  lamentations  over  the  want  of 
culture,  the  decline  of  faith,  or  the  corruption  of  politics. 
Among  the  masses  it  survives  in  an  exultation  over  the  size  and 
material  resources  of  the  country,  —  the  physically  large  is 
to  them  the  sublime,  —  in  an  overestimate  of  men  and  events 
in  American  history ;  in  a  delight,  strongest,  of  course,  among 
the  recent  immigrants,  in  the  completeness  of  social  equality, 
and  a  corresponding  contempt  for  the  “ serfs  of  Europe”  who 
submit  to  be  called  11  subjects”  of  their  sovereign,  in  a  belief 
in  the  superior  purity  of  their  domestic  life  and  literature,  and 
in  the  notion  that  they  are  the  only  people  who  enjoy  true 
political  liberty,  liberty  far  fuller  than  that  of  England,  far 
more  orderly  than  that  of  France.1  Taking  all  classes  together, 
they  are  now  not  more  sensitive  to  external  opinion  than  the 
nations  of  Western  Europe,  and  less  so  than  the  Russians, 
though  they  are  still  a  trifle  more  apt  to  go  through  Europe 
comparing  what  they  find  with  what  they  left  at  home.  A 
foreign  critic  who  tries  to  flout  or  scourge  them  no  longer  dis¬ 
turbs  their  composure;  his  jeers  are  received  with  amusement 
or  indifference. 


1  It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  this  whimsical  idea  is  not  confined  to 
the  masses.  I  find,  for  instance,  in  an  address  delivered  by  an  eminent  man 
to  a  distinguished  literary  fraternity  in  October,  1887,  the  following  passage  : 
“They  (i.e.  ‘the  immortal  periods  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence’)  have 
given  political  freedom  to  America  and  France,  unity  and  nationality  to  Germany 
and  Italy,  emancipated  the  Russian  serf,  relieved  Prussia  and  Hungary  from  feu¬ 
dal  tenures,  and  will  in  time  free  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  also  !” 

I  have  often  asked  Americans  wherein  they  consider  their  freedom  superior 
to  that  of  the  English,  but  have  never  found  them  able  to  indicate  a  single  point 
in  which  the  individual  man  is  worse  off  in  England  as  regards  either  his  private 
civil  rights,  or  his  political  rights,  or  his  general  liberty  of  doing  and  thinking  as 
he  pleases.  They  generally  turn  the  discussion  to  social  equality,  the  existence 
of  a  monarchy  and  of  hereditary  titles,  and  so  forth  —  matters  which  are  of 
course  quite  different  from  freedom  in  its  proper  sense. 


CHAP.  CXVI 


RELATION  OF  AMERICA  TO  EUROPE 


847 


Accordingly  the  attitude  of  thoughtful  Americans  to  Europe 
has  no  longer  either  the  old  open  antagonism  or  the  old  latent 
self-distrust.  It  is  that  of  a  people  which  conceives  itself  to  be 
intellectually  the  equal  of  any  other  people,  but  to  have  taken 
upon  itself  for  the  time  a  special  task  which  impedes  it  in  the 
race  of  literary  and  artistic  development.  Its  mission  is  to 
reclaim  the  waste  lands  of  a  continent,  to  furnish  homes  for 
instreaming  millions  of  strangers,  to  work  out  a  system  of 
harmonious  and  orderly  democratic  institutions.  That  it  may 
fulfil  these  tasks  it  has  for  the  moment  postponed  certain  other 
tasks  which  it  will  in  due  time  resume.1  Meanwhile  it  may, 
without  loss  of  dignity  or  of  faith  in  itself,  use  and  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  European  intellect  which  it  imports  until  it  sees  itself 
free  to  rival  them  by  native  growths.  If  I  may  resort  to  a 
homely  comparison,  the  Americans  are  like  a  man  whose  next  door 
neighbour  is  in  the  habit  of  giving  musical  parties  in  the  sum¬ 
mer  evenings.  When  one  of  these  parties  comes  off,  he  sits 
with  his  family  in  the  balcony  to  enjoy  the  quartettes  and 
solos  which  float  across  to  him  through  the  open  windows.  He 
feels  no  inferiority,  knowing  that  when  he  pleases  he  can  have 
performers  equally  good  to  delight  his  own  friends,  though  for 
this  year  he  prefers  to  spend  his  surplus  income  in  refurnish¬ 
ing  his  house  or  starting  his  son  in  business. 

There  is  of  course  a  difference  in  the  view  of  the  value  of 
European  work  as  compared  with  their  own,  taken  by  the 
more  educated  and  by  the  less  educated  classes.  Of  the  latter 
some  fail  to  appreciate  the  worth  of  culture  and  of  science,  even 
for  practical  purposes,  as  compared  with  industrial  success,  though 
in  this  respect  they  are  no  more  obtuse  than  the  bulk  of  English¬ 
men  ;  and  they  accordingly  underrate  their  obligations  to  Europe. 
Others,  knowing  that  they  ought  to  admire  works  of  imagination 
and  research,  but  possessed  of  more  patriotism  than  discernment, 
cry  up  second  or  third  rate  fiction,  poetry,  and  theology  because 
it  is  American,  and  try  to  believe  that  their  country  gives  to 
Europe  as  much  as  she  receives.  Taste  for  literature  is  so  much 
more  diffused  than  taste  in  literature  that  a  certain  kind  of 
fame  is  easily  won.  There  are  dozens  of  poets  and  scores  of 

1  A  Chicago  man  is  reported  to  have  expressed  this  belief  with  characteristic 
directness  in  the  sentence  “Chicago  has  had  no  time  for  culture  yet,  but  when 
she  does  take  hold  she  will  make  it  hum.”  The  time  came;  and  Chicago  has  now 
set  an  example  to  many  an  older  city  in  what  it  is  doing  for  the  adornment  of  its 
lake  front  and  the  establishment  of  art  collections. 


848 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


poetesses  much  admired  in  their  own  State,  some  even  beyond 
its  limits,  with  no  merit  but  that  of  writing  verse  which  can  be 
scanned,  and  will  raise  no  blush  on  the  most  sensitive  cheek. 
Yet  the  quality  of  the  poetry  publishing  improves,  and  its 
quantity  witnesses  to  the  growing  number  of  those  who  love 
letters  and  cultivate  the  imagination.  Criticism  is  lenient,  and 
for  a  time  it  could  scarcely  be  said  to  exist,  for  the  few  jour¬ 
nals  which  contained  good  reviews  were  little  read  except  in 
four  or  five  Northern  Atlantic  States,  and  several  inland  cities. 
A  really  active  and  searching  criticism,  which  should  appraise 
literary  work  on  sound  canons,  not  caring  whether  it  has  been 
produced  in  America,  or  in  Europe,  by  a  man  or  by  a  woman, 
in  the  East  or  in  the  West,  is  one  of  the  things  which  America 
needed,  and  the  rise  of  which  is  a  thing  to  be  welcomed. 
Among  highly  educated  men  this  extravagant  appreciation  of 
native  industry  used  to  produce  a  disgust  expressing  itself  some¬ 
times  in  sarcasm,  sometimes  in  despondency.  Some  still  deem 
their  home-grown  literature  trivial,  and  occupy  themselves  with 
European  books,  watching  the  presses  of  England,  France,  and 
Germany  more  carefully  than  almost  any  one  does  in  England. 
Yet  even  these,  I  think,  cherish  silently  the  faith  that  when  the 
West  has  been  settled  and  the  railways  built,  and  possibilities 
of  sudden  leaps  to  wealth  diminished,  when  culture  has  diffused 
itself  among  the  classes  whose  education  is  now  superficial,  and 
their  love  of  art  extended  itself  from  furniture  to  pictures  and 
statuary,  American  literature  will  in  due  course  flower  out  with 
a  brilliance  of  bloom  and  a  richness  of  fruit  rivalling  the  Old 
World. 

The  United  States  are,  therefore,  if  this  account  be  correct, 
in  a  relation  to  Europe  for  which  no  exact  historical  parallel 
can  be  found.  They  do  not  look  up  to  her,  nor  seek  to  model 
themselves  after  her.  They  are  too  proud  for  a  province,  too 
large  for  a  colony.  They  certainly  draw  from  Europe  more 
thought  than  they  send  to  her,  and  though  they  have  produced 
several  brilliant  artists,  no  distinctively  American  school  has 
arisen.  Yet  they  cannot  be  said  to  be  led  or  ruled  by  Europe, 
because  they  apply  their  own  standards  and  judgment  to  what¬ 
ever  they  receive. 

Their  special  relations  to  the  leading  European  countries  are 
worth  noting.  In  old  colonial  days  England  was  everything. 
The  revolt  of  1776  produced  an  estrangement  which  might  have 


chap,  cxvi  RELATION  OF  AMERICA  TO  EUROPE 


849 


been  healed  after  1783,  had  England  acted  with  more  courtesy 
and  tact,  but  which  was  embittered  by  her  scornful  attitude. 
Wounds  which  were  just  beginning  to  scar  over  were  reopened 
by  the  war  of  1812 ;  and  the  hostility  continued  as  long  as  the 
generation  lived  whose  manhood  saw  that  war.  The  generation 
which  remembered  1812  was  disappearing  when  the  sympathy 
for  the  Southern  Confederacy  not  indeed  of  the  English  people, 
but  of  a  section  of  the  English  upper  classes,  lit  up  the  almost 
extinguished  flames.  These  were  quenched,  so  far  as  the  native 
Americans  are  concerned,  by  the  settlement  of  the  Alabama 
claims,  which  impressed  the  United  States  not  merely  as  a  con¬ 
cession  to  themselves,  but  as  an  evidence  of  the  magnanimity  of 
a  proud  country.  There  remained  a  certain  amount  of  rivalry 
with  England,  and  for  a  time  a  certain  sensitiveness  to  the  criti¬ 
cisms  even  of  ignorant  Englishmen.  But  these  lingering  touches 
of  jealousy  have  all  but  vanished  with  the  growing  sympathy  felt 
for  “the  old  country,”  as  it  is  still  called.  It  is  the  only  Euro¬ 
pean  country  in  which  the  American  people  can  be  said  to  feel 
any  personal  interest,  or  towards  an  alliance  with  which  they 
are  drawn  by  any  sentiment.  For  a  time,  however,  the  sense  of 
gratitude  to  France  for  her  aid  in  the  War  of  Independence  was 
very  strong.  It  brought  French  literature  as  well  as  some  French 
usages  into  vogue,  and  increased  the  political  influence  which 
France  exercised  during  the  earlier  years  of  her  own  Revolution. 
Still  that  influence  did  not  go  far  beyond  the  sphere  of  politics : 
one  feels  it  but  slightly  in  the  literature  of  the  half  century  from 
1780  to  1830. 

During  the  reign  of  Louis  Napoleon,  wealthy  Americans  re¬ 
sorted  largely  to  Paris,  and  there,  living  often  for  years  together 
in  a  congenial  atmosphere  of  display  and  amusement,  imbibed 
undemocratic  tastes  and  ideas,  which  through  them  found  their 
way  back  across  the  ocean,  and  coloured  certain  sections  of  Ameri¬ 
can  society,  particularly  in  New  York,  Although  there  is  still 
an  American  colony  in  Paris,  Parisian  influence  seems  no  longer 
to  cross  the  Atlantic.  French  books,  novels  excepted,  and 
these  in  translations,  are  not  largely  read.  French  politics 
excite  little  interest :  France  is  practically  not  a  factor  at  all 
in  the  moral  or  intellectual  life  of  the  country.  Over  art,  how¬ 
ever,  especially  painting  and  decoration,  she  has  still  great  power. 
Many  American  artists  study  in  Paris,  indeed  all  resort  thither 
who  do  not  go  to  Rome  or  Florence ;  French  pictures  enjoy  such 


850 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


favour  with  American  dealers  and  private  buyers  as  to  make 
the  native  artists  complain,  not  without  reason,  that  equally 
good  home-made  work  receives  no  encouragement ; 1  and  house 
decoration,  in  which  America  seems  to  stand  before  England,  par¬ 
ticularly  in  the  skilful  use  of  wood,  is  much  affected  by  French 
designs  and  methods. 

The  enormous  German  immigration  from  about  1860  till  1900 
might  have  been  expected  to  do  something  in  the  way  of  Ger¬ 
manizing  the  American  mind,  giving  it  a  taste  for  metaphysics 
on  the  one  hand,  and  for  minutely  patient  research  on  the  other. 
It  had  neither  the  one  result  nor  the  other,  nor  indeed  any 
result  whatever  in  the  field  of  thought.  It  enormously  stimu¬ 
lated  the  brewing  industry  :  it  retarded  the  progress  of  Prohibi- 
tionism  :  it  introduced  more  outdoor  life  than  formerly  existed  : 
increased  the  taste  for  music,  broke  down  the  strictness  of 
Sabbath  observance,  and  has  indeed  in  some  cities  produced 
what  is  commonly  called  “a  Continental  Sunday.”  But 
the  vast  majority  of  German  immigrants  have  belonged  to 
the  humbler  classes,  and  were  but  faintly  influenced  by  their 
own  literature.  There  have  been  among  them  extremely 
few  savants,  or  men  likely  to  become  savants,  nor  have 
these  played  any  conspicuous  part  in  the  universities  or  in 
literature. 

Nevertheless  the  influence  of  Germany  has  been  of  late  years 
powerfully  stimulative  upon  the  classes  that  follow  after  learning, 
for  not  only  are  German  treatises  largely  read,  but  some  of  the 
most  promising  graduates  of  the  universities  proceed  to  Germany 
for  a  year  or  two  to  complete  their  studies,  and  there  become 
imbued  with  German  ideas  and  methods.  The  English  univer¬ 
sities  have,  by  their  omission  to  develop  advanced  instruction  in 
special  branches  of  knowledge,  lost  a  golden  opportunity  of 
coming  into  relation  with  and  helping  to  form  that  academic 
youth  of  America  in  whose  hands  the  future  of  American  science 
and  learning  lies.  This  German  influence  on  American  work  has, 
however,  not  tended  towards  the  propagation  of  metaphysical 
schools,  metaphysics  themselves  having  for  a  generation  been 
on  the  ebb  in  Germany.  It  appears  in  some  departments  of 

1  The  heavy  import  duty  on  foreign  works  of  art  did  not  benefit  the  native 
artist,  for  the  men  who  buy  pictures  can  usually  buy  notwithstanding  the  duty, 
while  it  prevented  the  artist  from  furnishing  himself  with  the  works  he  wished  to 
have  around  him  for  the  purposes  of  his  own  training.  The  Tariff  Act  of  1909 
dropped  the  duty  for  works  of  art  more  than  twenty  years  old. 


chap,  cxvi  RELATION  OF  AMERICA  TO  EUROPE 


851 


theology,  and  is  also  visible  in  historical  and  philological  studies, 
in  economics,  and  in  the  sciences  of  nature. 

On  the  more  popular  kinds  of  literature,  as  well  as  upon  man¬ 
ners,  social  usages,  current  sentiment  generally,  England  and  her 
influences  are  of  course  nearer  and  more  potent  than  those  of 
any  other  European  country,  seeing  that  English  books  go 
everywhere  among  all  classes,  and  that  they  work  upon  those 
who  are  substantially  English  already  in  their  fundamental 
ideas  and  habits.  Americans  of  the  cultivated  order,  and  es¬ 
pecially  women,  are  more  alive  to  the  movements  and  changes 
in  the  lighter  literature  of  England,  and  more  curious  about  those 
who  figure  in  it,  especially  the  rising  poets  and  essayists,  than 
equally  cultivated  English  men  and  women.  I  have  been  repeat¬ 
edly  surprised  to  find  books  and  men  that  had  made  no  noise  in 
London  well  known,  especially  in  the  Atlantic  States,  and  their 
merits  canvassed  with  more  zest  and  probably  more  acuteness 
than  a  London  drawing-room  would  have  shown.  The  verdicts 
of  the  best  circles  were  not  always  the  same  as  those  of  similar 
circles  in  England,  but  they  were  nowise  biassed  by  national 
feeling,  and  often  seemed  to  proceed  from  a  more  delicate  and 
sympathetic  insight.  I  recollect,  though  I  had  better  not  men¬ 
tion,  instances  in  which  they  welcomed  English  books  which 
England  had  failed  to  appreciate,  and  refused  to  approve  Ameri¬ 
can  books  over  which  English  reviewers  had  become  ecstatic. 

Passing  English  fashions  in  social  customs  and  in  such  things 
as  games  sometimes  spread  to  America,  —  possibly  more  often 
than  similar  American  fashions  do  to  England,  —  but  sometimes 
encounter  ridicule  there.  The  Anglomaniac  is  a  familiar  object 
of  good-humoured  satire.  As  for  those  large  movements  of 
opinion  or  taste  or  practical  philanthropy  in  which  a  parallel¬ 
ism  or  correspondence  between  the  two  countries  may  often  be 
discerned,  this  correspondence  is  more  frequently  due  to  the 
simultaneous  action  of  the  same  causes  than  to  any  direct  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  older  country.  In  theology,  for  instance,  the  same 
relaxation  of  the  rigid  tests  of  orthodoxy  has  been  making  way  in 
the  churches  of  both  nations.  In  the  Protestant  Episcopal  church 
there  has  been  a  similar,  though  far  less  pronounced,  tendency 
to  the  development  of  an  ornate  ritual.  The  movement  for 
dealing  with  city  pauperism  by  voluntary  organizations  began 
later  than  the  Charity  Organization  societies  of  England,  but 
would  probably  have  begun  without  their  example.  The  Univer- 


852 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


sity  Extension  movement,  and  the  establishment  of  “  university 
settlements’7  in  the  poorer  parts  of  great  cities  are  further 
instances.  The  semi-socialistic  tendency  which  I  have  referred 
to  as  now  noticeable  among  the  younger  clergy  and  the  younger 
teachers  in  some  of  the  universities,  although  similar  to  that 
which  may  be  discerned  in  England,  does  not  seem  traceable  to 
direct  English  influences.  So  too  the  rapidly  growing  taste  for 
beauty  in  house  decoration  and  in  street  architecture  is  a  birth 
of  the  time  rather  than  of  Old  World  teaching,  although  it  owes 
something  to  Mr.  Ruskin’s  books,  which  have  been  more  widely 
read  in  America  than  in  England.1 

In  political  matters  the  intellectual  sympathy  of  the  two 
countries  is  of  course  less  close  than  in  the  matters  just  de¬ 
scribed,  because  the  difference  between  institutions  and  condi¬ 
tions  involves  a  diversity  in  the  problems  which  call  for  a 
practical  solution.  Political  changes  in  England  affect  Ameri¬ 
can  opinion  less  than  such  changes  in  France  affect  English 
opinion,  although  the  Americans  know  more  and  care  more 
and  judge  more  soundly  about  English  affairs  than  the  French 
do  about  English  or  the  English  about  French.  The  marked 
diminution  of  bitterness  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Irish 
has  made  a  difference  in  American  politics,  but  no  political 
event  in  England  less  serious  than,  let  us  say,  the  establishment 
of  a  powerful  Socialist  party,  would  sensibly  tell  on  American 
opinion,  just  as  no  event  happening  beyond  the  Atlantic,  except 
the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  has  influenced  the 
course  of  English  political  thought.  However,  the  wise  men  of  the 
West  watch  English  experiments  for  light  and  guidance  in  their 
own  troubles.  A  distinguished  American  who  came  some  years 
ago  to  London  to  study  English  politics,  told  me  that  he  did  so 
in  the  hope  of  finding  conservative  institutions  and  forces  from 
which  lessons  serviceable  to  the  United  States  might  be  learned. 
After  a  fortnight,  however,  he  concluded  that  England  was  in  a 
state  of  suppressed  revolution,  and  departed  sorrowful. 

On  a  review  of  the  whole  matter  it  will  appear  that  although 
as  respects  most  kinds  of  intellectual  work  America  is  rather 

1  America  has  produced  of  late  years  several  distinguished  architects :  and  the 
art  is  cultivated  with  great  energy  and  success.  European  artists  and  critics 
who  saw  the  buildings  erected  for  the  Chicago  Exhibition  of  1893  were  greatly 
impressed  by  the  inventiveness  and  taste  they  displayed:  nor  can  a  traveller 
fail  to  be  struck  by  the  beauty  and  variety  of  design  shown  both  by  some  of  the 
newer  public  buildings  and  by  the  villas  which  surround  the  richer  cities. 


chap,  cxvi  RELATION  OF  AMERICA  TO  EUROPE 


853 


in  the  position  of  the  consumer,  Europe,  and  especially  England, 
in  that  of  the  producer,  although  America  is  more  influenced  by 
English  and  German  books  and  by  French  art  than  these  coun¬ 
tries  are  influenced  by  her,  still  she  does  not  look  for  initiative 
to  them,  or  hold  herself  in  any  way  their  disciple.  She  is  in 
many  points  independent;  and  in  all  fully  persuaded  of  her 
independence. 

Will  she  then  in  time  develop  a  new  literature,  bearing  the 
stamp  of  her  own  mint  ?  She  calls  herself  a  new  country  :  will 
she  give  the  world  a  new  philosophy,  new  views  of  religion,  a 
new  type  of  life  in  which  plain  living  and  high  thinking  may  be 
more  happily  blended  than  we  now  see  them  in  the  Old  World, 
a  life  in  which  the  franker  recognition  of  equality  will  give  a 
freshness  to  ideas  and  to  manners  a  charm  of  simplicity  which 
the  aristocratic  societies  of  Europe  have  failed  to  attain  ? 

As  regards  manners  and  life,  she  has  already  approached  nearer 
this  happy  combination  than  any  society  of  the  Old  World.  As 
regards  ideas,  I  have  found  among  the  most  cultivated  Americans 
a  certain  cosmopolitanism  of  view,  and  detachment  from  national 
or  local  prejudice,  superior  to  that  of  the  same  classes  in  France, 
England,  or  Germany.  In  the  ideas  themselves  there  is  little 
one  can  call  novel  or  distinctively  American,  though  there  is  a 
kind  of  thoroughness  in  embracing  or  working  out  certain  politi¬ 
cal  and  social  conceptions  which  is  less  common  in  England. 
As  regards  literature,  nothing  at  present  indicates  the  emergence 
of  a  new  type.  The  influence  of  the  great  nations  on  one  another 
grows  always  closer,  and  makes  new  national  types  less  likely  to 
appear.  Science,  which  has  no  nationality,  exerts  an  increasing 
sway  over  men’s  minds,  and  exerts  it  contemporaneously  and 
similarly  in  all  civilized  countries.  For  the  purposes  of  thought, 
at  least,  if  not  of  literary  expression,  the  world  draws  closer 
together,  and  becomes  more  of  a  homogeneous  community. 

A  visitor  doubts  whether,  the  United  States  are,  so  far  as  the 
things  of  the  mind  are  concerned,  “  a  new  country.  ”  The  people 
have  the  hopefulness  of  youth.  But  their  institutions  are  old, 
though  many  have  been  remodelled  or  new  faced  ;  their  religion  is 
old  ;  their  views  of  morality  and  conduct  are  old  ;  their  sentiments 
in  matters  of  art  and  taste  have  not  greatly  diverged  from  those 
of  the  parent  stock.  Is  the  mere  fact  that  they  inhabit  new 
territories,  and  that  the  conditions  of  life  there  have  trained  to 
higher  efficiency  certain  gifts,  and  have  left  others  in  comparative 


854 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


quiescence,  is  this  fact  sufficient  so  to  transform  the  national 
spirit  as  to  make  the  products  of  their  creative  power  essentially 
diverse  from  those  of  the  same  race  abiding  in  its  ancient  seats  ? 
A  transplanted  tree  may  bear  fruit  of  a  slightly  different  flavour, 
but  the  apple  remains  an  apple  and  the  pear  a  pear. 

However,  it  is  still  too  early  in  the  growth  of  the  United 
States  to  form  conclusions  on  these  high  matters,  almost  too 
soon  to  speculate  regarding  them.  There  are  causes  at  work 
which  may  in  time  produce  a  new  type  of  intellectual  life ;  but 
whether  or  not  this  come  to  pass,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that 
when  the  American  people  give  themselves  some  repose  from 
their  present  labours,  when  they  occupy  themselves  less  with 
doing  and  more  with  being,  there  will  arise  among  them  a  litera¬ 
ture  and  a  science,  possibly  also  an  art,  which  will  tell  upon 
Europe  with  a  new  force.  It  will  have  behind  it  the  momentum 
of  hundreds  of  millions  of  men. 


CHAPTER  CXVII 


THE  ABSENCE  OF  A  CAPITAL 

The  United  States  is  the  only  great  country  in  the  world 
which  has  no  capital.  Germany  and  Italy  were  long  without 
one,  because  the  existence  of  the  mediaeval  Empire  prevented 
the  growth  in  either  country  of  a  national  monarchy.  But  the 
wonderfully  reconstructive  age  we  live  in  has  now  supplied  the 
want ;  and  although  Rome  and  Berlin  are  by  no  means  to  their 
respective  states  what  Paris  and  London  are  to  France  and  Eng¬ 
land,  what  Vienna  and  Pesth  are  to  the  Dual  Monarchy,  they 
may  in  time  attain  a  similar  rank  1  in  their  respective  nations. 
By  a  Capital  I  mean  a  city  which  is  not  only  the  seat  of  political 
government,  but  is  also  by  the  size,  wealth,  and  character  of  its 
population  the  head  and  centre  of  the  country,  a  leading  seat  of 
commerce  and  industry,  a  reservoir  of  financial  resources,  the 
favoured  residence  of  the  great  and  powerful,  the  spot  in  which 
the  chiefs  of  the  learned  professions  are  to  be  found,  where  the 
most  potent  and  widely  read  journals  are  published,  whither 
men  of  literary  and  scientific  capacity  are  drawn.  The  heaping 
together  in  such  a  place  of  these  various  elements  of  power,  the 
conjunction  of  the  forces  of  rank,  wealth,  knowledge,  intellect, 
naturally  makes  such  a  city  a  sort  of  foundry  in  which  opinion 
is  melted  and  cast,  where  it  receives  that  definite  shape  in  which 
it  can  be  easily  and  swiftly  propagated  and  diffused  through  the 
whole  country,  deriving  not  only  an  authority  from  the  position 
of  those  who  form  it  but  a  momentum  from  the  weight  of  numbers 
in  the  community  whence  it  comes.  The  opinion  of  such  a  city 
becomes  powerful  politically  because  it  is  that  of  the  persons 

1  Athens,  Lisbon,  Copenhagen,  Stockholm,  Brussels,  Bucharest,  are  equally  good 
instances  among  the  smaller  countries.  In  Switzerland,  Bern  has  not  reached 
the  same  position,  because  Switzerland  is  a  federation,  and,  so  to  speak,  an  arti¬ 
ficial  country  made  by  history.  Zurich,  Lausanne,  and  Geneva  are  intellec¬ 
tually  quite  as  influential.  So  Holland  retains  traces  of  her  federal  condition  in 
the  relatively  less  important  position  of  Amsterdam.  Madrid  being  a  modern 
city  placed  in  a  country  less  perfectly  consolidated  than  most  of  the  other  states 
of  Europe,  is  less  of  a  capital  to  Spain  than  Lisbon  is  to  Portugal  or  Paris  to 
France. 


855 


85G 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


who  live  at  headquarters,  who  hold  the  strings  of  government 
in  their  hands,  who  either  themselves  rule  the  state  or  are  in 
close  contact  with  those  who  do.  It  is  true  that  under  a  repre¬ 
sentative  government  power  rests  with  those  whom  the  people 
have  sent  up  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  Still  these  members 
of  the  legislature  reside  in  the  capital,  and  cannot  but  feel  the 
steady  pressure  of  its  prevailing  sentiment  which  touches  them 
socially  at  every  point.  It  sometimes  happens  that  the  populace 
'  of  the  capital,  by  their  power  of  overawing  the  rulers  or  perhaps 
effecting  a  revolution,  are  able  to  turn  the  fortunes  of  the  state. 
But  even  where  no  such  peril  is  to  b*e  apprehended,  any  nation 
with  the  kind  of  a  capital  I  am  describing,  acquires  the  habit  of 
looking  to  it  for  light  and  leading,  and  is  apt  to  yield  to  it  an 
initiative  in  political  movements. 

In  the  field  of  art  and  literature  the  influence  of  a  great  capital 
is  no  less  marked.  It  gathers  to  a  centre  the  creative  power  of 
the  country,  and  subjects  it  to  the  criticism  of  the  best  instructed 
and  most  polished  society.  The  constant  action  and  reaction 
upon  one  another  of  groups  of  capable  men  in  an  atmosphere 
at  once  stimulative  to  invention  and  corrective  of  extravagance 
may  give  birth  to  works  which  isolated  genius  could  hardly  have 
produced.  Goethe  made  this  observation  as  regards  Paris, 
contrasting  the  centralized  society  of  France  with  the  dispersion 
of  the  elements  of  culture  over  the  wide  area  of  his  own  Germany. 

“Now  conceive  a  city  like  Paris,  where  the  highest  talents  of  a  great 
kingdom  are  all  assembled  in  a  single  spot,  and  by  daily  intercourse, 
strife,  and  emulation,  mutually  instruct  and  advance  each  other  ;  where 
the  best  works,  both  of  nature  and  art,  from  all  kingdoms  of  the  earth, 
are  open  to  daily  inspection,  —  conceive  this  metropolis  of  the  world,  I 
say,  where  every  walk  across  a  bridge  or  across  a  square  recalls  some 
mighty  past,  and  where  some  historical  event  is  connected  with  every 
corner  of  a  street.  In  addition  to  all  this,  conceive  not  the  Paris  of  a 
dull  spiritless  time,  but  the  Paris  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  which, 
during  three  generations,  such  men  as  Moliere,  Voltaire,  Diderot,  and 
the  like,  have  kept  up  such  a  current  of  intellect  as  cannot  be  found 
twice  in  a  single  spot  on  the  whole  world,  and  you  will  comprehend  that 
a  man  of  talent  like  Ampere,  who  has  grown  up  amid  such  abundance, 
can  easily  be  something  in  his  four-and-twentieth  year.”  1 

The  same  idea  of  the  power  which  a  highly  polished  and  stren¬ 
uously  active  society  has  to  educe  and  develop  brilliant  gifts 
underlies  the  memorable  description  which  Pericles  gives  of 


1  Conversations  with  Eckermann. 


CHAP.  CXVII 


THE  ABSENCE  OF  A  CAPITAL 


857 


Athens.1  And  if  it  be  suggested  that  the  growth  of  such  a 
centre  may  impoverish  the  rest  of  a  country  because  the  con¬ 
centration  of  intellectual  life  tends  to  diminish  the  chances  of 
variability,  and  establish  too  uniform  a  type,  some  compensa¬ 
tion  for  any  such  loss  may  be  found  in  the  higher  efficiency 
which  such  a  society  gives  to  the  men  of  capacity  whom  it 
draws  into  its  own  orbit. 

In  the  case  both  of  politics  and  of  literature,  the  existence 
of  a  Capital  tends  to  strengthen  the  influence  of  what  is  called 
Society,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  men  of  wealth  and  leisure  who  have 
time  to  think  of  other  matters  than  the  needs  of  daily  life,  and 
whose  company  and  approval  are  apt  to  be  sought  by  the  men 
of  talent.  Thus  where  the  rich  and  great  are  gathered  in  one 
spot  to  which  the  nation  looks,  they  effect  more  in  the  way  of 
guiding  its  political  thought  and  training  its  literary  taste  than 
is  possible  where  they  are  dispersed  over  the  face  of  a  large  coun¬ 
try.  In  both  points,  therefore,  it  will  evidently  make  a  difference 
to  a  democratic  country  whether  it  has  a  capital,  and  what 
degree  of  deference  that  capital  receives.  Paris  is  the  extreme 
case  of  a  city  which  has  been  everything  to  the  national  literature 
and  art,  and  has  sought  to  be  everything  in  national  politics  also. 
London,  since  the  decline  of  Dublin  and  of  Edinburgh,  has  stood 
without  a  British  rival  in  the  domain  of  art  and  letters,  and  al¬ 
though  one  can  hardly  say  that  a  literary  society  exists  in  London, 
most  of  the  people  who  employ  themselves  in  writing  books 
and  nearly  all  those  who  paint  pictures  live  in  or  near  it.  Over 
politics  London  has  far  less  authority  than  Paris  has  exerted 
in  France,  doubtless  because  parts  of  the  north  and  west  of 
Britain  are  more  highly  vitalized  than  the  provinces  of  France, 
while  the  English  city  is  almost  too  populous  to  have  a  common 
feeling.  Its  very  hugeness  makes  it  amorphous. 

What  are  the  cities  of  the  United  States  which  can  claim  to 
approach  nearest  to  the  sort  of  capital  we  have  been  considering  ? 
Not  Washington,  though  it  is  the  meeting-place  of  Congress 
and  the  seat  of  Federal  administration.  It  has  a  relatively 
small  population  (in  1910,  331,069,  of  whom  one-third  were 
negroes).  Society  consists  of  congressmen  (for  about  half  the 
year),  officials  (including  many  scientific  men  in  the  public 
service),  members  of  the  diplomatic  corps,  and  some  rich  and 
leisured  people  who  come  to  spend  the  winter.  The  leaders  of 

i  Thucyd.  II.  37-41. 


858 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


finance,  industry,  commerce,  and  the  professions  are  absent; 
there  are  some  journalists,  but  few  men  of  letters,  and  scarcely 
any  artists.  What  is  called  the  fashionable  society  of  Wash¬ 
ington,  which,  being  small,  polished,  and  composed  of  people 
who  constantly  meet  one  another,  is  agreeable,  and  not  the  less 
agreeable  because  it  has  a  peculiar  flavour,  is  so  far  from  as¬ 
piring  to  political  authority  as  to  deem  it  “bad  form”  to  talk 
politics.1  Its  political  society  on  the  other  hand  has  been  so 
largely  composed  of  officials,  “professionals,”  and  office-seekers, 
as  to  produce  an  atmosphere  unlike  that  of  the  nation  at  large, 
and  dangerous  to  those  statesmen  who  breathe  it  too  long  with¬ 
out  interruption. 

Not  New  York,  though  it  is  now  by  far  the  most  populous 
city.  It  is  the  centre  of  commerce,  the  sovereign  of  finance. 
But  it  has  no  special  political  influence  or  power  beyond  that  of 
casting  a  large  vote,  which  is  a  main  factor  in  determining  the 
thirty-nine  presidential  votes  of  the  State.  Business  is  its  main 
occupation :  and  though  the  representatives  of  literature  are 
now  pretty  numerous,  few  of  them  are  concerned  with  politics, 
the  journals,  marked  as  is  their  ability,  are,  after  all,  New  York 
journals,  and  not,  like  those  of  Paris,  London,  or  even  Berlin, 
professedly  written  for  the  whole  nation.  Next  come  Chicago, 
perhaps  the  most  typically  American  place  in  America,  and 
Philadelphia,  the  latter  once  the  first  city  of  the  Union.  Neither 
is  a  centre  of  literature  or  ideas  for  more  than  its  own  vicinity. 
Boston  was  for  a  time  the  chosen  home  of  letters  and  culture,  and 
still  contains,  in  proportion  to  her  population,  a  larger  number 
of  men  and  women  capable  of  making  or  judging  good  work  than 
any  other  city.  But  she  can  no  longer  be  said  to  lead  abstract 
thought,  much  less  current  opinion.  Nor  can  one  say  that 
any  of  these  cities  is  on  the  way  to  gain  a  more  commanding 
position.  New  York  will  probably  retain  her  pre-eminence  in 
population  and  commercial  consequence,  but  she  does  not  rise 
proportionately  in  culture,  while  the  centre  of  political  gravity, 
shifting  slowly  to  the  West,  will  doubtless  finally  fix  itself  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley.2 

1  Washington,  being  situated  in  the  Federal  District  of  Columbia,  is  not  a 
part  of  any  State,  and  therefore  enjoys  no  share  in  the  Federal  government. 
Its  inhabitants  vote  neither  for  a  member  of  Congress  nor  for  presidential  elec¬ 
tors;  and  the  city  is  ruled,  greatly  to  its  advantage,  by  a  Federal  Commission. 

2  A  leading  New  York  paper  once  said,  “  In  no  capital  that  we  know  of  does  the 
cause  of  religion  and  morality  derive  so  little  support  against  luxury  from  intel- 


CHAP.  CXVII 


THE  ABSENCE  OF  A  CAPITAL 


859 


It  deserves  to  be  remarked  that  what  is  true  of  the  whole 
country  is  also  true  of  the  great  sections  of  the  country.  Of 
the  cities  I  have  named,  none,  except  possibly  Boston  and  Chi¬ 
cago,  can  be  said  to  be  even  a  local  capital,  either  for  purposes 
of  political  opinion  or  of  intellectual  movement  and  tendency. 
Boston  retains  her  position  as  the  literary  centre  of  New  Eng¬ 
land  :  San  Francisco  is  the  most  populous  community  on  the 
Pacific  coast.  But  no  great  city  is  regarded  by  the  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  her  own  and  the  adjoining  States  as  their  natural  head, 
to  which  they  look  for  political  guidance,  or  from  which  they 
expect  any  intellectual  stimulance.  Even  New  Orleans,  though 
by  far  the  largest  place  in  the  South,  is  in  no  sense  the  metropo¬ 
lis  of  the  South ;  and  does  little  more  for  the  South  than  set  to 
her  neighbours  a  conspicuous  example  of  municipal  misgovern- 
ment.  Though  no  Paris,  no  Berlin,  stands  above  them,  these 
great  American  cities  are  not  more  important  in  the  country, 
or  even  in  their  own  sections  of  the  country,  than  Lyons  and 
Bordeaux  are  in  France,  Hamburg  and  Cologne  in  Germany. 
Even  as  between  municipal  communities,  even  in  the  sphere 
of  thought  and  literary  effort,  equality  and  local  independence 
have  in  America  their  perfect  work. 

The  geographical  as  well  as  political  causes  that  have  pro¬ 
duced  this  equality  are  obvious  enough,  and  only  one  needs 
special  mention.  The  seat  of  Federal  government  was  in  1790 
fixed  at  a  place  which  was  not  even  a  village,  but  a  piece  of 
swampy  woodland,1  not  merely  for  the  sake  of  preventing  the 
national  legislature  from  being  threatened  by  the  mob  of  a  great 
city,  but  because  the  jealousies  of  the  States  made  it  necessary 
to  place  the  legislature  in  a  spot  exempt  from  all  State  influence 
or  jurisdiction.  So  too  in  each  State  the  seat  of  government  is 
rarely  to  be  found  in  the  largest  city.  Albany,  not  New  York, 

lectual  interest  or  activity  of  any  description.  This  interest  has  its  place  here, 
but  it  leads  a  sickly  existence  as  yet  under  the  shadow  of  great  wealth  which 
cares  not  for  it.”  This  remark  is  possibly  less  true  to-day  of  New  York  or  Chi¬ 
cago  or  St.  Louis  than  it  would  have  been  in  1890. 

1  Congress,  however,  did  not  remove  from  Philadelphia  to  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac  until  1800.  Thomas  Moore’s  lines  on  Washington  as  he  saw  it  in  1804 
deserve  to  be  quoted  :  — 

‘‘An  embryo  capital  where  Fancy  sees 
Squares  in  morasses,  obelisks  in  trees  ; 

Where  second-sighted  seers  the  plain  adorn 
With  fanes  unbuilt  and  heroes  yet  unborn, 

Though  nought  but  woods  and  Jefferson  they  see, 

Where  streets  should  run,  and  sages  ought  to  be.” 


860 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


2  PART  VI 


is  the  capital  of  New  York  State;  Springfield,  not  Chicago,  of 
Illinois ;  Sacramento,  not  San  Francisco,  of  California ;  Harris¬ 
burg,  not  Philadelphia,  of  Pennsylvania.  This  seems  to  have 
been  so  ordered  not  from  fear  of  the  turbulence  of  a  vast  pop¬ 
ulation,  but  partly  to  secure  a  central  spot,  partly  from  the 
jealousy  which  the  rural  districts  and  smaller  cities  feel  of  the 
place  which  casts  the  heaviest  vote,  and  may  seek  to  use  the 
State  resources  for  its  own  benefit. 

It  is  a  natural  result  of  the  phenomena  described  that  in 
the  United  States  public  opinion  crystallizes  both  less  rapidly 
and  in  less  sharp  and  well-defined  forms  than  happens  in  those 
European  countries  which  are  led  by  the  capital.  The  tempera¬ 
ture  of  the  fluid  in  which  opinion  takes  shape  (if  I  may  venture 
to  pursue  the  metaphor),  is  not  so  high  all  over  a  large  country 
as  in  the  society  of  a  city,  where  the  minds  that  make  opinion 
are  in  daily  contact ;  and  the  process  by  which  opinion  is  made 
is  therefore  slower,  giving  a  somewhat  more  amorphous  product. 
I  do  not  mean  that  a  European  capital  generates  opinion  of  one 
type  only ;  but  that  each  doctrine,  each  programme,  each  type 
of  views,  whether  political  or  economic  or  religious,  is  likely  to 
assume  in  a  capital  its  sharpest  and  most  pronounced  form,  that 
form  being  taken  up  and  propagated  from  the  capital  through 
the  country.  And  this  is  one  reason  why  Americans  were  the 
first  to  adopt  the  system  of  Conventions,  mass  meetings  of  per¬ 
sons  belonging  to  a  particular  party  or  advocating  a  particular 
cause,  gathered  from  every  corner  of  the  country  to  exchange 
their  ideas  and  deliberate  on  their  common  policy. 

It  may  be  thought  that  in  this  respect  the  United  States  suffer 
from  the  absence  of  a  centre  of  light  and  heat.  Admitting  that 
there  is  some  loss,  there  are  also  some  conspicuous  gains.  It 
is  a  gain  that  the  multitude  of  no  one  city  should  be  able  to 
overawe  the  executive  and  the  legislature,  perhaps  even  to  change 
the  form  of  government,  as  Paris  has  so  often  done  in  France. 
It  is  a  gain,  for  a  democratic  country,  that  the  feeling  of  what 
is  called  Society  —  that  is  to  say,  of  those  who  toil  not,  neither 
do  they  spin,  who  are  satisfied  with  the  world,  and  are  apt  to 
regard  it  as  a  place  for  enjoyment  —  should  not  become  too 
marked  and  palpable  in  its  influence  on  the  members  of  the 
legislature  and  the  administration,  that  it  should  rather  be  dif¬ 
fused  over  the  nation  and  act  insensibly  upon  other  classes 
through  the  ordinary  relations  of  private  life  than  take  visible 


CHAP.  CXVII 


THE  ABSENCE  OF  A  CAPITAL 


861 


shape  as  the  voice  of  a  number  of  wealthy  families  gathered  in 
one  spot,  whose  luxury  may  render  them  the  objects  of  envy 
and  the  target  for  invective.  And  although  types  of  political 
view  may  form  themselves  less  swiftly,  though  doctrines  may  be 
less  systematic,  programmes  less  fully  reasoned  out,  than  when 
the  brisk  intelligence  of  groups  gathered  in  a  capital  labours  to 
produce  them,  they  may,  when  they  do  finally  emerge  from  the 
mind  of  the  whole  people,  have  a  breadth  and  solidity  pro¬ 
portioned  to  the  slowness  of  their  growth,  and  be  more  truly 
representative  of  all  the  classes,  interests,  and  tendencies  that 
exist  within  the  nation. 

How  far  the  loss  exceeds  the  gain  as  respects  the  speculative 
and  artistic  sides  of  intellectual  effort,  it  is  too  soon  to  determine, 
for  American  cities  are  all  the  creatures  of  the  last  two  centuries. 
That  which  Goethe  admired  in  Paris  is  evidently  impossible  to 
the  dispersed  geniuses  of  America.  On  the  other  hand,  that 
indraught  of  talent  from  the  provinces  to  Paris  which  many 
thoughtful  Frenchmen  deplore,  and  which  has  become  more 
unfortunate  since  Paris  has  grown  to  be  the  centre  of  amusement 
for  the  pleasure  seekers  of  Europe,  is  an  experience  which  no 
other  country  need  wish  to  undergo.  Germany  has  not  begun 
to  produce  more  work  or  better  work  since  she  has  given  herself 
a  capital ;  indeed,  he  who  looks  back  over  her  annals  since  the 
middle  of  last  century  will  think  that  so  far  as  scholarship,  phi¬ 
losophy,  and  possibly  even  poetry  are  concerned,  she  gained  from 
that  very  want  of  centralization  which  Goethe  regretted.  Great 
critics  realize  so  vividly  the  defects  of  the  system  they  see  around 
them  that  they  sometimes  underrate  the  merits  that  go  with  those 
defects.  It  may  be  that  in  the  next  age  American  cities  will 
profit  by  their  local  independence  to  develop  varieties  greater 
than  they  now  exhibit,  and  will  evolve  diverse  types  of  literary 
and  artistic  production.  Europe  will  watch  with  curiosity 
the  progress  of  an  experiment  which  it  is  now  too  late  for  any 
of  her  great  countries  to  try. 


CHAPTER  CXVIII 


AMERICAN  ORATORY 

Oratory  is  an  accomplishment  in  which  Europeans  believe 
that  Americans  excel ;  and  that  this  is  the  opinion  of  the  Ameri¬ 
cans  themselves,  although  they  are  too  modest  to  express  it, 
may  be  gathered  from  the  surprise  they  betray  when  they  find 
an  Englishman  fluent  before  an  audience.  They  had  at  one 
time  the  advantage  (if  it  is  an  advantage)  of  much  more  practice 
than  any  European  nation ;  but  now,  with  democracy  triumph¬ 
ant  in  England  and  France,  the  proportion  of  speeches  and 
speaking  to  population  is  probably  much  the  same  in  all  three 
countries.  Some  observations  on  a  form  of  effort  which  has 
absorbed  a  good  deal  of  the  talent  of  the  nation  seem  properly 
to  belong  to  an  account  of  its  intellectual  life. 

Oratorical  excellence  may  be  said  to  consist  in  the  combination 
of  five  aptitudes  — 

Invention,  that  is  to  say,  the  power  of  finding  good  ideas  and 
weaving  effective  arguments. 

Skill  and  taste  in  the  choice  of  appropriate  words. 

Readiness  in  producing  appropriate  ideas  and  words  at  short 
notice. 

Quickness  in  catching  the  temper  and  tendencies  of  the  par¬ 
ticular  audience  addressed. 

Weight,  animation,  and  grace  in  delivery. 

Such  excellence  as  the  Americans  possess,  such  superiority 
as  they  may  claim  over  Englishmen,  consists  rather  in  the  three 
latter  of  these  than  in  the  two  former. 

The  substance  of  their  speeches  is  not  better  than  one  finds 
in  other  countries,  because  substance  depends  on  the  intellectual 
resources  of  the  speaker  and  on  the  capacity  of  the  audience 
for  appreciating  worthy  matter.  Neither  is  the  literary  form 
better,  that  is  to  say,  the  ideas  are  not  clothed  in  any  choicer 
language.  But  there  is  more  fluency,  more  readiness,  more 
self-possession.  Being  usually  nimbler  in  mind  than  an  Eng¬ 
lishman,  and  feeling  less  embarrassed  on  his  legs,  an  American 

862 


CHAP.  CXVIII 


AMERICAN  ORATORY 


863 


is  apt  to  see  his  point  more  clearly  and  to  get  at  it  by  a  more 
direct  path.  I  do  not  deny  that  American  speakers  sometimes 
weary  the  listener,  but  when  they  do  so  it  is  rather  because  the 
notions  are  commonplace  and  the  arguments  unsound  than 
because,  as  might  happen  in  England,  ideas  of  some  value  are 
tediously  and  pointlessly  put.  It  is  true  that  with  the  progress 
of  democracy,  and  the  growing  volume  of  speeches  made,  the 
level  of  public  speaking  has  in  Britain  risen  within  the  last 
generations  while  the  number  of  great  orators  has  declined. 
Still,  if  one  is  to  compare  the  two  countries,  the  English  race 
seems  to  have  in  America  acquired  a  keener  sensitiveness  of 
sympathy.  That  habit  of  deference  to  others,  and  that  desire 
to  be  in  accord  with  the  sentiments  of  others,  which  equality 
and  democratic  institutions  foster,  make  the  American  feel  him¬ 
self  more  completely  one  of  the  audience  and  a  partaker  of  its 
sentiments  than  an  average  English  speaker  does.  This  may 
have  the  consequence,  if  the  audience  be  ignorant  or  prejudiced, 
of  dragging  him  down  to  its  level.  But  it  makes  him  more  effec¬ 
tive.  Needless  to  add  that  humour,  which  is  a  commoner  gift 
in  America  than  elsewhere,  often  redeems  an  otherwise  uninter¬ 
esting  address,  and  is  the  best  means  of  keeping  speaker  and  audi¬ 
ence  in  touch  with  one  another. 

A  deliberate  and  even  slow  delivery  is  the  rule  in  American 
public  speaking,  as  it  is  in  private  conversation.  This  has  the 
advantage  of  making  a  story  or  a  jest  tell  with  more  effect. 
There  is  also,  I  think,  less  stiffness  and  hesitation  among  Ameri¬ 
can  than  among  English  speakers,  greater  skill  in  managing  the 
voice,  because  more  practice  in  open-air  meetings,  greater  clear¬ 
ness  of  enunciation.  But  as  regards  grace,  either  in  action  or  in 
manner,  the  Teutonic  race  shows  no  more  capacity  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic  than  it  has  generally  done  in  England  for 
rivalling  the  orators  of  Italy,  Spain,  and  France. 

The  commonest  American  defect  used  to  be  a  turgid  and  in¬ 
flated  style.  The  rhetoric  was  Rhodian  rather  than  Attic,  over¬ 
loaded  with  tropes  and  figures,  apt  to  aim  at  concealing  poverty 
or  triteness  in  thought  by  exaggeration  of  statement,  by  a  profu¬ 
sion  of  ornament,  by  appeals  to  sentiments  loftier  than  the  sub¬ 
ject  or  the  occasion  required.  Too  frequently  the  florid  diction  of 
the  debating  club  or  the  solemn  pomp  of  the  funeral  oration  was 
invoked  when  nothing  but  clearness  of  exposition  or  cogency  of 
argument  was  needed.  These  faults  sprang  from  the  practice 


864 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


of  stump  oratory,  in  which  the  temptation  to  rouse  a  multitude 
by  declamation  is  specially  strong.  A  man  straining  his  voice 
in  the  open  air  is  apt  to  strain  his  phrases  also,  and  command 
attention  by  vehemence.  They  were  increased  by  the  custom 
of  having  orations  delivered  on  certain  anniversaries,  and  espe¬ 
cially  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  for  on  these  great  occasions  the 
speaker  feels  bound  to  talk  “his  very  tallest.”  Public  taste, 
generally  good  in  the  days  after  the  Revolution,  when  it  was 
formed  by  a  small  number  of  educated  men,  degenerated  in  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Despite  the  influence  of 
several  orators  of  the  first  rank,  incessant  stump  speaking  and 
the  inordinate  vanity  of  the  average  audience  brought  a  gaudy 
and  inflated  style  into  fashion,  which  became  an  easy  mark  for 
European  satire.  Of  late  years  a  reaction  for  the  better  set  in, 
probably  strengthened  by  the  example  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  who 
was  direct,  clear,  and  sinewy.  There  are  still  those  who  imitate 
Macaulay  or  Webster  without  the  richness  of  the  one  or  the 
stately  strength  of  the  other.  The  newspapers,  in  acknowledg¬ 
ing  that  a  lecturer  is  fluent  or  lucid,  still  complain  if  he  is  not  also 
“eloquent.”  Commemorative  addresses,  which  are  far  more 
abundant  than  in  Europe,  usually  sin  by  over-finish  of  composi¬ 
tion.  But  on  the  whole  there  has  been  an  improvement  in  the 
taste  of  listeners  and  in  the  style  of  speeches.  Such  im¬ 
provement  would  be  more  rapid  were  it  not  for  the  enormous 
number  of  speeches  by  people  who  have  really  nothing  to  say, 
as  well  as  by  able  men  on  occasions  when  there  is  nothing  to  be 
said  which  has  not  been  said  hundreds  of  times  before.  This 
is,  of  course,  almost  equally  true  of  England,  and  indeed  of  all 
popularly  governed  countries.  Profusion  of  speech  is  one  of 
the  drawbacks  to  democracy,  and  a  drawback  which  shows  no 
signs  of  disappearing. 

As  respects  the  different  kinds  of  oratory,  that  of  the  pulpit 
is  pretty  much  on  the  English  level,  the  discourses  not  superior 
in  substance,  but  perhaps  less  frequently  dull  in  delivery.  Even 
when  the  discourse  is  read,  it  is  read  in  a  less  mechanical  way, 
and  there  is  altogether  more  sense  of  the  worth  of  vivacity  and 
variety.  The  average  length  of  sermons  is  a  mean  between  the 
twenty  minutes  of  an  Anglican  clergyman  and  the  fifty  minutes 
of  Scotland.  The  manner  is  slightly  less  conventional,  because 
the  American  pastor  is  less  apt  than  his  European  brother  to 
feel  himself  a  member  of  a  distinct  caste. 


CHAP.  CXVIII 


AMERICAN  ORATORY 


865 


Forensic  oratory  has  not  of  late  years  been  cultivated  with  the 
ardour  of  former  years :  in  the  United  States,  as  in  England, 
there  are  many  powerful  advocates,  but  no  consummate  artist. 
Whether  this  is  due  to  the  failure  of  nature  to  produce  persons 
specially  gifted,  or  to  the  absence  of  trials  whose  issues  and  cir¬ 
cumstances  are  calculated  to  call  forth  exceptional  efforts,  or  to 
a  change  in  public  taste,  and  a  disposition  to  prefer  the  practical 
to  the  showy,  is  a  question  which  is  often  asked  in  England,  and 
is  no  easier  to  answer  in  America. 

Congress,  for  reasons  explained  in  the  chapter  treating  of  it, 
is  a  less  favourable  theatre  for  oratory  than  the  great  represent¬ 
ative  assemblies  of  Europe.  The  House  of  Representatives 
has  at  no  period  of  its  history  shone  with  lights  of  eloquence, 
though  a  few  of  Clay’s  great  speeches  were  delivered  in  it. 
There  is  some  good  short  brisk  debating  in  Committee  of  the 
Whole,  but  the  set  speeches  are  mostly  pompous  and  heavy. 
The  Senate  long  maintained  a  higher  level,  partly  from  the  smaller 
size  of  its  chamber,  partly  from  its  greater  leisure,  partly  from 
the  superior  ability  of  its  members.  Webster’s  and  Calhoun’s 
greatest  efforts  were  made  on  its  floor,  and  produced  an  enormous 
effect  on  the  nation.  At  present,  however,  the  “full-dress 
debates”  in  the  Senate  want  life,  the  long  set  speeches  being 
fired  off  rather  with  a  view  to  their  circulation  in  the  country 
than  to  any  immediate  effect  on  the  assembly.  But  the  ordinary 
discussions  of  bills,  or  questions  of  policy,  reveal  plenty  of  prac¬ 
tical  speaking  power.  If  there  be  little  passion  and  no  brilliancy, 
there  is  strong  common-sense  put  in  a  plain  and  telling  form. 

Of  the  State  legislatures  not  much  need  be  said.  In  them,  as 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  bulk  of  the  work  is  done  in 
committees,  and  the  opportunities  for  displays  of  eloquence  are 
limited.  They  are  good  schools  to  form  a  practical  business 
speaker,  and  they  do  form  many  such.  But  the  characteristic 
merits  and  defects  of  transatlantic  oratory  are  more  fully  dis¬ 
played  on  the  stump  and  in  those  national  and  State  nominating 
conventions  whereof  I  have  already  spoken.  So  far  as  the  hand¬ 
ling  great  assemblies  is  an  art  attainable  by  a  man  who  does 
not  possess  the  highest  gifts  of  thought  and  imagination,  it  has 
been  brought  to  perfection  by  the  heroes  of  these  mass  meetings. 
They  have  learned  how  to  deck  out  commonplaces  with  the 
gaudier  flowers  of  eloquence ;  how  to  appeal  to  the  dominant 
sentiment  of  the  moment :  above  all,  how  to  make  a  strong  and 


866 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


flexible  voice  the  means  of  rousing  enthusiasm.  They  scathe 
the  opposite  party  by  vigorous  invective ;  they  interweave  stories 
and  jokes  with  their  declamatory  passages  so  as  to  keep  the 
audience  constantly  amused.  They  deliver  contemptible  clap¬ 
trap  with  an  air  of  hearty  conviction.  The  party  men  who  listen, 
because  there  are  few  present  at  a  mass  meeting,  and  still  fewer 
at  a  convention,  except  members  of  the  party  which  has  convoked 
the  gathering,  are  better  pleased  with  themselves  than  ever, 
and  go  away  roused  to  effort  in  the  party  cause.  But  there 
has  been  little  argument  all  through,  little  attempt  to  get  hold 
of  the  reason  and  judgment  of  the  people.  Stimulation,  and 
not  instruction  or  conviction,  is  the  aim  which  the  stump  orator 
sets  before  himself ;  and  the  consequence  is  that  election  cam¬ 
paigns  have  generally  been  less  educationally  valuable  than  those 
of  England.  It  is  worth  remarking  that  the  custom  which 
in  England  requires  a  representative  to  deliver  at  least  once  a 
year  an  address  to  his  constituents,  setting  forth  his  view  of  the 
political  situation  and  explaining  his  own  speeches  and  votes  • 
during  the  preceding  session,  does  not  seem  to  be  general  in  the 
United  States.  In  the  campaign  of  1896,  however,  the  currency 
question  was  argued  before  the  electors  with  a  force  and  point 
which  were  both  stimulative  and  instructive :  and  the  habit  of 
appealing  to  the  intelligence  as  well  as  the  feelings  or  prejudices 
of  the  voters  has  been  since  maintained.  When  an  address 
meant  to  be  specifically  instructive  has  to  be  given,  it  takes 
the  form  of  a  lecture,  and  is  usually  delivered  by  some  well- 
known  public  man,  who  receives  a  fee  for  it. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  speech  which,  though  they  exist  in 
most  European  countries,  have  been  so  much  more  fully  devel¬ 
oped  beyond  the  Atlantic  as  to  deserve  some  notice. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  Oration  of  the  Occasion.  When  an 
anniversary  comes  round  —  and  celebrations  of  an  anniversary 
are  very  common  in  America  —  or  when  a  sort  of  festival  is 
held  in  honour  of  some  public  event,  such  for  instance  as  the 
unveiling  of  a  statue,  or  the  erection  of  a  monument  on  a  battle¬ 
field,  or  the  opening  of  a  city  hall  or  State  capitol,  or  the  driving 
the  last  spike  of  a  great  railroad,  a  large  part  of  the  programme 
is  devoted  to  speaking.  The  chief  speech  is  entrusted  to  one 
eminent  person,  who  is  called  the  Orator  of  the  Day,  and  from 
whom  is  expected  a  long  and  highly  finished  harangue,  the  length 
and  finish  of  which  are  sometimes  wearisome  to  an  outsider, 


CHAP.  CXVIII 


AMERICAN  ORATORY 


867 


though  the  people  of  the  locality  are  flattered.  Sometimes 
these  speeches  contain  good  matter  —  as  for  instance  when 
they  embody  personal  recollections  of  a  distinguished  man  in 
whose  honour  the  celebration  was  being  held  —  but  the  arti¬ 
ficial  elevation  at  which  the  speaker  usually  feels  bound  to 
maintain  himself  is  apt  to  make  him  pompous  and  affected. 

Speeches  of  a  complimentary  and  purely  “epideictic”  nature 
of  the  English  public  banquet  type  are  very  common.  There 
is  scarcely  an  occasion  in  life  which  brings  forty  or  fifty  people 
together  on  which  a  prominent  citizen  or  even  a  stranger  is 
not  called  upon  “to  offer  a  few  remarks.”  No  subject  is  pre¬ 
scribed  for  him  :  often  no  toast  has  to  be  proposed  or  responded 
to  :  he  is  simply  put  on  his  legs  to  talk  upon  anything  in  heaven 
or  earth  which  may  rise  to  his  mind.  The  European,  who  is 
at  first  embarrassed  by  this  unchartered  freedom,  presently 
discovers  its  advantages,  for  it  gives  him  a  wider  range  for  what¬ 
ever  he  may  have  to  say.  In  nothing  does  the  good  nature  of 
the  people  stand  revealed  more  than  in  the  courteous  patience 
with  which  they  will  listen  to  a  long-winded  after-dinner  speaker, 
even  when  he  reads  a  typewritten  address  at  1  a.m. 

The  third  form  of  discourse  specially  characteristic  of  the 
United  States  is  the  Lecture.  It  was  for  a  time  less  frequent 
and  less  fashionable,  partly  from  the  rise  of  monthly  magazines 
full  of  excellent  matter,  partly  because  other  kinds  of  evening 
entertainment  had  become  more  accessible  to  people  outside  the 
great  cities,  but  it  began  to  revive  towards  the  close  of  last 
century.  With  the  disappearance  of  Puritan  sentiment  the 
theatre  is  now  extremely  popular,  perhaps  more  popular  than 
in  any  part  of  Europe.  There  is  hardly  a  new  settlement  in 
the  West  which  strolling  companies  do  not  visit.  But  the 
Lecture,  even  if  dwarfed  by  the  superior  attractions  of  the 
drama,  is  still  a  valuable  means  of  interesting  people  in  lit¬ 
erary,  scientific,  and  political  questions.  And  the  art  of  lec¬ 
turing  has  been  developed  in  a  corresponding  measure.  A 
discourse  of  this  kind,  whatever  the  merits  of  its  substance, 
is  usually  well  arranged,  well  composed  to  meet  the  taste  of 
the  audience,  and,  above  all,  well  delivered.  It  is  listened  to 
with  an  absence  of  laughter  (where  it  is  intended  to  amuse) 
and  of  applause  which  surprises  European  observers,  but  no 
audiences  can  be  imagined  more  attentive  or  appreciative  of 
any  real  effort  to  provide  good  matter. 


868 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


This  grave  reserve  in  American  listeners  surprises  Europeans,1 
especially  those  who  have  observed  the  excitability  shown  on 
presidential  campaigns.  It  seems  to  arise  from  the  practical 
turn  of  their  minds  as  well  as  from  their  intelligence.  In  an 
election  campaign  it  is  necessary  and  expedient  to  give  vent  to 
one’s  feelings;  in  listening  to  a  lecture  it  is  not.  One  comes 
to  be  instructed  or  entertained,  and  comes  with  a  critical  habit 
formed  by  hearing  many  lectures  as  well  as  reading  many  books. 
Something  may  also  be  due  to  the  large  proportion  of  women  in 
an  American  audience  at  lectures  or  other  non-political  occasions. 

Many  Europeans  think  that  the  kind  of  oratory  in  which  the 
Americans  show  to  most  advantage  is  neither  the  political  kind, 
abundant  as  it  is,  nor  the  commemorative  oration,  assiduously 
as  it  is  cultivated,  but  what  may  be  called  the  lighter  ornamental 
style,  such  as  the  after-dinner  speech.  The  fondness  (sometimes 
pushed  to  excess)  of  the  people  for  anecdotes,  the  general  dif¬ 
fusion  of  humour,  the  readiness  in  catching  the  spirit  of  an  occa¬ 
sion,  all  contribute  to  make  their  efforts  easy  and  happy,  while 
furnishing  less  temptation  for  the  characteristic  fault  of  a 
straining  after  effect.  I  have  already  observed  that  they  shine 
in  stump  speaking,  properly  so  called  —  that  is,  in  speaking 
which  rouses  an  audience  but  ought  not  to  be  reported.  The 
reasons  why  their  more  serious  platform  and  parliamentary 
oratory  has  been,  of  course  with  brilliant  exceptions,  less  excel¬ 
lent  are,  over  and  above  the  absence  of  momentous  issues,  prob¬ 
ably  the  same  as  those  which  have  affected  the  average  quality  of 
newspaper  writing.  In  Europe  the  leading  speakers  and  writers 
have  nearly  all  belonged  to  the  cultivated  classes,  and,  feeling 
themselves  raised  above  their  audiences,  have  been  in  the  habit 
of  obeying  their  own  taste  and  that  of  their  class  rather  than 
the  appetite  of  those  whom  they  addressed.  In  England,  for 
instance,  the  standard  of  speaking  by  public  men  used  to  be  set 
by  parliamentary  debate,  because  till  within  the  last  few  decades 
the  leading  politicians  of  the  country  had  all  won  their  reputation 
in  Parliament.  They  carried  their  parliamentary  style  with 
them  into  popular  meetings,  and  aspirants  of  all  classes  imitated 
this  style.  It  sometimes  erred  in  being  too  formal  and  too  pro- 


1  A  story  is  told  of  Edmund  Kean  acting  before  an  audience  in  New  England 
which  he  found  so  chilling  that  at  last  he  refused  to  come  on  for  the  next  scene 
unless  some  applause  were  given,  observing  that  such  a  house  was  enough  to 
put  out  Vesuvius. 


CHAP.  CXVIII 


AMERICAN  ORATORY 


869 


lix ;  but  its  taste  was  good,  and  its  very  plainness  obliged  the 
speaker  to  have  solid  matter.  In  America,  on  the  other  hand, 
stump  oratory  is  older  or  at  least  quite  as  old  as  congressional 
oratory,  and  the  latter  has  never  gained  that  hold  on  the  ideas 
and  habits  of  the  people  which  parliamentary  debate  held  in 
England.  Hence  speaking  has  generally  moved  on  a  somewhat 
lower  level,  not  but  what  there  were  brilliant  popular  orators  in 
the  first  days  of  the  Republic,  like  Patrick  Henry,  and  majestic 
parliamentary  orators  like  Daniel  Webster  in  the  next  generation, 
but  that  the  volume  of  stump  speaking  was  so  much  greater  than 
in  England  that  the  fashion  could  not  be  set  by  a  few  of  the  great¬ 
est  men,  but  was  determined  by  the  capacities  of  the  average 
man.  The  taste  of  the  average  man,  instead  of  being  raised  by 
the  cultivated  few  to  their  own  standard,  tended  to  lower  the 
practice,  and  to  some  extent  even  the  taste,  of  the  cultivated  few. 
To  seem  wiser  or  more  refined  than  the  multitude,  to  incur  the 
suspicion  of  talking  down  to  the  multitude,  and  treating  them 
as  inferiors,  would  have  offended  the  sentiment  of  the  country, 
and  injured  the  prospects  of  a  statesman.  It  is  perhaps  a 
confirmation  of  this  view  that,  while  pompousness  used  to 
flourish  in  the  West,  and  floridity  still  marks  the  South,  the  most 
polished  speakers  of  last  century  belonged  to  New  England, 
where  the  level  of  average  taste  and  knowledge  was  exceptionally 
high.  One  of  these  speakers,  the  late  Mr.  Wendell  Phillips, 
was,  in  the  opinion  of  competent  critics,  an  opinion  which  those 
who  remember  his  conversation  will  be  inclined  to  agree  with, 
one  of  the  first  orators  of  that  time,  and  not  more  remark¬ 
able  for  the  finish  than  for  the  transparent  simplicity  of  his 
style,  which  attained  its  highest  effects  by  the  most  direct  and 
natural  methods. 


CHAPTER  CXIX 


THE  PLEASANTNESS  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 

I  have  never  met  a  European  of  the  middle  or  upper  classes 
who  did  not  express  astonishment  when  told  that  America 
was  a  more  agreeable  place  than  Europe  to  live  in.  “For 
working  men,”  he  would  answer,  “yes;  but  for  men  of  educa¬ 
tion  or  property,  how  can  a  new  rough  country,  where  nothing 
but  business  is  talked  and  the  refinements  of  life  are  only  just 
beginning  to  appear,  how  can  such  a  country  be  compared  with 
England,  or  France,  or  Italy  ?” 

It  is  nevertheless  true  that  there  are  elements  in  the  life  of 
the  United  States  which  may  well  make  a  European  of  any 
class  prefer  to  dwell  there  rather  than  in  the  land  of  his  birth. 
Let  us  see  what  they  are. 

In  the  first  place  there  is  the  general  prosperity  and  material 
well-being  of  the  mass  of  the  inhabitants.  In  Europe,  if  an 
observer  takes  his  eye  off  his  own  class  and  considers  the 
whole  population  of  any  one  of  the  greater  countries,  he  will 
perceive  that  by  far  the  greater  number  lead  very  laborious 
lives,  and  are,  if  not  actually  in  want  of  the  necessities  of  ex¬ 
istence,  yet  liable  to  fall  into  want,  the  agriculturists  when 
nature  is  harsh,  the  wage-earners  when  work  is  scarce.  In 
England  the  lot  of  the  labourer  has  been  hitherto  a  hard  one, 
incessant  field  toil,  with  rheumatism  at  fifty  and  the  work- 
house  at  the  end  of  the  vista ;  while  the  misery  in  such  cities 
as  London,  Liverpool,  and  Glasgow  is  only  too  well  known. 
In  France  there  is  less  pauperism,  but  nothing  can  be  more 
pinched  and  sordid  than  the  life  of  the  bulk  of  the  peasantry. 
In  the  great  towns  of  Germany  there  is  constant  distress  and 
increasing  discontent.  The  riots  of  1886  in  Belgium  told  an 
even  more  painful  tale  of  the  wretchedness  of  the  miners  and 
artisans  there.  In  Italy  the  condition  of  the  rural  population 
of  Venetia  as  well  as  of  the  southern  provinces  still  gives  cause 
for  grave  concern.  Of  Russia,  with  her  ninety  millions  of 
peasants  living  in  half-barbarism,  there  is  no  need  to  speak. 

870 


chap,  cxix  PLEASANTNESS  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


871 


Contrast  any  one  of  these  countries  with  the  United  States, 
where  the  working  classes  are  as  well  fed,  clothed,  and  lodged 
as  the  lower  middle  class  in  Europe,  and  the  farmers  who  till 
their  own  land  (as  nearly  all  do)  much  better,  where  a  good  ed¬ 
ucation  is  within  the  reach  of  the  poorest,  where  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  for  getting  on  in  one  way  or  another  are  so  abundant 
that  no  one  need  fear  any  physical  ill  but  disease  or  the  results 
of  his  own  intemperance.  Pauperism  already  exists  in  some 
of  the  larger  cities,  where  drink  breeds  misery,  and  where  recent 
immigrants,  with  the  shiftlessness  of  Europe  still  clinging  round 
them,  are  huddled  together  in  squalor.  But  outside  these  few 
cities  one  sees  nothing  but  comfort.  In  Connecticut  and  Ohio  the 
native  American  operatives  in  many  a  manufacturing  town  lead 
a  life  easier,  and  more  brightened  by  intellectual  culture  and  by 
amusements,  than  that  of  the  clerks  and  shopkeepers  of  England 
or  France.  In  places  like  Kansas  City  or  Chicago  one  finds  miles 
on  miles  of  suburb  filled  with  neat  wooden  houses,  each  with 
its  tiny  garden  plot,  owned  by  the  shop  assistants  and  handi¬ 
craftsmen  who  return  on  the  electric-cars  in  the  evening  from 
their  work.  All  over  the  wide  West,  from  Lake  Ontario  to  the 
Upper  Missouri,  one  travels  past  farms  of  one  to  two  hundred 
acres,  in  every  one  of  which  there  is  a  spacious  farmhouse  among 
orchards  and  meadows,  where  the  farmer’s  children  grow  up 
strong  and  hearty  on  abundant  food,  the  boys  full  of  intelli¬ 
gence  and  enterprise,  ready  to  push  their  way  on  farms  of  their 
own  or  enter  business  in  the  nearest  town,  the  girls  familiar 
with  the  current  literature  of  England  as  well  as  of  America. 
The  life  of  the  agricultural  settler  in  the  further  West  has  its 
privations,  but  it  is  brightened  by  hope,  and  has  a  singular 
charm  of  freedom  and  simplicity.  The  impression  which  this 
comfort  and  plenty  makes  is  heightened  by  the  brilliance  and 
keenness  of  the  air,  by  the  look  of  freshness  and  cleanness 
which  even  the  cities  wear,  all  of  them  except  the  poorest  parts 
of  those  few  I  have  referred  to  above.  The  fog  and  soot-flakes 
of  an  English  town,  as  well  as  its  squalor,  are  wanting ;  you 
are  in  a  new  world,  and  a  world  which  knows  the  sun.  It  is 
impossible  not  to  feel  warmed,  cheered,  invigorated  by  the 
sense  of  such  material  well-being  all  around  one,  impossible 
not  to  be  infected  by  the  buoyancy  and  hopefulness  of  the  people. 
The  wretchedness  of  Europe  lies  far  behind ;  the  weight  of  its 
problems  seems  lifted  from  the  mind.  As  a  man  suffering  from 


872 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


depression  feels  the  clouds  roll  away  from  his  spirit  when  he 
meets  a  friend  whose  good  humour  and  energy  present  the  better 
side  of  things  and  point  the  way  through  difficulties,  so  the 
sanguine  temper  of  the  Americans,  and  the  sight  of  the  ardour 
with  which  they  pursue  their  aims,  stimulates  a  European  and 
makes  him  think  the  world  a  better  place  than  it  had  seemed 
amid  the  entanglements  and  sufferings  of  his  own  hemisphere. 

To  some  Europeans  this  may  seem  fanciful.  I  doubt  if  any 
European  can  realize  till  he  has  been  in  America  how  much 
difference  it  makes  to  the  happiness  of  any  one  not  wholly 
devoid  of  sympathy  with  his  fellow-beings,  to  feel  that  all 
round  him,  in  all  classes  of  society  and  all  parts  of  the  country, 
there  exist  in  such  ample  measure  so  many  of  the  external 
conditions  of  happiness :  abundance  of  the  necessaries  of  life, 
easy  command  of  education  and  books,  amusements  and  leisure 
to  enjoy  them,  comparatively  few  temptations  to  intemper¬ 
ance  and  vice. 

The  second  charm  of  American  life  is  one  which  some 
Europeans  will  smile  at.  It  is  social  equality.  To  many 
Europeans  the  word  has  an  odious  sound.  It  suggests  a 
dirty  fellow  in  a  blouse  elbowing  his  betters  in  a  crowd,  or 
an  ill-conditioned  villager  shaking  his  fist  at  the  parson  and 
the  squire ;  or,  at  any  rate,  it  suggests  obtrusiveness  and 
bad  manners.  The  exact  contrary  is  the  truth.  Equality 
improves  manners,  for  it  strengthens  the  basis  of  all  good 
manners,  respect  for  other  men  and  women  simply  as  men 
and  women,  irrespective  of  their  station  in  life.  Probably 
the  assertion  of  social  equality  was  one  of  the  causes  which 
injured  American  manners  fifty  years  ago,  for  that  they  were 
then  bad  among  townsfolk  can  hardly  be  doubted  in  face  of 
the  testimony,  not  merely  of  sharp  tongues  like  Mrs.  Trollope’s, 
but  of  calm  observers  like  Sir  Charles  Lyell  and  sympathetic 
observers  like  Richard  Cobden.1  In  those  days  there  was  an 
obtrusive  self-assertiveness  among  the  less  refined  classes, 
especially  towards  those  who,  coming  from  the  Old  World, 
were  assumed  to  come  in  a  patronizing  spirit.  Now,  however, 
social  equality  has  grown  so  naturally  out  of  the  circumstances 
of  the  country,  has  been  so  long  established,  and  is  so  ungrudg- 

1  Volney,  who  at  the  end  of  last  century  commented  on  the  “incivilite  na- 
tionale,”  ascribes  it  “moins  &  un  syst^me  d’intentions  qu’a  l’independance 
mutuelle,  &  l’isolement,  au  dMaut  des  besoins  reciproques.” 


chap,  cxix  PLEASANTNESS  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


873 


ingly  admitted,  that  all  excuse  for  obtrusiveness  has  disappeared. 
People  meet  on  a  simple  and  natural  footing,  with  more  frank¬ 
ness  and  ease  than  is  possible  in  countries  where  every  one  is 
either  looking  up  or  looking  clown.1  There  is  no  servility  on  the 
part  of  the  humbler,  and  if  now  and  then  a  little  of  the  “I  am 
as  good  as  you”  rudeness  be  perceptible,  it  is  likely  to  proceed 
from  a  recent  immigrant,  to  whom  the  attitude  of  simple  equality 
has  not  yet  become  familiar  as  the  evidently  proper  attitude  of 
one  man  to  another.  There  is  no  condescension  on  the  part 
of  the  more  highly  placed,  nor  is  there  even  that  sort  of  scrupu¬ 
lously  polite  coldness  which  one  might  think  they  would  adopt 
in  order  to  protect  their  dignity.  They  have  no  cause  to  fear 
for  their  dignity,  so  long  as  they  do  not  themselves  forget  it. 
And  the  fact  that  your  shoemaker  or  your  factory  hand  ad¬ 
dresses  his  employer  as  an  equal  does  not  prevent  him  from 
showing  all  the  respect  to  which  any  one  may  be  entitled  on 
the  score  of  birth  or  education  or  eminence  in  any  walk  of  life. 

This  naturalness  is  a  distinct  addition  to  the  pleasure  of 
social  intercourse.  It  enlarges  the  circle  of  possible  friend¬ 
ship,  by  removing  the  gene  which  in  most  parts  of  Europe 
persons  of  different  ranks  feel  in  exchanging  their  thoughts 
on  any  matters  save  those  of  business.  It  raises  the  humbler 
classes  without  lowering  the  upper;  indeed,  it  improves  the 
upper  no  less  than  the  lower  by  expunging  that  latent  insolence 
which  deforms  the  manners  of  so  many  of  the  European  rich. 
It  relieves  women  in  particular,  who  in  Europe  are  specially 
apt  to  think  of  class  distinctions,  from  that  sense  of  constraint 
and  uneasiness  which  is  produced  by  the  knowledge  that  other 
women  with  whom  they  come  in  contact  are  either  looking 
down  on  them,  or  at  any  rate  trying  to  gauge  and  determine 
their  social  position.  It  expands  the  range  of  a  man’s  sym- 


1  A  trifling  anecdote  may  illustrate  what  I  mean.  Long  ago  in  Spokane,  then 
a  small  Far  Western  town,  the  stationmaster  lent  me  a  locomotive  to  run  a  few 
miles  out  along  the  railway  to  see  a  remarkable  piece  of  scenery.  The  engine 
.took  me  and  dropped  me  there,  as  I  wished  to  walk  back,  much  to  the  surprise  of 
the  driver  and  stoker,  for  in  America  no  one  walks  if  he  can  help  it.  The  same 
evening,  as  I  was  sitting  in  the  hall  of  the  hotel,  I  was  touched  on  the  arm,  and 
turning  round  found  myself  accosted  by  a  well-mannered  man,  who  turned  out 
to  be  the  engine-driver.  He  expressed  his  regret  that  the  locomotive  had  not 
been  cleaner  and  better  “fixed  up,”  as  he  would  have  liked  to  make  my  trip  as 
agreeable  as  possible,  but  the  notice  given  him  had  been  short.  He  talked  with 
intelligence,  and  we  had  some  pleasant  chat  together.  It  was  fortunate  that  I 
had  resisted  in  the  forenoon  the  British  impulse  to  bestow  a  gratuity. 


874 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


pathies,  and  makes  it  easier  for  him  to  enter  into  the  sentiments 
of  other  classes  than  his  own.  It  gives  a  sense  of  solidarity 
to  the  whole  nation,  cutting  away  the  ground  for  the  jealousies 
and  grudges  which  distract  people  so  long  as  the  social  preten¬ 
sions  of  past  centuries  linger  on  to  be  resented  by  the  levelling 
spirit  of  a  revolutionary  age.  And  I  have  never  heard  native 
Americans  speak  of  any  drawbacks  corresponding  to  and 
qualifying  these  benefits. 

There  are,  moreover,  other  rancours  besides  those  of  social 
inequality  whose  absence  from  America  brightens  it  to  a  Euro¬ 
pean  eye.  There  are  no  quarrels  of  churches  and  sects.  Judah 
does  not  vex  Ephraim,  nor  Ephraim  envy  Judah.  No  Estab¬ 
lished  Church  looks  down  scornfully  upon  Dissenters  from  the 
height  of  its  titles  and  endowments,  and  talks  of  them  as  hin¬ 
drances  in  the  way  of  its  work.  No  Dissenters  pursue  an  Estab¬ 
lished  Church  in  a  spirit  of  watchful  jealousy,  nor  agitate  for 
its  overthrow.  One  is  not  offended  by  the  contrast  between 
the  theory  and  the  practice  of  a  religion  of  peace,  between  pro¬ 
fessions  of  universal  affection  in  pulpit  addresses  and  forms  of 
prayer,  and  the  acrimony  of  clerical  controversialists.  Still 
less,  of  course,  is  there  that  sharp  opposition  and  antagonism 
of  Christians  and  anti-Christians  which  lacerates  the  private 
as  well  as  public  life  of  France.  Rivalry  between  sects  appears 
only  in  the  innocent  form  of  the  planting  of  new  churches  and 
raising  of  funds  for  missionary  objects,  while  most  of  the  Protes¬ 
tant  denominations,  including  the  four  most  numerous,  con¬ 
stantly  fraternize  in  charitable  work.  Between  Roman  Catholics 
and  the  more  educated  Protestants  there  is  little  hostility, 
and  sometimes  even  co-operation  for  a  philanthropic  purpose. 
The  sceptic  is  no  longer  under  a  social  ban,  and  discussions  on 
the  essentials  of  Christianity  and  of  theism  are  conducted  with 
good  temper.  There  is  not  a  country  in  the  world  where 
Frederick  the  Great’s  principle,  that  every  one  should  be  al¬ 
lowed  to  go  to  heaven  his  own  way,  is  so  fully  applied.  This 
sense  of  religious  peace  as  well  as  religious  freedom  all  around 
one  is  soothing  to  the  weary  European,  and  contributes  not  a 
little  to  sweeten  the  lives  of  ordinary  people. 

I  come  last  to  the  character  and  ways  of  the  Americans  them¬ 
selves  in  which  there  is  a  certain  charm,  hard  to  convey  by 
description,  but  felt  almost  as  soon  as  one  sets  foot  on  their 
shore,  and  felt  constantly  thereafter.  In  purely  business  re- 


chap,  cxix  PLEASANTNESS  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


875 


lations  there  is  hardness,  as  there  is  all  the  world  over.  Ineffi¬ 
ciency  has  a  very  short  shrift.  But  apart  from  those  relations 
they  are  a  kindly  people.  Good  nature,  heartiness,  a  readiness 
to  render  small  services  to  one  another,  an  assumption  that 
neighbours  in  the  country,  or  persons  thrown  together  in  travel, 
or  even  in  a  crowd,  were  meant  to  be  friendly  rather  than  hos¬ 
tile  to  one  another,  seem  to  be  everywhere  in  the  air,  and  in 
those  who  breath  it.  Sociability  is  the  rule,  isolation  and 
moroseness  the  rare  exception.  It  is  not  that  people  are  more 
vivacious  or  talkative  than  an  Englishman  expects  to  find 
them,  for  the  Western  man  is  often  taciturn  and  seldom  wreathes 
his  long  face  into  a  smile.  It  is  rather  that  you  feel  that  the 
man  next  you,  whether  silent  or  talkative,  does  not  mean  to 
repel  intercourse,  or  convey  by  his  manner  his  low  opinion  of 
his  fellow-creatures.  Everybody  seems  disposed  to  think  well 
of  the  world  and  its  inhabitants,  well  enough  at  least  to  wish 
to  be  on  easy  terms  with  them  and  serve  them  in  those  little 
things  whose  trouble  to  the  doer  is  small  in  proportion  to  the 
pleasure  they  give  to  the  receiver.  To  help  others  is  better 
recognized  as  a  duty  than  in  Europe.  Nowhere  is  money  so 
readily  given  for  any  public  purpose ;  nowhere,  I  suspect,  are 
there  so  many  acts  of  private  kindness  done,  such,  for  instance, 
as  paying  the  college  expenses  of  a  promising  boy,  or  aiding  a 
widow  to  carry  on  her  husband’s  farm ;  and  these  are  not  done 
with  ostentation.  People  seem  to  take  their  own  troubles 
more  lightly  than  they  do  in  Europe,  and  to  be  more  indulgent 
to  the  faults  by  which  troubles  are  caused.  It  is  a  land  of  hope, 
and  a  land  of  hope  is  a  land  of  good  humour.  And  they  have 
also,  though  this  is  a  quality  more  perceptible  in  women  than 
in  men,  a  remarkable  faculty  for  enjoyment,  a  power  of  draw¬ 
ing  more  happiness  from  obvious  pleasures,  simple  and  innocent 
pleasures,  than  one  often  finds  in  overburdened  Europe. 

As  generalizations  like  this  are  necessarily  comparative,  I 
may  be  asked  with  whom  I  am  comparing  the  Americans. 
With  the  English,  or  with  some  attempted  average  of  European 
nations  ?  Primarily  I  am  comparing  them  with  the  English, 
because  they  are  the  nearest  relatives  of  the  English.  But 
there  are  other  European  countries,  such  as  France,  Belgium, 
Spain,  in  which  the  sort  of  cheerful  friendliness  I  have  sought 
to  describe  is  less  common  than  it  is  in  America.  Even  in  Ger¬ 
many  and  German  Austria,  simple  and  kindly  as  are  the  masses 


876 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


of  the  people,  the  upper  classes  have  that  roideur  which  belongs 
to  countries  dominated  by  an  old  aristocracy,  or  by  a  plutoc¬ 
racy  trying  to  imitate  aristocratic  ways.  The  upper  class  in 
America  (if  one  may  use  such  an  expression)  has  not  in  this 
respect  differentiated  itself  from  the  character  of  the  nation  at 
large. 

If  the  view  here  presented  be  a  true  one,  to  what  causes  are 
we  to  ascribe  this  agreeable,  development  of  the  original  English 
type,  a  development  in  whose  course  the  sadness  of  Puritanism 
seems  to  have  been  shed  off  ? 

Perhaps  one  of  them  is  the  humorous  turn  of  the  American 
character.  Humour  is  a  sweetener  of  temper,  a  copious  spring 
of  charity,  for  it  makes  the  good  side  of  bad  things  even  more 
visible  than  the  bad  side  of  good  things  ;  but  humour  in  Ameri¬ 
cans  may  be  as  much  a  result  of  an  easy  and  kindly  turn  as 
their  kindliness  is  of  their  humour.  Another  is  the  perpetuation 
of  a  habit  of  mutual  help  formed  in  colonial  days.  Colonists 
need  one  another’s  aid  more  constantly  than  the  dwellers  in  an 
old  country,  are  thrown  more  upon  one  another,  even  when 
they  live  scattered  in  woods  or  prairies,  are  more  interested  in 
one  another’s  welfare.  When  you  have  only  three  neighbours 
within  five  miles,  each  of  them  covers  a  large  part  of  your  hori¬ 
zon.  You  want  to  borrow  a  plough  from  one ;  you  get  another 
to  help  you  to  roll  your  logs ;  your  children’s  delight  is  to  go 
over  for  an  evening’s  merrymaking  to  the  lads  and  lasses  of 
the  third.  It  is  much  pleasanter  to  be  on  good  terms  with 
these  few  neighbours,  and  when  others  come  one  by  one,  they 
fall  into  the  same  habits  of  intimacy.  Any  one  who  has 
read  those  stories  of  rustic  New  England  or  New  York  life 
which  delighted  those  who  were  English  children  in  1850  —  I  do 
not  know  whether  they  delight  children  still,  or  have  been  thrown 
aside  for  more  highly  spiced  food  —  will  remember  the  warm¬ 
hearted  simplicity  and  atmosphere  of  genial  good-will  which 
softened  the  roughness  of  peasant  manners  and  tempered  the 
sternness  of  a  Calvinistic  creed.  It  is  natural  that  the  freedom 
of  intercourse  and  sense  of  interdependence  which  existed 
among  the  early  settlers,  and  which  have  existed  ever  since 
among  the  pioneers  of  colonization  in  the  West  as  they  moved 
from  the  Connecticut  to  the  Mohawk,  from  the  Mohawk  to  the 
Ohio,  from  the  Ohio  to  the  Mississippi,  should  have  left  on 
the  national  character  traces  not  effaced  even  in  the  more  arti- 


chap,  cxix  PLEASANTNESS  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


877 


ficial  civilization  of  our  own  time.  Something  may  be  set  clown 
to  the  feeling  of  social  equality,  creating  that  respect  for  a  man 
as  a  man,  whether  he  be  rich  or  poor,  which  was  described  a  few 
pages  back ;  and  something  to  a  regard  for  the  sentiment  of  the 
multitude,  a  sentiment  which  forbids  any  man  to  stand  aloof 
in  the  conceit  of  self-importance,  and  holds  up  geniality  and 
good  fellowship  as  almost  the  first  of  social  virtues.  I  do  not 
mean  that  a  man  consciously  suppresses  his  impulses  to  selfish¬ 
ness  or  gruffness  because  he  knows  that  his  faults  will  be  ill 
regarded ;  but  that,  having  grown  up  in  a  society  which  is  in¬ 
finitely  powerful  as  compared  with  the  most  powerful  person 
in  it,  he  has  learnt  to  realize  his  individual  insignificance,  as 
members  of  the  upper  class  in  Europe  never  do,  and  has  be¬ 
come  permeated  by  the  feeling  which  this  society  entertains  — 
that  each  one’s  duty  is  not  only  to  accept  equality,  but  also  to 
relish  equality,  and  to  make  himself  pleasant  to  his  equals. 
Thus  the  habit  is  formed  even  in  natures  of  no  special  sweet¬ 
ness,  and  men  become  kindly  by  doing  kindly  acts. 

Whether,  however,  these  suggestions  be  right  or  wrong,  there 
is  no  doubt  as  to  the  fact  which  they  attempt  to  explain.  I 
do  not,  of  course,  give  it  merely  as  the  casual  impression  of 
European  visitors,  whom  a  singularly  frank  and  ready  hospi¬ 
tality  welcomes  and  makes  much  of.  I  base  it  on  the  reports  of 
European  friends  who  have  lived  for  years  in  the  United  States, 
and  whose  criticism  of  the  ways  and  notions  of  the  people  is  keen 
enough  to  show  that  they  are  no  partial  witnesses. 


CHAPTER  CXX 


THE  UNIFORMITY  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 

To  the  pleasantness  of  American  life  there  is  one,  and  perhaps 
only  one,  serious  drawback  —  its  uniformity.  Those  who  have 
been  struck  by  the  size  of  America,  and  by  what  they  have  heard 
of  its  restless  excitement,  may  be  surprised  at  the  word.  They 
would  have  guessed  that  an  unquiet  changefulness  and  turmoil 
were  the  disagreeables  to  be  feared.  But  uniformity,  which  the 
European  visitor  begins  to  note  when  he  has  travelled  for  a 
month  or  two,  is  the  feature  of  the  country  which  Englishmen 
who  have  lived  long  there,  and  Americans  who  are  familiar 
with  Europe,  most  frequently  revert  to  when  asked  to  say  what 
is  the  “crook  in  their  lot.” 

It  is  felt  in  many  ways.  I  will  name  a  few. 

It  is  felt  in  the  aspects  of  nature.  All  the  natural  features 
of  the  United  States  are  on  a  larger  scale  than  those  of  Europe. 
The  four  chief  mountain  chains  are  each  of  them  longer  than  the 
Alps.1  Of  the  gigantic  rivers  and  of  those  inland  seas  we  call 
the  Great  Lakes  one  need  not  speak.  The  centre  of  the  continent 
is  occupied  by  a  plain  larger  than  the  western  half  of  Europe. 
In  the  Mississippi  Valley,  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  Lake 
Superior,  there  is  nothing  deserving  to  be  called  a  hill,  though, 
as  one  moves  westward  from  the  great  river,  long  soft  undulations 
in  the  boundless  prairie  begin  to  appear.  Through  vast  stretches 
of  country  one  finds  the  same  physical  character  maintained  with 
little  change  —  the  same  strata,  the  same  vegetation,  a  generally 
similar  climate.  From  the  point  where  you  leave  the  Allegha- 
nies  at  Pittsburg,  until  long  after  crossing  the  Missouri,  you  ap¬ 
proach  what  is  left  of  the  untilled  prairie  of  the  West,  a  railway 


1  The  Alleghanies,  continued  in  the  Green  and  White  Mountains,  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  the  Sierra  Nevada,  continued  in  the  Cascade  Range,  and  the  Coast 
Ranges,  which  border  the  Pacific. 


878 


chap,  cxx  UNIFORMITY  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


879 


run  of  some  twelve  hundred  miles,  there  is  a  uniformity  of  land¬ 
scape  greater  than  could  be  found  along  any  one  hundred  miles 
of  railway  run  in  Western  Europe.  Everywhere  the  same  nearly 
flat  country,  over  which  you  cannot  see  far,  because  you  are 
little  raised  above  it,  the  same  fields  and  crops,  the  same  rough 
wooden  fences,  the  same  thickets  of  the  same  bushes  along 
the  stream  edges,  with  here  and  there  a  bit  of  old  forest ;  the 
same  solitary  farmhouses  and  straggling  wood-built  villages. 
And  when  one  has  passed  beyond  the  fields  and  farmhouses,  there 
is  an  even  more  unvaried  stretch  of  slightly  rolling  prairie, 
smooth  and  bare,  till  after  three  hundred  miles  the  blue  line  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  rises  upon  the  western  horizon. 

There  are  some  extraordinary  natural  phenomena,  such  as  Ni¬ 
agara,  the  Yellowstone  Geysers,  and  above  all  the  indescribably 
grand  and  solemn  canon  of  the  Colorado  River,  which  the  Old 
World  cannot  equal.  But  taking  the  country  as  a  whole,  and 
remembering  that  it  is  a  continent,  it  is  not  more  rich  in  pic¬ 
turesque  beauty  than  the  much  smaller  western  half  of  Europe. 
The  long  Alleghany  range  contains  a  good  deal  of  pretty  scenery 
and  a  few  really  romantic  spots,  but  hardly  anything  so  charming 
as  the  best  bits  of  Scotland  or  Southern  Ireland,  or  the  English 
Lake  country.  The  Rocky  Mountains  are  pierced  by  some 
splendid  gorges,  such  as  that  famous  one  through  which  the 
Arkansas  River  descends  to  South  Pueblo,  and  show  some  very 
grand  prospects,  such  as  that  over  the  Great  Salt  Lake  from 
the  Mormon  capital.  But  neither  the  Rocky  Mountains,  with 
their  dependent  ranges,  nor  the  Sierra  Nevada,  can  be  compared 
for  variety  of  grandeur  and  beauty  with  the  Alps ;  for  although 
each  chain  nearly  equals  the  Alps  in  height,  and  covers  a  greater 
area,  they  have  little  snow,  no  glaciers,1  and  a  singular  uniformity 
of  character.  One  finds,  I  think,  less  variety  in  the  whole  chain 
of  the  Rockies  than  in  the  comparatively  short  Pyrenees. 
There  are,  indeed,  in  the  whole  United  States  very  few  quite 
first-rate  pieces  of  mountain  scenery  rivalling  the  best  of  the 
Old  World.  The  most  impressive  are  two  or  three  of  the  deep 
valleys  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  (of  which  the  Yosemite  is  the  best 
known),  and  the  superb  line  of  extinct  volcanoes,  bearing  snow- 
fields  and  glaciers,  which  one  sees,  rising  out  of  vast  and  sombre 
forests,  from  the  banks  of  the  Columbia  River  and  the  shores  of 

1  There  are  a  few  inconsiderable  glaciers  in  the  northernmost  part  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  a  small  one  on  Mount  Shasta. 


880 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Puget  Sound.1  So  the  Atlantic  coast,  though  there  are  charming 
bits  between  Newport  and  the  New  Brunswick  frontier,  cannot 
vie  with  the  coasts  of  Scotland,  Ireland,  or  Norway;  while 
southward  from  New  York  to  Florida  it  is  everywhere  flat  and 
often  dreary.  In  the  United  States  people  take  journeys  pro¬ 
portionate  to  the  size  of  the  country.  A  family  thinks  nothing 
of  going  twelve  hundred  miles,  from  St.  Louis  to  Cape  May 
(near  Philadelphia),  for  a  seaside  holiday.  But  even  journeys 
of  twelve  hundred  miles  do  not  give  an  American  so  much  change 
of  scene  and  variety  of  surroundings  as  a  Parisian  has  when  he 
goes  to  Luchon,  or  a  Berliner  to  Berchtesgaden.  The  man  who 
lives  in  the  section  of  America  which  seems  destined  to  contain 
the  largest  population,  I  mean  the  States  on  the  Upper  Missis¬ 
sippi,  lives  in  the  midst  of  a  plain  wider  than  the  plains  of  Russia, 
and  must  travel  hundreds  of  miles  to  escape  from  its  monotony. 

When  we  turn  from  the  aspects  of  nature  to  the  cities  of  men, 
the  uniformity  is  even  more  remarkable.  With  eight  or  nine 
exceptions  to  be  mentioned  presently,  American  cities  differ 
from  one  another  only  herein,  that  some  of  them  are  built 
more  with  brick  than  with  wood,  and  others  more  with 

wood  than  with  brick.  In  all  else  they  are  alike,  both 

great  and  small.  In  all  the  same  wide  streets,  crossing  at 

right  angles,  ill-paved,  but  planted  along  the  sidewalks  with 
maple  trees  whose  autumnal  scarlet  surpasses  the  brilliance 
of  any  European  foliage.2  In  all  the  same  shops,  arranged 
on  the  same  plan,  the  same  Chinese  laundries,  with  Li  Kow 


1  Want  of  space  compels  the  omission  of  the  chapters  which  were  intended 
to  describe  the  scenery  of  the  United  States  and  conjecture  its  probable  future 
influence  on  the  character  of  the  people. 

The  Great  West,  from  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the 
Pacific,  has  many  striking  and  impressive  pieces  of  scenery  to  show.  Never¬ 
theless  its  mountains  are  less  beautiful  than  the  Alps,  just  as  the  mountains 
of  Asia  Minor,  even  when  equal  or  superior  in  height,  are  less  beautiful,  and 
largely  for  the  same  reason.  They  are  much  drier,  and  have  therefore  fewer 
streams  and  less  variety  and  wealth  of  vegetation,  the  upper  zone  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada  and  Cascade  Range  excepted  ;  and  the  Rockies,  as  they  run  north  and 
south,  present  less  of  a  contrast  between  their  two  sides  than  do  the  northern 
and  southern  declivities  of  the  Alps  or  the  Caucasus.  The  Deserts  have  a 
strange  weird  beauty  of  their  own,  unlike  anything  in  Europe. 

2  In  the  newer  cities  one  set  of  parallel  streets  is  named  by  numbers,  the  others, 
which  cross  them  at  right  angles,  are  in  some  instances,  as  in  New  York,  called 
avenues,  and  so  numbered.  In  Washington  the  avenues  are  called  after  States, 
and  of  the  two  sets  of  streets  (which  the  avenues  cross  obliquely),  one  is  called 
by  numbers,  the  other  by  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  a  convenient  but  unpleas¬ 
ing  system. 


chap,  cxx  UNIFORMITY  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


881 


visible  through  the  window,  the  same  ice-cream  stores,  the 
same  large  hotels  with  seedy  men  hovering  about  in  the  cheer¬ 
less  entrance-hall,  the  same  street  cars  passing  to  and  fro  with 
passengers  clinging  to  the  door-step,  the  same  locomotives  ring¬ 
ing  their  great  bells  as  they  clank  slowly  down  the  middle  of  the 
street.  I  admit  that  in  external  aspect  there  is  a  sad  monotony 
in  the  larger  towns  of  England  also.  Compare  English  cities 
with  Italian  cities,  and  most  of  the  former  seem  like  one  another, 
incapable  of  being,  so  to  speak,  individualized  as  you  individu¬ 
alize  a  man  with  a  definite  character  and  aspect  unlike  that  of 
other  men.  Take- the  Lancashire  towns,  for  instance,  large  and 
prosperous  places.  You  cannot  individualize  Bolton  or  Wigan, 
Oldham  or  Bury,  except  by  trying  to  remember  that  Bury 
is  slightly  less  rough  than  Oldham,  and  Wigan  a  thought  more 
grimy  than  Bolton.  But  in  Italy  every  city  has  its  character, 
its  memories,  its  life  and  achievements,  wrought  into  the  pillars 
of  its  churches  and  the  towers  that  stand  along  its  ramparts. 
Siena  is  not  like  Perugia,  nor  Perugia  like  Orvieto ;  Ravenna, 
Rimini,  Pesaro,  Fano,  Ancona,  Osimo,  standing  along  the  same 
coast  within  seventy  miles  of  one  another,  have  each  of  them  a 
character,  a  sentiment,  what  one  may  call  an  idiosyncrasy,  which 
comes  vividly  back  to  us  at  the  mention  of  its  name.  Now, 
what  English  towns  are  to  Italian,  that  American  towns  are  to 
English.  They  are  in  some  ways  pleasanter ;  they  are  cleaner, 
there  is  less  poverty,  less  squalor,  less  darkness.  But  their 
monotony  haunts  one  like  a  nightmare.  Even  the  irksomeness 
of  finding  the  streets  named  by  numbers  becomes  insufferable. 
It  is  doubtless  convenient  to  know  by  the  number  how  far  up  the 
city  the  particular  street  is.  But  you  cannot  give  any  sort 
of  character  to  Fifty-third  Street,  for  the  name  refuses  to  lend 
itself  to  any  association.  There  is  something  wearisomely  hard 
and  bare  in  such  a  system. 

I  return  joyfully  to  the  exceptions.  Boston  has  a  character 
of  her  own,  with  her  beautiful  Common,  her  smooth  environ¬ 
ing  waters,  her  Beacon  Hill  crowned  by  the  gilded  dome  of  the 
State  House,  and  Bunker  Hill,  bearing  the  monument  of  the 
famous  fight.  New  York,  besides  a  magnificent  position,  has  in 
the  gigantic  tower-like  buildings  which  have  since  1890  soared 
into  her  sky,  as  well  as  in  the  tremendous  rush  of  men  and 
vehicles  along  the  streets,  as  much  the  air  of  a  great  capital 
as  London  or  Paris  or  Berlin.  Chicago,  with  her  enormous  size 


882 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


and  the  huge  warehouses  that  line  her  endless  thoroughfares, 
now  covered  by  a  dense  smoke  pall,  leaves  an  impression 
which  might  be  gloomy  were  it  not  for  the  stateliness  of  her 
lake  front  with  the  stretch  of  blue  beyond.  Richmond  has  a 
quaint  old-world  look  which  dwells  in  the  memory ;  few  cities 
have  a  prospect  over  shining  waters  finer  than  that  which  the 
heights  of  Cleveland  command.  Kansas  City  has  shown  how 
to  use  a  noble  situation,  for  she  has  laid  out  parks  along  the  val¬ 
leys  and  preserved  the  steep  wooded  slope  of  the  bluff  that  rises 
above  the  broad  flood  of  the  Missouri.  Washington,  with  its 
wide  and  beautifully  graded  avenues,  and  the  glittering  white 
of  the  Capitol,  has  become  since  1880  a  singularly  handsome 
city.  In  April  and  May  it  has  a  woodland  charm  unequalled 
by  any  other  great  city  in  the  world.  Charleston  has  the  air 
of  an  English  town  of  last  century,  though  lapped  in  a  far 
richer  vegetation,  and  with  the  shining  softness  of  summer 
seas  spread  out  before  it.  And  New  Orleans  —  or  rather  the 
Creole  quarter  of  New  Orleans,  for  the  rest  of  the  city  is 
commonplace  —  is  delicious,  suggesting  old  France  and  Spain, 
yet  a  France  and  Spain  strangely  transmuted  in  this  new  clime. 
I  have  seen  nothing  in  America  more  picturesque  than  the 
Rue  Royale,  with  its  houses  of  all  heights,  often  built  round 
a  courtyard,  where  a  magnolia  or  an  orange-tree  stands  in 
the  middle,  and  wooden  external  staircases  lead  up  to 
wooden  galleries,  the  house  fronts  painted  of  all  colours,  and 
carrying  double  rows  of  balconies  decorated  with  pretty  iron¬ 
work,  the  whole  standing  languid  and  still  in  the  warm  soft  air, 
and  touched  with  the  subtle  fragrance  of  decay.  Here  in  New 
Orleans  the  streets  and  public  buildings,  and  specially  the  old 
City  Hall,  with  the  arms  of  Spain  still  upon  it,  speak  of  history. 
One  feels,  in  stepping  across  Canal  Street  from  the  Creole  quarter 
to  the  business  parts  of  the  town,  that  one  steps  from  an  old 
nationality  to  a  new  one,  that  this  city  must  have  had  vicissitudes, 
that  it  represents  something,  and  that  something  one  of  the 
great  events  of  history,  the  surrender  of  the  northern  half  of  the 
New  World  by  the  Romano-Celtic  races  to  the  Teutonic.  Que¬ 
bec  and  (in  some  slight  degree)  Montreal,  fifteen  hundred 
miles  away,  tell  the  same  tale;  Santa  Fe  in  New  Mexico  repeats 
it. 

It  is  the  absence  in  nearly  all  the  American  cities  of  anything 
that  speaks  of  the  past  that  makes  their  external  aspect  so  un- 


chap,  cxx  UNIFORMITY  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


883 


suggestive.  In  pacing  their  busy  streets  and  admiring  their 
handsome  city  halls  and  churches,  one’s  heart  sinks  at  the  feel¬ 
ing  that  nothing  historically  interesting  ever  has  happened  here, 
perhaps  ever  will  happen.  In  many  an  English  town,  however 
ugly  with  its  smoke  and  its  new  suburbs,  one  sees  at  least  an 
ancient  church,  one  can  discover  some  fragments  of  a  castle 
or  a  city  wall.  Even  Wigan  and  Northampton  have  ancient 
churches,  though  Northampton  lately  allowed  the  North-west¬ 
ern  Railway  to  destroy  the  last  traces  of  the  castle  where  Henry 
II.  issued  his  Assize.  But  in  America  hardly  any  public  build¬ 
ing  is  associated  with  anything  more  interesting  than  a  big 
party  convention ;  and,  nowadays,  even  the  big  conventions 
are  held  in  temporary  structures,  whose  materials  are  sold  when 
the  politicians  have  dispersed.  Nowhere,  perhaps,  does  this 
sense  of  the  absolute  novelty  of  all  things  strike  one  so  strongly 
as  in  San  Francisco.  Few  cities  in  the  world  can  vie  with  her 
either  in  the  beauty  or  in  the  natural  advantages  of  her  situation  ; 
indeed,  there  are  only  three  places  in  Europe  —  Constantinople, 
Corinth,  and  Gibraltar  —  that  combine  an  equally  perfect 
landscape  with  what  may  be  called  an  equally  imperial  position. 
Before  you  there  is  the  magnificent  bay,  with  its  far-stretching 
arms  and  rocky  isles,  and  beyond  it  the  faint  line  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada,  cutting  the  clear  air  like  mother-of-pearl ;  behind  there 
is  the  roll  of  the  ocean  ;  to  the  left,  the  majestic  gateway  between 
mountains  through  which  ships  bear  in  commerce  from  the  farthest 
shores  of  the  Pacific ;  to  the  right,  valleys  rich  with  corn  and 
wine,  sweeping  away  to  the  southern  horizon.  The  city  itself 
is  full  of  bold  hills,  rising  steeply  from  the  deep  water.  The  air 
is  keen,  dry,  and  bright,  like  the  air  of  Greece,  and  the  waters 
not  less  blue.  Perhaps  it  is  this  air  and  light,  recalling  the 
cities  of  the  Mediterranean,  that  make  one  involuntarily  look 
up  to  the  top  of  these  hills  for  the  feudal  castle,  or  the  ruins  of 
the  Acropolis,  which  one  thinks  must  crown  them.  I  found 
myself  so  looking  all  the  time  I  remained  in  the  city.  But  on 
none  of  these  heights  is  there  anything  more  interesting,  any¬ 
thing  more  vocal  to  the  student  of  the  past,  than  huge  hotels, 
or  the  sumptuous  villas  of  railway  magnates,  who  have  chosen 
a  hill-top  to  display  their  wealth  to  the  city,  but  have  erected 
houses  like  all  other  houses,  only  larger.  San  Francisco  has  had 
a  good  deal  of  history  since  1846  ;  but  this  history  does  not,  like 
that  of  Greece  or  Italy,  write  itself  in  stone. 


884 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Of  the  uniformity  of  political  institutions  over  the  whole 
United  States  I  have  spoken  already.  Everywhere  the  same 
system  of  State  governments,  everywhere  the  same  municipal 
governments,  and  almost  uniformly  bad  or  good  in  proportion 
to  the  greater  or  smaller  population  of  the  city ;  the  same  party 
machinery  organized  for  the  same  purpose,  “run”  by  the  same 
wirepullers  and  “  workers.”  In  rural  local  government  there 
are  some  diversities  in  the  names,  areas,  and  functions  of  the 
different  bodies,  yet  differences  slight  in  comparison  with  the 
points  of  likeness.  The  schools  are  practically  identical  in 
organization,  in  the  subjects  taught,  in  the  methods  of  teaching, 
though  the  administration  of  them  is  as  completely  decentralized 
as  can  be  imagined,  even  the  State  commissioner  having  no 
right  to  do  more  than  suggest  or  report.  So  it  is  with  the  chari¬ 
table  institutions,  with  the  libraries,  the  lecture-courses,  the 
public  amusements.  All  these  are  more  abundant  and  better 
of  their  kind  in  the  richer  and  more  cultivated  parts  of  the 
country,  generally  better  in  the  North  Atlantic  than  in  the  inland 
States,  and  in  the  West  than  in  the  South.  But  they  are  the 
same  in  type  everywhere.  It  is  the  same  with  social  habits  and 
usages.  There  are  still  differences  between  the  South  and  the 
North ;  and  in  the  Eastern  cities  the  upper  class  is  more  Euro¬ 
peanized  in  its  code  of  etiquette  and  its  ways  of  daily  life.  But 
even  these  variations  tend  to  disappear.  Eastern  customs  begin 
to  permeate  the  West,  beginning  with  the  richer  families;  the 
South  is  more  like  the  North  than  it  was  before  the  war.  Travel 
where  you  will,  you  feel  that  what  you  have  found  in  one  place 
that  you  will  find  in  another.  The  thing  which  hath  been,  will 
be  :  you  can  no  more  escape  from  it  than  you  can  quit  the  land 
to  live  in  the  sea. 

Last  of  all  we  come  to  man  himself  —  to  man  and  to  woman, 
not  less  important  than  man.  The  ideas  of  men  and  women, 
their  fundamental  beliefs  and  their  superficial  tastes,  their 
methods  of  thinking  and  their  fashions  of  talking,  are  what  most 
concern  their  fellow-men ;  and  if  there  be  variety  and  freshness 
in  these,  the  uniformity  of  nature  and  the  monotony  of  cities 
signify  but  little.  If  I  observe  that  in  these  respects  also  the 
similarity  of  type  over  the  country  is  surprising,  I  shall  be  asked 
whether  I  am  not  making  the  old  mistake  of  the  man  who  fancied 
all  Chinese  were  like  one  another,  because,  noticing  the  dress  and 
the  pigtail,  he  did  not  notice  minor  differences  of  feature.  A 


chap,  cxx  UNIFORMITY  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


885 


scholar  is  apt  to  think  that  all  business  men  write  the  same  hand, 
and  a  business  man  thinks  the  same  of  all  scholars.  Perhaps 
Americans  think  all  Englishmen  alike.  And  I  may  also  be 
asked  with  whom  I  am  comparing  the  Americans.  With 
Europe  as  a  whole  ?  If  so,  is  it  not  absurd  to  expect  that  the 
differences  between  different  sections  in  one  people  should  be 
as  marked  as  those  between  different  peoples?  The  United 
States  are  larger  than  Europe,  but  Europe  has  many  races  and 
many  languages,  among  whom  contrasts  far  broader  must  be 
expected  than  between  one  people,  even  if  it  stretches  over  a 
continent. 

It  is  most  clearly  not  with  Europe,  but  with  each  of  the  leading 
European  peoples  that  we  must  compare  the  people  of  America. 
So  comparing  them  with  the  peoples  of  Britain,  France,  Ger¬ 
many,  Italy,  Spain,  one  discovers  more  varieties  between  indi¬ 
viduals  in  these  European  peoples  than  one  finds  in  America. 
Scotchmen  and  Irishmen  are  more  unlike  Englishmen,  the  native 
of  Normandy  more  unlike  the  native  of  Provence,  the  Pomer¬ 
anian  more  unlike  the  Wurtemberger,  the  Piedmontese  more  un¬ 
like  the  Neapolitan,  the  Basque  more  unlike  the  Andalusian,  than 
the  American  from  any  part  of  the  country  is  to  the  American 
from  any  other.  Differences  of  course  there  are  between  the 
human  type  as  developed  in  different  regions  of  the  country,  — 
differences  moral  and  intellectual  as  well  as  physical.  You  can 
generally  tell  a  Southerner  by  his  look  as  well  as  by  his  speech, 
and  the  South,  as  a  whole,  has  a  character  of  its  own,  propagated 
from  the  older  Atlantic  to  the  newer  Western  States.  A  native 
of  Maine  will  probably  differ  from  a  native  of  Kentucky,  a  Geor¬ 
gian  from  an  Oregonian.  But  these  differences  strike  even  an 
American  observer  much  as  the  difference  between  a  Yorkshire- 
man  and  a  Warwickshire  man  strikes  the  English,  and  is  slighter 
than  the  contrast  between  a  middle-class  southern  Englishman 
and  a  middle-class  Scotchman,  slighter  than  the  differences  be¬ 
tween  a  peasant  from  Northumberland  and  a  peasant  from 
Dorsetshire.  Or,  to  take  another  way  of  putting  it :  If  at 
some  great  gathering  of  a  political  party  from  all  parts  of  the 
United  Kingdom  you  were  to  go  round  and  talk  to,  say,  one 
hundred,  taken  at  random,  of  the  persons  present,  you  would  be 
struck  by  more  diversity  between  the  notions  and  tastes  and 
mental  habits  of  the  individuals  comprising  that  one  hundred 
than  if  you  tried  the  same  experiment  with  a  hundred  Americans 


886 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


of  similar  education  and  position,  similarly  gathered  in  a  con¬ 
vention  from  every  State  in  the  Union. 

I  do  not  in  the  least  mean  that  people  are  more  commonplace 
in  America  than  in  England,  or  that  the  Americans  are  less  ideal 
than  the  English.  Neither  of  these  statements  would  be  true. 
On  the  contrary,  the  average  American  is  more  alive  to  new  ideas, 
more  easily  touched  through  his  imagination  or  his  emotions, 
than  the  average  Englishman  or  Frenchman.  He  has  a  keen 
sense  of  humour,  and  an  unquenchable  faith  in  the  future.  I 
mean  only  that  the  native-born  Americans  appear  to  vary  less, 
in  fundamentals,  from  what  may  be  called  the  dominant  Ameri¬ 
can  type  than  Englishmen,  Germans,  Frenchmen,  Spaniards,  or 
Italians  do  from  any  type  which  could  be  taken  as  the  dominant 
type  in  any  of  those  nations.  Or,  to  put  the  same  thing  dif¬ 
ferently,  it  is  rather  more  difficult  to  take  any  assemblage  of 
attributes  in  any  of  these  European  countries  and  call  it  the 
national  type  than  it  is  to  do  the  like  in  the  United  States. 

These  are  not  given  as  the  impressions  of  a  traveller.  Such 
impressions,  being  necessarily  hasty,  and  founded  on  a  compara¬ 
tively  narrow  observation,  would  deserve  little  confidence. 
They  sum  up  the  conclusions  of  Europeans  long  resident  in 
America,  and  familiar  with  different  parts  of  the  country. 
They  are,  I  think,  admitted  by  the  most  acute  Americans  them¬ 
selves.  I  have  often  heard  the  latter  dilate  on  what  seems  to 
them  the  one  crowning  merit  of  life  in  Europe  —  the  variety 
it  affords,  the  opportunities  it  gives  of  easy  and  complete  changes 
of  scene  and  environment.  The  pleasure  which  an  American 
finds  in  crossing  the  Atlantic,  a  pleasure  more  intense  than  any 
which  the  European  enjoys,  is  that  of  passing  from  a  land  of 
happy  monotony  into  regions  where  everything  is  redolent  with 
memories  of  the  past,  and  derives  from  the  past  no  less  than 
from  the  present  a  wealth  and  a  subtle  complexity  of  interest 
which  no  new  country  can  possess. 

Life  in  America  is  in  most  ways  pleasanter,  simpler,  less  cum¬ 
bered  by  conventions  than  in  Europe ;  it  floats  in  a  sense  of 
happiness  like  that  of  a  radiant  summer  morning.  But  life  in 
any  of  the  great  European  centres  is  capable  of  an  intensity,  a 
richness  blended  of  many  elements,  which  has  not  yet  been 
reached  in  America.  There  are  more  problems  in  Europe  call¬ 
ing  for  solution  ;  there  is  more  passion  in  the  struggles  that  rage 
round  them ;  the  past  more  frequently  kindles  the  present  with 


chap,  cxx  UNIFORMITY  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


887 


a  glow  of  imaginative  light.  In  whichever  country  of  Europe 
one  dwells,  one  feels  that  the  other  countries  are  near,  that 
the  fortunes  of  their  peoples  are  bound  up  with  the  fortunes  of 
one’s  own,  that  ideas  are  shooting  to  and  fro  between  them. 
The  web  of  history  woven  day  by  day  all  over  Europe  is  vast 
and  of  many  colours :  it  is  fateful  to  every  European.  But  in 
America  it  is  only  the  philosopher  who  can  feel  that  it  will 
ultimately  be  fateful  to  Americans  also ;  to  the  ordinary  man 
the  Old  World  seems  far  off,  severed  by  a  dissociating  ocean,  its 
mighty  burden  with  little  meaning  for  him. 

Those  who  have  observed  the  uniformity  I  have  been  attempt¬ 
ing  to  describe  have  commonly  set  it  down,  as  Europeans  do 
most  American  phenomena,  to  what  they  call  Democracy. 
Democratic  government  has  in  reality  not  much  to  do  with  it, 
except  in  so  far  as  such  a  government  helps  to  induce  that  defer¬ 
ence  of  individuals  to  the  mass  which  strengthens  a  dominant 
type,  whether  of  ideas,  of  institutions,  or  of  manners.  More 
must  be  ascribed  to  the  equality  of  material  conditions,  still 
more  general  than  in  Europe,  to  the  fact  that  nearly  every  one 
is  engaged  either  in  agriculture,  or  in  commerce,  or  in  some  hand¬ 
icraft,  to  the  extraordinary  mobility  of  the  population,  which, 
in  migrating  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another,  brings  the 
characteristics  of  each  part  into  the  others,  to  the  diffusion 
of  education,  to  the  cheapness  of  literature  and  universal  habit 
of  reading,  which  enable  every  one  to  know  what  every  one  else 
is  thinking,  but  above  all,  to  the  newness  of  the  country,  and  the 
fact  that  four-fifths  of  it  have  been  made  all  at  a  stroke,  and 
therefore  all  of  a  piece,  as  compared  with  the  slow  growth  by 
which  European  countries  have  developed.  Newness  is  the 
cause  of  uniformity,  not  merely  in  the  external  aspect  of  cities, 
villages,  farmhouses,  but  in  other  things  also,  for  the  institutions 
and  social  habits  which  belonged  a  century  ago  to  a  group  of 
small  communities  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  have  been  rapidly 
extended  over  an  immense  area,  each  band  of  settlers  naturally 
seeking  to  retain  its  customs,  and  to  plant  in  the  new  soil  shoots 
from  which  trees  like  those  of  the  old  home  might  spring  up. 
The  variety  of  European  countries  is  due,  not  only  to  the  fact 
that  their  race-elements  have  not  yet  become  thoroughly  com¬ 
mingled,  but  also  that  many  old  institutions  have  survived 
among  the  new  ones ;  as  in  a  city  that  grows  but  slowly,  old 
buildings  are  not  cleared  away  to  make  room  for  others  more 


888 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


suited  to  modern  commerce,  but  are  allowed  to  stand,  sometimes 
empty  and  unused,  sometimes  half  adapted  to  new  purposes. 
This  scarcely  happens  in  America.  Doubtless  many  American 
institutions  are  old,  and  were  old  before  they  were  carried  across 
the  Atlantic.  But  they  have  generally  received  a  new  dress, 
which,  in  adapting  them  to  the  needs  of  to-day,  conceals  their 
ancient  character ;  and  the  form  in  which  they  have  been 
diffused  or  reproduced  in  the  different  States  of  the  Union  is 
in  all  those  States  practically  identical. 

In  each  of  the  great  European  countries  the  diversity  of  prim¬ 
eval  and  mediaeval  times,  when  endless  varieties  of  race,  speech, 
and  faith  existed  within  the  space  of  a  few  hundred  miles,  has 
been  more  or  less  preserved  by  segregative  influences.  In 
America  a  small  race,  of  the  same  speech  and  faith,  has  spread 
itself  out  over  a  vast  area,  and  has  hitherto  been  strong  enough 
to  impose  its  own  type,  not  only  on  the  Dutch  and  other  early 
settlers  of  the  Middle  States,  but  on  the  huge  immigrant  masses 
who  have  been  arriving  since  the  middle  of  last  century. 

There  are  now  in  America  more  Irish  people,  and  children 
of  Irish  people,  than  there  are  in  Ireland ;  while  large  tracts  in 
the  country  and  some  of  the  cities  are  in  speech  rather  German 
than  American,  so  much  so  that  public  documents  are  issued  in 
both  tongues.1  Yet  neither  the  Celtic  nor  the  Teutonic  incomers, 
much  less  the  more  recent  Slavs  and  Italians,  have  as  yet 
substantially  affected  the  national  character  and  habits. 

May  one,  then,  expect  that  when  novelty  has  worn  off,  and 
America  counts  her  life  by  centuries  instead  of  by  decades, 
variety  will  develop  itself,  and  such  complexities,  or  diversi¬ 
ties,  or  incongruities  (whichever  one  is  to  call  them)  as  European 
countries  present,  be  deeper  and  more  numerous  ? 

As  regards  the  outside  of  things,  this  seems  unlikely.  Many 
of  the  small  towns  of  to-day  will  grow  into  large  towns,  a  few 
of  the  large  towns  into  great  cities,  but  as  they  grow,  they 
will  not  become  less  like  one  another.  There  may  be  larger 
theatres  and  hotels,  more  churches  (in  spite  of  secularist  lec¬ 
turers)  and  handsomer  ones ;  but  what  is  to  make  the  theatres 
and  churches  of  one  city  differ  from  those  of  another  ?  Fashion 

1  Even  so  far  back  as  the  presidential  contest  of  1892  “campaign  docu¬ 
ments”  were  published  by  the  Democratic  National  Committee  in  German, 
French,  Italian,  Swedish,  Norse,  Polish,  Dutch,  Welsh,  and  Hebrew ;  and 
newspapers  were  distributed  printed  in  Czech,  Hungarian,  and  Spanish. 


CHAP.  CXX 


UNIFORMITY  OF  AMERICAN  LIFE 


889 


and  the  immense  facilities  of  intercourse  tend  to  wear  down  even 
such  diversities  in  the  style  of  building  or  furnishing,  or  in  modes 
of  locomotion,  or  in  amusements  and  forms  of  social  intercourse, 
as  now  exist. 

As  regards  ideas  and  the  inner  life  of  men,  the  question  is  a 
more  difficult  one.  At  present  there  are  only  two  parts  of  the 
country  where  one  looks  to  meet  with  the  well-marked  individu¬ 
alities  I  refer  to.  One  of  these  is  New  England,  where  the  spirit 
of  English  Puritanism,  expressed  in  quite  other  forms  by  Emerson 
and  his  associates,  did  produce  a  peculiar  type  of  thinking  and 
discoursing,  which  has  now,  however,  died  out ;  and  where  one 
still  meets,  especially  among  the  cultivated  classes,  a  number 
possibly  larger  than  elsewhere  of  persons  who  have  thought  and 
studied  for  themselves,  and  are  unlike  their  fellows.1  The  other 
part  of  the  country  is  the  Far  West,  where  the  wild  life  led  by 
pioneers  in  exploration,  or  ranching,  or  gold-mining  produced  a 
number  of  striking  figures,  men  of  extraordinary  self-reliance, 
with  a  curious  mixture  of  geniality  and  reckless  hardihood,  no 
less  indifferent  to  their  own  lives  than  to  the  lives  of  others. 
Of  preserving  this  latter  type  there  was  never  much  hope ;  the 
swift  march  of  civilization  has  now  almost  expunged  it.  Before 
the  end  of  the  twentieth  century  the  natural  resources  of  the 
country  will  have  been  completely  developed  and  some  of  them 
exhausted.  Railway  construction  will  have  slackened.  Few 
if  any  irrigation  works  will  remain  to  be  made.  Some  of  the 
present  opportunities  for  amassing  vast  fortunes  will  have  van¬ 
ished.  When  lines  of  work  that  are  now  open  and  stimulants  to 
ambition  that  are  now  operative  have  become  less  numerous  or 
less  potent,  upon  what  will  the  eager  and  restless  energy  of 
the  American  expend  itself  ?  Or  will  that  eagerness  itself  abate 
when  the  present  stimuli  have  become  less  insistent  ? 

When  one  sees  millions  of  people  thinking  the  same  thoughts 
and  reading  the  same  books,  and  perceives  that  as  the  multi¬ 
tude  grows,  its  influence  becomes  always  stronger,  it  is  hard 
to  imagine  how  new  points  of  repulsion  and  contrast  are  to 
arise,  new  diversities  of  sentiment  and  doctrine  to  be 
developed.  Nevertheless  it  may  be  hoped  that  as  the  intel¬ 
lectual  proficiency  and  speculative  play  of  mind  which  are  now 

1  The  old-fashioned  Puritan  farmer  has  vanished  from  Massachusetts  ;  when 
he  went  West,  attracted  by  the  greater  richness  of  the  soil,  Irishmen,  and  now 
Poles  also,  have  come  in  his  place. 


890 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


confined  to  a  comparatively  small  class  become  more  generally 
diffused,  as  the  pressure  of  effort  towards  material  success  is 
relaxed,  as  the  number  of  men  devoted  to  science,  art,  and  learn¬ 
ing  increases,  so  will  the  dominance  of  what  may  be  called  the 
business  mind  decline,  and  with  a  richer  variety  of  knowledge, 
tastes,  and  pursuits,  there  will  come  also  a  larger  crop  of  marked 
individualities,  and  of  divergent  intellectual  types. 

Time  will  take  away  some  of  the  monotony  due  to  the  absence 
of  historical  associations :  for  even  if,  as  is  to  be  hoped,  there 
comes  no  war  to  make  battlefields  famous  like  those  of  the  Civil 
War,  yet  literature  and  the  lives  of  the  famous  men  cannot  but 
attach  to  many  spots  associations  to  which  the  blue  of  distance 
will  at  last  give  a  romantic  interest.  No  people  could  be  more 
ready  than  are  the  Americans  to  cherish  such  associations. 
Their  country  has  a  short  past,  but  they  willingly  revere  and 
preserve  all  the  memories  the  past  has  bequeathed  to  them. 


CHAPTER  CXXI 


THE  TEMPER  OF  THE  WEST 

Western  America  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  subjects 
of  study  the  modem  world  has  seen.  There  has  been  nothing 
in  the  past  resembling  its  growth,  and  probably  there  will  be 
nothing  in  the  future.  A  vast  territory,  wonderfully  rich  in 
natural  resources  of  many  kinds ;  a  temperate  and  healthy  cli¬ 
mate  fit  for  European  labor ;  a  soil  generally,  and  in  many 
places  marvellously,  fertile ;  in  some  regions  mountains  full  of 
minerals,  in  others  trackless  forests  where  every  tree  is  over 
two  hundred  feet  high ;  and  the  whole  of  this  virtually  unoccu¬ 
pied  territory  thrown  open  to  a  vigorous  race,  with  all  the 
appliances  and  contrivances  of  modern  science  at  its  command, 
—  these  are  phenomena  absolutely  without  precedent  in  his¬ 
tory,  and  which  cannot  recur  elsewhere,  because  our  planet 
contains  no  such  other  favoured  tract  of  country.1 

The  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  settled  in  tropical  countries, 
which  soon  enervated  them.  They  carried  with  them  the  poison 
of  slavery;  their  colonists  were  separated,  some  by  long  land 
journeys,  and  all  by  still  longer  voyages,  from  the  centres  of 
civilization.  But  the  railway  and  the  telegraph  follow  the 
Western  American.  The  Greeks  of  the  sixth  and  seventh  cen¬ 
turies  before  Christ,  who  planted  themselves  all  round  the  coasts 
of  the  Mediterranean,  had  always  enemies,  and  often  powerful 
enemies,  to  overcome  before  they  could  found  even  their 
trading-stations  on  the  coast,  much  less  occupy  the  lands  of  the 
interior.  In  Western  America  the  presence  of  the  Indians 
has  done  no  more  than  give  a  touch  of  romance  or  a  spice  of 
danger  to  the  exploration  of  some  regions,  such  as  Western 

1  Note  to  the  Edition  of  1910. 

This  chapter,  composed  in  1887  after  two  visits  to  the  Far  West,  has  been 
left  almost  as  it  was  then  written,  because  it  describes  a  phase  of  life  which  is 
now  swiftly  disappearing  and  may  never  be  again  seen  elsewhere.  Pioneer  work 
in  the  Rocky  Mountain  and  Pacific  States  is  almost  at  an  end;  and  these  regions 
are  becoming  more  like  the  older  parts  of  the  Republic.  Yet  the  habits  of  those 
days  have  left  their  mark  upon  Western  character. 

891 


892 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Dakota  and  Arizona,  while  over  the  rest  of  the  country  the 
unhappy  aborigines  have  slunk  silently  away,  scarcely  even  com¬ 
plaining  of  the  robbery  of  lands  and  the  violation  of  plighted 
faith.  Nature  and  time  seem  to  have  conspired  to  make  the 
development  of  the  Mississippi  basin  and  the  Pacific  slope  the 
swiftest,  easiest,  completest  achievement  in  the  whole  record 
of  the  civilizing  progress  of  mankind  since  the  founder  of  the 
Egyptian  monarchy  gathered  the  tribes  of  the  Nile  under  one 
government. 

The  details  of  this  development  and  the  statistics  that  illus¬ 
trate  it  have  been  too  often  set  forth  to  need  re-statement 
here.  It  is  of  the  character  and  temper  of  the  men  who  have 
conducted  it  that  I  wish  to  speak,  a  matter  which  has  received 
less  attention,  but  is  essential  to  a  just  conception  of  the  Ameri¬ 
cans  of  to-day.  For  the  West  is  the  most  American  part  of 
America ;  that  is  to  say,  the  part  where  those  features  which 
distinguish  America  from  Europe  come  out  in  the  strongest 
relief.  What  Europe  is  to  Asia,  what  England  is  to  the  rest 
of  Europe,  what  America  is  to  England,  that  the  Western 
States  are  to  the  Atlantic  States,  the  heat  and  pressure  and 
hurry  of  life  always  growing  as  we  follow  the  path  of  the  sun. 
In  Eastern  America  there  are  still  quiet  spots,  in  the  valleys  of 
the  Alleghanies,  for  instance,  in  nooks  of  old  New  England,  in 
university  towns  like  Princeton  or  Amherst,  Ithaca  or  Ann 
Arbor.  In  the  West  there  are  none.  All  is  bustle,  motion,  and 
struggle,  most  so  of  course  among  the  native  Americans,  yet 
even  the  immigrant  from  the  secluded  valleys  of  Thuringia, 
or  the  shores  of  some  Norwegian  fjord,  learns  the  ways  almost 
as  readily  as  the  tongue  of  the  country,  and  is  soon  swept  into 
the  whirlpool. 

It  is  the  most  enterprising  and  unsettled  Americans  that 
come  West ;  and  when  they  have  left  their  old  haunts,  broken 
their  old  ties,  resigned  the  comforts  and  pleasures  of  their  former 
homes,  they  are  resolved  to  obtain  the  wealth  and  success  for 
which  they  have  come.  They  throw  themselves  into  work  with 
a  feverish  yet  sustained  intensity.  They  rise  early,  they  work 
all  day,  they  have  few  pleasures,  few  opportunities  for  relaxation.1 


1  In  the  newer  towns,  which  are  often  nothing  more  than  groups  of  shanties 
with  a  large  hotel,  a  bank,  a  church,  and  inn,  some  drinking-saloons  and  gam¬ 
bling-houses,  there  are  few  women  and  no  homes.  Everybody,  except  recent 
immigrants,  Chinese,  and  the  very  poorest  native  Americans,  lives  in  the  hotel. 


CHAP.  CXXI 


THE  TEMPER  OF  THE  WEST 


893 


I  remember  in  the  young  city  of  Seattle  on  Puget  Sound  to  have 
found  business  in  full  swing  at  seven  o’clock  a.m.  :  the  shops 
open,  the  streets  full  of  people.  Everything  is  speculative,  land 
(or,  as  it  is  usually  called,  “real  estate”)  most  so,  the  value 
of  lots  of  ground  rising  or  falling  perhaps  two  or  three  hundred 
per  cent  in  the  year.  No  one  has  any  fixed  occupation ;  he  is 
a  storekeeper  to-day,  a  ranchman  to-morrow,  a  miner  next  week. 
I  once  found  the  waiters  in  the  chief  hotel  at  Denver,  in  Colorado, 
saving  their  autumn  and  winter  wages  to  start  off  in  the  spring 
“prospecting”  for  silver  “claims”  in  the  mountains.  Few 
men  stay  in  one  of  the  newer  cities  more  than  a  few  weeks  or 
months ;  to  have  been  there  a  whole  year  is  to  be  an  old  inhabit¬ 
ant,  an  oracle  if  you  have  succeeded,  a  by-word  if  you  have  not, 
for  to  prosper  in  the  West  you  must  be  able  to  turn  your  hand 
to  anything,  and  seize  the  chance  to-day  which  every  one  else 
will  have  seen  to-morrow.  This  venturesome  and  shifting  life 
strengthens  the  reckless  and  heedless  habits  of  the  people. 
Everyone  thinks  so  much  of  gaining  that  he  thinks  little  of  spend¬ 
ing,  and  in  the  general  dearness  of  commodities,  food  (in  the 
agricultural  districts)  excepted,  it  seems  not  worth  while  to  care 
about  small  sums.  In  California  for  many  years  no  coin  lower 
than  a  ten-cent  piece  (5d.)  was  in  circulation  ;  and  even  in  1881, 
though  most  articles  of  food  were  abundant,  nothing  was  sold 
at  a  lower  price  than  five  cents.  The  most  striking  alternations 
of  fortune,  the  great  coups  which  fascinate  men  and  make  them 
play  for  all  or  nothing,  are  of  course  commoner  in  mining  regions 
than  elsewhere.1  But  money  is  everywhere  so  valuable  for  the 
purposes  of  speculative  investment,  whether  in  land,  live  stock, 
or  trade,  as  to  fetch  very  high  interest.  At  Walla  Walla  (in 
what  was  then  the  Territory  of  Washington)  I  found  in  1881 
that  the  interest  on  debts  secured  on  good  safe  mortgages  was 
at  the  rate  of  fourteen  per  cent  per  annum,  of  course  payable 
monthly. 

The  carelessness  is  public  as  well  as  private.  Tree  stumps 
were  left  standing  in  the  streets  of  a  large  and  flourishing  town 
like  Leadville,  because  the  municipal  authorities  cannot  be  at 
the  trouble  of  cutting  or  burning  them.  Swamps  were  left  un¬ 
drained  in  the  suburbs  of  a  populous  city  like  Portland,  which 

1  In  California  in  1881  I  was  shown  an  estate  of  600,000  acres  which  was  said 
to  have  been  lately  bought  for  $225,000  (£45,000)  by  a  man  who  has  made  his 
fortune  in  two  years’  mining,  having  come  out  without  a  penny. 


894 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


every  autumn  were  breeding  malarial  fevers;  and  the  risk 
of  accidents  to  be  followed  by  actions  does  not  prevent  the 
railways  from  pushing  on  their  lines  along  loosely  heaped 
embankments,  and  over  curved  trestle  bridges  which  seem  as 
if  they  could  not  stand  a  high  wind  or  the  passage  of  a  heavy 
train. 

This  mixture  of  science  and  rudeness  is  one  of  a  series  of 
singular  contrasts  which  runs  through  the  West,  not  less  con¬ 
spicuous  in  the  minds  of  the  people  than  in  their  surroundings. 
They  value  strong  government,  and  have  a  remarkable  faculty 
for  organizing  some  kind  of  government,  but  they  are  tolerant 
of  lawlessness  which  does  not  directly  attack  their  own  interest. 
Horse-stealing  and  insults  to  women  are  the  two  unpardonable 
offences ;  all  others  are  often  suffered  to  go  unpunished.  I  was 
in  a  considerable  Western  city,  with  a  population  of  70,000 
people,  some  years  ago,  when  the  leading  newspaper  of  the  place, 
commenting  on  one  of  the  train  robberies  that  had  been  frequent 
in  the  State,  observed  that  so  long  as  the  brigands  had  confined 
themselves  to  robbing  the  railway  companies  and  the  express 
companies  of  property  for  whose  loss  the  companies  must  answer, 
no  one  had  greatly  cared,  seeing  that  these  companies  themselves 
robbed  the  public  ;  but  now  that  private  citizens  seemed  in  dan¬ 
ger  of  losing  their  personal  baggage  and  money,  the  prosperity 
of  the  city  might  be  compromised,  and  something  ought  to  be 
done  —  a  sentiment  delivered  with  all  gravity,  as  the  rest  of 
the  article  showed.1  Brigandage  tends  to  disappear  when  the 
country  becomes  populous,  though  there  are  places  in  compara¬ 
tively  old  States  like  Illinois  and  Missouri  where  the  railways 
are  still  unsafe.  But  the  same  heedlessness  suffers  other  evils 
to  take  root,  evils  likely  to  prove  permanent,  including  some 
refinements  of  political  roguery  which  it  is  strange  to  find  amid 
the  simple  life  of  forests  and  prairies. 

Another  such  contrast  is  presented  by  the  tendency  of  this 
shrewd  and  educated  people  to  relapse  into  the  oldest  and  most 
childish  forms  of  superstition.  Fortune-telling,  clairvoyance, 
attempts  to  pry  by  the  help  of  “ mediums”  into  the  book  of  fate, 
are  so  common  in  parts  of  the  West  that  the  newspapers  devote 
a  special  column,  headed  “astrologers,”  to  the  advertisements 

1  This  makes  plausible  the  story  of  the  Texas  judge  who  allowed  murderers 
to  escape  on  points  of  law  till  he  found  the  value  of  real  estate  declining,  when  he 
saw  to  it  that  the  next  few  offenders  were  hanged. 


CHAP.  CXXI 


THE  TEMPER  OF  THE  WEST 


895 


of  these  wizards  and  pythonesses.1  I  have  counted  in  one  issue 
of  a  San  Francisco  newspaper  as  many  as  eighteen  such  adver¬ 
tisements,  six  of  which  were  of  simple  fortune-tellers,  like  those 
who  used  to  beguile  the  peasant  girls  of  Devonshire.  In  fact,  the 
profession  of  a  soothsayer  or  astrologer  is  a  recognized  one  in 
California  now,  as  it  was  in  the  Greece  of  Homer.  Possibly 
the  prevalence  of  mining  speculation,  possibly  the  existence  of  a 
large  mass  of  ignorant  immigrants  from  Europe,  may  help  to 
account  for  the  phenomenon,  which,  as  California  is  deemed  an 
exceptionally  unreligious  State,  illustrates  the  famous  saying 
that  the  less  faith  the  more  superstition. 

All  the  passionate  eagerness,  all  the  strenuous  effort  of  the 
Westerners  is  directed  towards  the  material  development  of  the 
country.  To  open  the  greatest  number  of  mines  and  extract 
the  greatest  quantity  of  ore,  to  scatter  cattle  over  a  thousand 
hills,  to  turn  the  flower-spangled  prairies  of  the  North-west  into 
wheat-fields,  to  cover  the  sunny  slopes  of  the  South-west  with 
vines  and  olives :  this  is  the  end  and  aim  of  their  lives,  this  is 
their  daily  and  nightly  thought  — 

“juvat  Ismara  Baccho 

Conserere  atque  olea  magnum  vestire  Taburnum.” 

The  passion  is  so  absorbing,  and  so  covers  the  horizon  of  public 
as  well  as  private  life  that  it  almost  ceases  to  be  selfish  —  it 
takes  from  its  very  vastness  a  tinge  of  ideality.  To  have  an 
immense  production  of  exchangeable  commodities,  to  force 
from  nature  the  most  she  can  be  made  to  yield,  and  send  it  east 
and  west  by  the  cheapest  routes  to  the  dearest  markets,  making 
one’s  city  a  centre  of  trade,  and  raising  the  price  of  its  real 
estate  —  this,  which  might  not  have  seemed  a  glorious  consum¬ 
mation  to  Isaiah  or  Plato,  is  preached  by  Western  newspapers 
as  a  kind  of  religion.  It  is  not  really,  or  at  least  it  is  not  wholly, 
sordid.  These  people  are  intoxicated  by  the  majestic  scale  of 
the  nature  in  which  their  lot  is  cast,  enormous  mineral  deposits, 
boundless  prairies,  forests  which,  even  squandered  —  wickedly 
squandered  —  as  they  now  are,  will  supply  timber  to  the  United 
States  for  centuries;  a  soil  which,  with  the  rudest  cultivation, 
yields  the  most  abundant  crops,  a  populous  continent  for  their 
market.  They  see  all  round  them  railways  being  built,  telegraph 
wires  laid,  steamboat  lines  across  the  Pacific  projected,  cities 

1  Ohio  in  1883  imposed  a  licence  tax  of  $300  a  year  on  “astrologers,  fortune¬ 
tellers,  clairvoyants,  palmisters,  and  seers.” 


896 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


springing  up  in  the  solitudes,  and  settlers  making  the  wilderness 
to  blossom  like  the  rose.  Their  imagination  revels  in  these  sights 
and  signs  of  progress,  and  they  gild  their  own  struggles  for  for¬ 
tune  with  the  belief  that  they  are  the  missionaries  of  civilization 
and  the  instruments  of  Providence  in  the  greatest  work  the  world 
has  seen.  The  following  extract  from  a  newspaper  published 
at  Tacoma  in  Washington  (then  a  Territory)  expresses  with 
frank  simplicity  the  conception  of  greatness  and  happiness  which 
is  uppermost  in  the  Far  West ;  and  what  may  seem  a  touch  of 
conscious  humour  is,  if  humorous  it  be,  none  the  less  an  expres¬ 
sion  of  sincere  conviction. 

WHY  WE  SHOULD  BE  HAPPY 

\ 

“Because  we  are  practically  at  the  head  of  navigation  on  Puget 
Sound.  Tacoma  is  the  place  where  all  the  surplus  products  of  the  south 
and  of  the  east,  that  are  exported  by  way  of  the  Sound,  must  be  laden 
on  board  the  vessels  that  are  to  carry  them  to  the  four  corners  of  the 
world.  We  should  be  happy  because  being  at  the  head  of  navigation 
on  Puget  Sound,  and  the  shipping  point  for  the  south  and  east,  the  centre 
from  which  shall  radiate  lines  of  commerce  to  every  point  on  the  cir¬ 
cumference  of  the  earth,  we  are  also  nearer  by  many  miles  than  any  other 
town  on  Puget  Sound  to  that  pass  in  the  Cascade  mountains  through 
which  the  Cascade  division  of  the  Northern  Pacific  railroad  will  be  built 
in  the  near  future  ;  not  only  nearer  to  the  Stampede  pass,  but  easily 
accessible  from  there  by  a  railroad  line  of  gentle  grade,  which  is  more 
than  can  be  said  of  any  town  to  the  north  of  us. 

“We  should  be  happy  for  these  reasons  and  because  we  are  connected 
by  rail  with  Portland  on  the  Willamette,  with  St.  Paul,  Chicago,  and 
New  York  ;  because  being  thus  connected  we  are  in  daily  communica¬ 
tion  with  the  social,  political,  and  financial  centres  of  the  western  hemi¬ 
sphere  ;  because  all  the  people  of  the  §outh  and  of  the  east  who  visit 
these  shores  must  first  visit  New  Tacoma  ;  because  from  here  will  be 
distributed  to  the  people  of  the  north-west  all  that  shall  be  brought 
across  the  continent  on  the  cars,  and  from  here  shall  be  distributed  to 
merchants  all  over  the  United  States  the  cargoes  of  ships  returning  here 
from  every  foreign  port  to  load  with  wheat,  coal,  and  lumber.  We 
should  be  and  we  are  happy  because  New  Tacoma  is  the  Pacific  coast 
terminus  of  a  transcontinental  line  of  railroad.  Because  this  is  the 
only  place  on  the  whole  Pacific  coast  north  of  San  Francisco  where 
through  freight  from  New  York  can  be  loaded  on  ship  directly  from  the 
cars  in  which  it  came  from  the  Atlantic  side. 

“Other  reasons  why  we  should  be  happy  are,  that  New  Tacoma  is  in 
the  centre  of  a  country  where  fruits  and  flowers,  vegetables  and  grain, 
grow  in  almost  endless  variety  ;  that  we  are  surrounded  with  everything 
beautiful  in  nature,  that  we  have  scenery  suited  to  every  mood,  and  that 
there  are  opportunities  here  for  the  fullest  development  of  talents  of 


CHAP.  CXXI 


THE  TEMPER  OF  THE  WEST 


897 


every  kind.  We  have  youth,  good  health,  and  opportunity.  What 
more  could  be  asked  ?  ” 

If  happiness  is  thus  procurable,  the  Great  West  ought  to  be 
happy.1  But  there  is  often  a  malignant  influence  at  work  to 
destroy  happiness  in  the  shape  of  a  neighbouring  city,  which 
is  making  progress  as  swift  or  swifter,  and  threatens  to  eclipse 
its  competitors.  The  rivalry  between  these  Western  towns  is 
intense  and  extends  to  everything.  It  is  sometimes  dignified 
by  an  unselfish  devotion  to  the  greatness  of  the  city  which  a 
man  has  seen  grow  with  its  own  growth  from  infancy  to  a  vig¬ 
orous  manhood.  Citizens  of  Chicago  are  prouder  of  Chicago 
than  a  Londoner,  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  was  proud  of  London. 
They  show  you  the  splendid  parks  and  handsome  avenues  with 
as  much  pleasure  as  a  European  noble  shows  his  castle  and 
his  pictures :  they  think  little  of  offering  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  dollars  to  beautify  the  city  or  enrich  it  with  a  library  or  an 
art  gallery.  In  other  men  this  laudable  corporate  pride  is  stim¬ 
ulated,  not  only  by  the  love  of  competition  which  lies  deep  in 
the  American  as  it  does  in  the  English  breast,  but  also  by  per¬ 
sonal  interest,  for  the  prosperity  of  the  individual  is  insepa¬ 
rable  from  that  of  the  town.  As  its  fortunes  rise  or  fall,  so  will 
his  corner  lots  or  the  profits  of  his  store.  It  is  not  all  towns 
that  succeed.  Some  after  reaching  a  certain  point  stand  still, 
receiving  few  accessions ;  at  other  times,  after  a  year  or  two 
of  bloom,  a  town  wilts  and  withers ;  trade  declines ;  enter¬ 
prising  citizens  depart,  leaving  only  the  shiftless  and  impecunious 
behind;  the  saloons  are  closed,  the  shanties  fall  to  ruin,  in  a 
few  years  nothing  but  heaps  of  straw  and  broken  wood,  with  a 
few  brick  houses  awaiting  the  next  blizzard  to  overthrow  them, 
are  left  on  the  surface  of  the  prairie.  Thus  Tacoma  is  harassed 
by  the  pretensions  of  the  even  more  eager  and  enterprising 
Seattle ; 2  thus  the  greater  cities  of  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis 
have  striven  for  many  a  year  for  the  title  of  Capital  of  the  North¬ 
west.  In  1870  St.  Paul  was  already  a  substantial  city,  and 

1  Tacoma  has  one  glory  which  the  inhabitants,  it  is  to  be  feared,  value  less 
than  those  dwelt  on  in  the  article  :  it  commands  the  finest  view  of  a  mountain 
on  the  Pacific  coast,  perhaps,  in  all  North  America,  looking  across  its  calm  inlet 
to  the  magnificent  snowy  mass  of  Mount  Tacoma  (14,700  feet)  rising  out  of 
deep  dark  forests  thirty  miles  away. 

2  Seattle  has  now  (1910)  distanced  Tacoma,  while  St.  Paul  and  Minne¬ 
apolis  have  so  expanded  that  they  touch  one  another  and  are  (though  distinct 
municipalities)  practically  one  city. 


898 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


Minneapolis  just  beginning  to  be  known  as  the  possessor  of 
immense  water  advantages  from  its  position  on  the  Mississippi 
at  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony.  In  1883,  though  St.  Paul  con¬ 
tained  some  135,000  inhabitants,  Minneapolis  with  165,000 
had  distanced  her  in  the  race,  and  had  become,  having  in  the 
process  destroyed  the  beauty  of  her  Falls,  the  greatest  flour¬ 
milling  centre  in  America.1  The  newspapers  of  each  of  such 
competing  cities  keep  up  a  constant  war  upon  the  other ;  and 
everything  is  done  by  municipal  bodies  and  individual  citizens 
to  make  the  world  believe  that  their  city  is  advancing  and  all 
its  neighbours  standing  still.  Prosperity  is  largely  a  matter  of 
advertising,  for  an  afflux  of  settlers  makes  prosperity,  and 
advertising,  which  can  take  many  forms,  attracts  settlers. 
Many  a  place  has  lived  upon  its  “boom”  until  it  found  some¬ 
thing  more  solid  to  live  on;  and  to  a  stranger  who  asked  in  a 
small  Far  Western  town  how  such  a  city  could  keep  up  four 
newspapers,  it  was  well  answered  that  it  took  four  newspapers 
to  keep  up  such  a  city. 

Confidence  goes  a  long  way  towards  success.  And  the  con¬ 
fidence  of  these  Westerners  is  superb.  I  happened  in  1883  to  be 
at  the  city  of  Bismarck  in  Dakota  when  this  young  settlement 
was  laying  the  corner-stone  of  its  Capitol,  intended  to  contain 
the  halls  of  the  legislature  and  other  State  offices  of  Dakota 
when  that  flourishing  Territory  should  have  become  a  State, 
or  perhaps,  for  they  spoke  even  then  of  dividing  it,  two  States. 
The  town  was  then  only  some  five  years  old,  and  may  have 
had  six  or  seven  thousand  inhabitants.  It  was  gaily  decorated 
for  the  occasion,  and  had  collected  many  distinguished  guests 
—  General  U.  S.  Grant,  several  governors  of  neighbo  ring 
States  and  Territories,  railroad  potentates,  and  others.  By 
far  the  most  remarkable  figure  was  that  of  Sitting  Bull,  the 
famous  Sioux  chief,  who  had  surprised  and  slain  a  detachment 
of  the  American  army  some  years  before.  Among  the  speeches 
made,  in  one  of  which  it  was  proved  that  as  Bismarck  was  the 
centre  of  Dakota,  Dakota  the  centre  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  United  States  the  centre  of  the  world,  Bismarck  was  des¬ 
tined  to  “be  the  metropolitan  hearth  of  the  world’s  civilization,” 
there  came  a  short  but  pithy  discourse  from  this  grim  old  war¬ 
rior,  in  which  he  told  us,  through  an  interpreter,  that  the  Great 
Spirit  moved  him  to  shake  hands  with  everybody.  However, 

1  In  1910  Minneapolis  had  301,400  inhabitants  and  St.  Paul  214,700. 


CHAP.  CXXI 


THE  TEMPER  OF  THE  WEST 


899 


the  feature  of  the  ceremonial  which  struck  us  Europeans  most 
was  the  spot  chosen  for  the  Capitol.  It  was  not  in  the  city, 
nor  even  on  the  skirts  of  the  city ;  it  was  nearly  a  mile  off,  on 
the  top  of  a  hill  in  the  brown  and  dusty  prairie.  “  Why  here  ?  ” 
we  asked.  “Is  it  because  you  mean  to  enclose  the  building 
in  a  public  park?”  “By  no  means;  the  Capitol  is  intended 
to  be  in  the  centre  of  the  city ;  it  is  in  this  direction  that  the 
city  is  to  grow.”  It  is  the  same  everywhere,  from  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  to  the  Pacific.  Men  seem  to  live  in  the  future  rather 
than  in  the  present :  not  that  they  fail  to  work  while  it  is  called 
to-day,  but  that  they  see  the  country  not  merely  as  it  is,  but 
as  it  will  be,  twenty,  fifty,  a  hundred  years  hence,  when  the 
seedlings  shall  have  grown  to  forest  trees. 

This  constant  reaching  forward  to  and  grasping  at  the  future 
does  not  so  much  express  itself  in  words,  for  they  are  not  a 
loquacious  people,  as  in  the  air  of  ceaseless  haste  and  stress 
which  pervades  the  West.1  They  remind  you  of  the  crowd 
which  Vathek  found  in  the  hall  of  Eblis,  each  darting  hither 
and  thither  with  swift  steps  and  unquiet  mien,  driven  to  and 
fro  by  a  fire  in  the  heart.  Time  seems  too  short  for  what  they 
have  to  do,  and  the  result  always  to  come  short  of  their  desire. 
One  feels  as  if  caught  and  whirled  along  in  a  foaming  stream, 
chafing  against  its  banks,  such  is  the  passion  of  these  men  to 
accomplish  in  their  own  life-times  what  in  the  past  it  took  cen¬ 
turies  to  effect.  Sometimes  in  a  moment  of  pause,  for  even 
the  visitor  finds  himself  infected  by  the  all-pervading  eager¬ 
ness,  one  is  inclined  to  ask  them :  “Gentlemen,  why  in  heaven’s 
name  this  haste  ?  You  have  time  enough.  No  enemy  threatens 
you.  No  volcano  will  rise  from  beneath  you.  Ages  and  ages 
lie  before  you.  Why  sacrifice  the  present  to  the  future,  fancying 
that  you  will  be  happier  when  your  fields  teem  with  wealth  and 
your  cities  with  people  ?  In  Europe  we  have  cities  wealthier  and 
more  populous  than  yours,  and  we  are  not  happy.  You  dream 
of  your  posterity ;  but  your  posterity  will  look  back  to  yours 
as  the  golden  age,  and  envy  those  who  first  burst  into  this  silent 
splendid  nature,  who  first  lifted  up  their  axes  upon  these  tall 
trees  and  lined  these  waters  with  busy  wharves.  Why,  then, 
seek  to  complete  in  a  few  decades  what  the  other  nations  of 

1  In  the  West  men  usually  drop  off  the  cars  before  they  have  stopped,  and  do 
not  enter  them  again  till  they  are  already  in  motion,  hanging  on  like  bees  to  the 
end  of  the  tail  car  as  it  quits  the  depot. 


900 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


the  world  took  thousands  of  years  over  in  the  older  continents  ? 
Why  do  things  rudely  and  ill  which  need  to  be  done  well,  see¬ 
ing  that  the  welfare  of  your  descendants  may  turn  upon  them  ? 
Why,  in  your  hurry  to  subdue  and  utilize  nature,  squander 
her  splendid  gifts?  Why  allow  the  noxious  weeds  of  Eastern 
politics  to  take  root  in  your  new  soil,  when  by  a  little  effort 
you  might  keep  it  pure?  Why  hasten  the  advent  of' that 
threatening  day  when  the  vacant  spaces  of  the  continent  shall 
all  have  been  filled,  and  the  poverty  or  discontent  of  the  older 
States  shall  find  no  outlet  ?  You  have  opportunities  such 
as  mankind  has  never  had  before,  and  may  never  have  again. 
Your  work  is  great  and  noble :  it  is  done  for  a  future  longer  and 
vaster  than  our  imagination  can  embrace.  Why  not  make 
its  outlines  and  beginnings  worthy  of  these  destinies  the  thought 
of  which  gilds  your  hopes  and  elevates  your  purposes?” 

Being  once  suddenly  called  upon  to  “ offer  a  few  remarks” 
to  a  Western  legislature,  and  having  on  the  spur  of  the  moment 
nothing  better  to  offer,  I  tendered  some  such  observations  as 
these,  seasoned,  of  course,  with  the  compliments  to  the  soil, 
climate,  and  “  location”  reasonably  expected  from  a  visitor. 
They  were  received  in  good  part,  as  indeed  no  people  can  be 
more  kindly  than  the  Western  Americans ;  but  it  was  surprising 
to  hear  several  members  who  afterwards  conversed  with  me 
remark  that  the  political  point  of  view  —  the  fact  that  they 
were  the  founders  of  new  commonwealths,  and  responsible  to 
posterity  for  the  foundations  they  laid,  a  point  of  view  so  trite 
and  obvious  to  a  European  visitor  that  he  pauses  before  ex¬ 
pressing  it  —  had  not  crossed  their  minds.  If  they  spoke  truly, 
—  as  no  doubt  they  did,  —  there  was  in  their  words  a  further 
evidence  of  the  predominance  of  material  efforts  and  interests 
over  all  others,  even  over  those  political  instincts  which  are 
deemed  so  essential  a  part  of  the  American  character.  The 
arrangements  of  his  government  lie  in  the  dim  background  of 
the  picture  which  fills  the  Western  eye.  In  the  foreground  he 
sees  ploughs  and  sawmills,  ore-crushers  and  railway  locomotives. 
These  so  absorb  his  thoughts  as  to  leave  little  time  for  con¬ 
stitutions  and  legislation ;  and  when  constitutions  and  legis¬ 
lation  are  thought  of,  it  is  as  means  for  better  securing  the 
benefits  of  the  earth  and  of  trade  to  the  producer,  and  prevent¬ 
ing  the  greedy  corporation  from  intercepting  their  fruits. 

Politically,  and  perhaps  socially  also,  this  haste  and  excite- 


CHAP.  CXXI 


THE  TEMPER  OF  THE  WEST 


901 


ment,  this  absorption  in  the  development  of  the  material  re¬ 
sources  of  the  country,  are  unfortunate.  As  a  town  built  in  a 
hurry  is  seldom  well  built,  so  a  society  will  be  the  sounder  in 
health  for  not  having  grown  too  swiftly.  Doubtless  much  of 
the  scum  will  be  cleared  away  from  the  surface  when  the  liquid 
settles  and  cools  down.  Lawlessness  and  lynch  law  will  dis¬ 
appear;  saloons  and  gambling-houses  will  not  prosper  in  a 
well-conducted  population ;  schools  will  improve  and  universi¬ 
ties  grow  out  of  the  raw  colleges  which  one  already  finds  even 
in  the  newer  Territories.  Nevertheless  the  bad  habits  of  pro¬ 
fessional  politics,  as  one  sees  them  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  are 
not  unknown  in  these  communities ;  and  the  unrestfulness,  the 
passion  for  speculation,  the  feverish  eagerness  for  quick  and 
showy  results,  may  so  soak  into  the  texture  of  the  popular 
mind  as  to  colour  it  for  centuries  to  come.  These  are  the 
shadows  which  to  the  eye  of  the  traveller  seem  to  fall  across 
the  glowing  landscape  of  the  Great  West. 


CHAPTER  CXXII 


THE  FUTURE  OF  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS 

The  task  of  forecasting  the  future  is  one  from  which  a  writer 
does  well  to  turn  away,  for  the  coasts  of  history  are  strewn 
with  the  wrecks  of  predictions  launched  by  historians  and  phi¬ 
losophers.  No  such  ambitious  task  shall  be  essayed  by  me. 
But  as  I  have  described  the  institutions  of  the  American  com¬ 
monwealth  as  they  stand  at  this  moment,  seldom  expressing 
an  opinion  as  to  their  vitality  or  the  influences  which  are  at 
work  to  modify  them,  I  may  reasonably  be  asked  to  state, 
before  bringing  this  book  to  a  close,  what  processes  of  change 
these  institutions  seem  to  be  at  this  moment  undergoing. 
Changes  move  faster  in  our  age  than  they  ever  moved  before, 
and  America  is  a  land  of  change.  No  one  doubts  that  fifty 
years  hence  it  will  differ  at  least  as  much  from  what  it  is  now 
as  it  differs  now  from  the  America  which  Tocqueville  described. 
The  causes  whose  action  will  mould  it  are  too  numerous,  too 
complex,  too  subtly  interwoven  to  make  it  possible  to  conjecture 
their  joint  result.  All  we  can  ever  say  of  the  future  is  that  it 
will  be  unlike  the  present.  I  will  therefore  attempt,  not  to 
predict  future  changes,  but  only  to  indicate  some  of  the  pro¬ 
cesses  of  change  now  in  progress  which  have  gone  far  enough 
to  let  us  see  that  they  are  due  to  causes  of  unmistakable  po¬ 
tency,  causes  likely  to  continue  in  activity  for  some  time  to  come. 

I  began  with  a  glance  at  the  Federal  system,  whose  equilib¬ 
rium  it  has  been  the  main  object  of  the  Federal  Constitution 
to  preserve.  That  equilibrium  has  been  little  disturbed.  So 
far  as  law  goes,  it  has  suffered  no  change  since  the  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  which  recorded  and  formulated  the  results 
of  the  Civil  War.  Before  the  war  many  Americans  and  most 
Europeans  expected  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  either  by  such  a 
loosening  of  the  Federal  tie  as  would  reduce  the  Union  to  a  mere 
league,  or  by  the  formation  of  several  State  groups  wholly  in¬ 
dependent  of  one  another.  At  this  moment,  however,  noth- 

902 


chap,  cxxii  FUTURE  OF  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS 


903 


mg  seems  less  likely  than  another  secession.  The  States’  Rights 
spirit  has  declined.  The  material  interests  of  every  part  of 
the  country  are  bound  up  with  those  of  every  other.  The 
capital  of  the  Eastern  cities  has  been  invested  in  mines  in  the 
West,  in  iron  works  and  manufactories  in  the  South,  in  mortgages 
and  railroads  everywhere.  The  South  and  the  West  need  this 
capital  for  their  development,  and  are  daily  in  closer  business 
relations  with  the  East.  The  produce  of  the  West  finds  its 
way  to  the  Atlantic  through  the  ports  of  the  East.  Every 
produce  market,  every  share  market,  vibrates  in  response  to 
the  Produce  Exchange  and  Stock  Exchange  of  New  York. 
Each  part  of  the  country  has  come  to  know  the  other  parts  far 
better  than  was  possible  in  earlier  times ;  and  the  habit  of  taking 
journeys  hither  and  thither  grows  with  the  always-growing 
facilities  of  travel.  Many  families  have  sons  or  brothers  in 
remote  States;  many  students  come  from  the  West  and  the 
South  to  Eastern  universities,  and  form  ties  of  close  friend¬ 
ship  there.  Railways  and  telegraphs  are  daily  narrowing  and 
compressing  the  vast  area  between  ocean  and  ocean.  As  the 
civilized  world  was  a  larger  world  in  the  days  of  Herodotus 
than  it  is  now,  —  for  it  took  twice  as  many  months  to  travel 
from  the  Caspian  Sea  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  as  it  takes  now 
to  circumnavigate  the  globe ;  one  was  obliged  to  use  a  greater 
number  of  languages,  and  the  journey  was  incomparably  more 
dangerous,  —  so  now  the  United  States,  with  more  than  ninety 
millions  of  people,  extending  from  the  Bay  of  Fundy  to  the 
Gulf  of  California,  are  a  smaller  country  for  all  the  purposes 
of  government,  of  commerce,  and  of  social  intercourse,  than 
before  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  in  1803,  for  it  took  more  than 
twice  as  long  then  to  go  from  Boston  to  Charleston  as  it 
takes  now  to  go  from  Portland  in  Maine  to  Portland  in  Oregon, 
and  the  journey  was  far  more  costly  and  difficult. 

Even  the  Pacific  States,  which  might  have  seemed  likely  to 
form  a  community  by  themselves,  are  being  drawn  closer  to 
those  of  the  Mississippi  basin.  Population  will  in  time  become 
almost  continuous  along  the  lines  of  the  Northern  and  Southern 
Pacific  Railways,  and  though  the  deserts  of  Nevada  may  remain 
unreclaimed,  prosperous  communities  round  the  Great  Salt 
Lake  will  form  a  link  between  California  and  the  Rocky  Moun¬ 
tain  States  and  irrigation  may  create  habitable  oases  along  the 
courses  of  some  of  the  rivers.  With  more  frequent  communica- 


904 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


tion,  local  peculiarities  and  local  habits  of  thought  diminish ;  the 
South  grows  every  day  less  distinctively  Southern,  and  country¬ 
folk  are  more  influenced  by  city  ideas.  There  is  now  not  a 
single  State  with  any  material  interest  that  could  be  benefited, 
none  with  any  sentiment  that  would  be  gratified,  by  separation 
from  the  body  of  the  Union.  No  great  question  has  arisen  tend¬ 
ing  to  bind  States  into  groups  and  stimulating  them  to  joint 
action.  The  chief  problems  which  lie  before  the  country  wear 
an  aspect  substantially  the  same  in  its  various  sections,  and  pub¬ 
lic  opinion  is  divided  on  them  in  those  sections  upon  lines  gener¬ 
ally  similar.  In  a  word,  the  fact  that  the  government  is  a 
Federal  one  does  not  at  this  moment  seem  to  make  any  difference 
to  the  cohesion  of  the  body  politic  :  the  United  States  are  no 
more  likely  to  dissolve  than  if  they  were  a  unitary  republic 
like  France  or  a  unified  monarchy  like  Italy. 

As  secession  is  improbable,  so  also  is  the  extinction  of  the 
several  States  by  absorption  into  the  central  government.  It 
was  generally  believed  in  Europe,  when  the  North  triumphed 
over  secession  in  1865,  that  the  Federal  system  was  virtually 
at  an  end.  The.  legal  authority  of  Congress  and  the  President 
had  been  immensely  developed  during  the  struggle ;  a  powerful 
army,  flushed  with  victory,  stood  ready  to  enforce  that  author¬ 
ity  ;  and  there  seemed  reason  to  think  that  the  South,  which 
had  fought  so  stubbornly,  would  have  to  be  kept  down  during 
many  years  by  military  force.  However,  none  of  these  appre¬ 
hended  results  followed.  The  authority  of  the  central  govern¬ 
ment  presently  sank  back  within  its  former  limits,  some  of  the 
legislation  based  on  the  constitutional  amendments  which  had 
extended  it  for  certain  purposes  being  cut  down  by  judicial 
decision.  The  army  was  disbanded ;  self-government  was  soon 
restored  in  the  lately  insurgent  States,  and  the  upshot  of  the 
years  of  civil  war  and  reconstruction  has  been,  while  extinguish¬ 
ing  the  claim  of  State  sovereignty,  to  replace  the  formerly  ad¬ 
mitted  State  rights  upon  a  legal  basis  as  firm  as  they  ever  occupied 
before.  At  this  moment  State  rights  are  in  question  only  so 
far  as  certain  economic  benefits  might  be  obtained  by  a  further 
extension  of  Federal  authority,  nor  has  either  party  an  interest 
in  advocating  the  supersession  of  State  action  in  any  department 
of  government.  The  conservatism  of  habit  and  well-settled 
legal  doctrine  which  would  resist  any  such  proposal  is  very  strong. 
State  autonomy,  as  well  as  local  government  within  e&ch  State, 


chap,  cxxii  FUTURE  OF  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS 


905 


is  prized  by  every  class  in  the  community,  and  bound  up  with 
the  personal  interest  of  those  who  feel  that  these  comparatively 
limited  spheres  offer  a  scope  to  their  ambition  which  a  wider 
theatre  might  deny. 

It  is  nevertheless  impossible  to  ignore  the  growing  strength 
of  the  centripetal  and  unifying  forces.  I  have  already  referred 
to  the  influence  of  easier  and  cheaper  communications,  of  com¬ 
merce  and  finance,  of  the  telegraph,  of  the  filling  up  of  the 
intermediate  vacant  spaces  in  the  West.  There  is  an  increas¬ 
ing  tendency  to  invoke  congressional  legislation  to  deal  with 
matters,  such  as  railroads,  which  cannot  be  adequately  handled 
by  State  laws,  or  to  remove  divergencies,  such  as  those  in  the 
law  of  marriage  and  divorce,  which  give  rise  to  practical  incon¬ 
veniences.  So  the  various  parties  which  profess  to  champion 
the  interests  of  the  farmers  or  of  workingmen  recur  to  the 
Federal  government  as  the  only  agency  strong  enough  and  wide- 
reaching  enough  to  give  effect  to  their  proposals,  most  of  which 
indeed  would  obviously  be  impracticable  if  tried  in  the  narrow 
area  of  one  or  a  few  States.  State  patriotism,  State  rivalry, 
State  vanity,  are  no  doubt  still  conspicuous,  yet  the  political 
interest  felt  in  State  governments  is  slighter  than  it  was  before 
the  civil  war,  while  national  patriotism  has  become  warmer 
and  more  pervasive.  The  role  of  the  State  is  socially '  and 
morally,  if  not  legally,  smaller  now  than  it  then  was,  and 
ambitious  men  look  on  a  State  legislature  as  little  more  than  a 
stepping-stone  to  Congress.  Moreover,  the  interference  of  the 
Federal  Executive  to  suppress  by  military  power  disorders 
which  State  authorities  have  seemed  unable  or  unwilling  to  deal 
with  has  shown  how  great  a  reserve  of  force  lies  in  its  hands,  and 
has  led  peace-loving  citizens  to  look  to  it  as  their  ultimate  resort 
in  troublous  times.  It  would  be  rash  to  assert  that  disjunctive 
forces  will  never  again  reveal  themselves,  setting  the  States 
against  the  National  government,  and  making  States’  Rights 
once  more  a  matter  of  practical  controversy.  But  any  such 
force  is  likely,  so  far  as  we  can  now  see,  to  prove  transitory, 
whereas  the  centripetal  forces  are  permanent  and  secular  forces, 
working  from  age  to  age.  Wherever  in  the  modern  world  there 
has  been  a  centrifugal  movement,  tending  to  break  up. a  State 
united  under  one  government,  or  to  loosen  the  cohesion  of  its 
parts,  the  movement  has  sprung  from  a  sentiment  of  nationality, 
and  has  been  reinforced,  in  almost  every  case,  by  a  sense  of  some 


906 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


substantial  grievance  or  by  a  belief  that  material  advantages 
were  to  be  secured  by  separation.  The  cases  of  Holland  and 
Belgium,  of  Hungary  and  Germanic  Austria,  of  the  Greeks  and 
Bulgarians  in  their  struggles  with  the  Turks,  of  Iceland  in  her 
struggle  with  Denmark,  all  illustrate  this  proposition.  When 
such  disjunctive  forces  are  absent,  the  more  normal  tendency 
to  aggregation  and  centralization  prevails.  In  the  United 
States  all  the  elements  of  a  national  feeling  are  present,  race,1 
language,  literature,  pride  in  past  achievements,  uniformity  of 
political  habits  and  ideas ;  and  this  national  feeling  which  unifies 
the  people  is  reinforced  by  an  immensely  strong  material  interest 
in  the  maintenance  of  a  single  government  over  the  breadth  of 
the  continent.  It  may  therefore  be  concluded  that  while  there 
is  no  present  likelihood  of  change  from  a  Federal  to  a  consoli¬ 
dated  republic,  and  while  the  existing  legal  rights  and  functions 
of  the  several  States  may  remain  undiminished  for  many  years 
to  come,  the  importance  of  the  States  will  decline  as  the  majesty 
and  authority  of  the  National  government  increase. 

The  next  question  to  be  asked  relates  to  the  component  parts 
of  the  National  government  itself.  Its  equilibrium  stands  now 
as  stable  as  at  any  former  epoch.  Yet  it  has  twice  experienced 
violent  oscillations.  In  the  days  of  Jackson,  and  again  in  those 
of  Lincoln,  the  Executive  seemed  to  outweigh  Congress.  In 
the  days  of  Tyler,  Congress  threatened  the  Executive,  while 
in  those  of  Andrew  Johnson  it  reduced  the  Executive  to  impo¬ 
tence.  That  no  permanent  disturbance  of  the  balance  followed 
the  latter  of  these  oscillations  shows  how  well  the  balance  had 
been  adjusted  at  starting.  At  this  moment  there  is  nothing 
to  show  that  any  one  department  is  gaining  on  any  other.  The 
Judiciary,  if  indeed  the  judges  can  be  called  a  political  depart¬ 
ment,  seemed  in  1880  to  have  less  discretionary  power  than 
they  had  exerted  fifty  years  earlier,  for  by  their  own  decisions 


1  The  immense  influx  of  immigrants  of  various  races  speaking  diverse  lan¬ 
guages  has  not  greatly  affected  the  sense  of  race  unity,  for  the  immigrant’s  child 
is  eager  to  become,  and  does  soon  become,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  an  Amer¬ 
ican.  Moreover,  the  immigrants  are  so  dispersed  over  the  country  that  no  single 
section  of  them  is  in  any  State  nearly  equal  to  the  native  population.  Here 
and  there  in  the  West,  Germans  tried  to  appropriate  townships  or  villages,  and 
keep  English-speaking  folk  at  a  distance  ;  and  in  Wisconsin  their  demand  to 
have  German  taught  regularly  in  the  schools  once  caused  some  little  bitterness. 
But  these  were  transitory  phenomena,  and  the  very  fact  that  the  feeling  of  racial 
distinction  produces  no  results  more  serious  shows  how  far  that  feeling  is  from 
being  a  source  of  political  danger. 


chap,  cxxn  FUTURE  OF  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS 


907 


they  had  narrowed  the  scope  of  their  discretion,  determining 
points  in  which,  had  they  remained  open,  the  personal  impulses 
and  views  of  the  Bench  might  have  had  room  to  play.  But  soon 
after  new  groups  of  questions  arose,  raising  new  issues  for  judicial 
determination,  nor  have  the  rulings  of  the  Supreme  Court 
ever  involved  larger  interests  or  been  awaited  with  more  eager 
curiosity  than  were  those  delivered  in  1908  and  the  immediately 
succeeding  years.  Congress  has  been  the  branch  of  government 
with  the  largest  facilities  for  usurping  the  powers  of  the  other 
branches,  and  probably  with  the  most  disposition  to  do  so. 
Congress  has  constantly  tried  to  encroach  both  on  the  Execu¬ 
tive  and  on  the  States,  sometimes,  like  a  wild  bull  driven  into  a 
corral,  dashing  itself  against  the  imprisoning  walls  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution.  But  although  Congress  has  succeeded  in  occupy¬ 
ing  nearly  all  of  the  area  which  the  Constitution  left  vacant 
and  unallotted  between  the  several  authorities  it  established, 
Congress  has  not  become  any  more  distinctly  than  in  earlier 
days  the  dominant  power  in  the  State,  the  organ  of  national 
sovereignty,  the  irresistible  exponent  of  the  national  will.  In 
a  country  ruled  by  public  opinion,  it  could  hold  this  position  only 
in  virtue  of  its  capacity  for  leading  opinion,  that  is  to  say,  of  its 
courage,  promptitude,  and  wisdom.  Since  it  grows  in  no  one 
of  these  qualities,  it  wins  no  greater  ascendency;  indeed  its 
power,  as  compared  with  that  of  public  opinion,  seems  rather 
to  decline.  Its  division  into  two  co-ordinate  Houses  is  no  doubt 
a  source  of  weakness  as  well  as  of  safety.  Yet  what  is  true  of 
Congress  as  a  whole  is  true  of  each  House  taken  separately.  The 
Senate,  to  which  the  eminence  of  many  individual  senators 
formerly  gave  a  moral  ascendency,  has  lost  as  much  in  the  in¬ 
tellectual  authority,  of  its  members  as  it  has  gained  in  their 
wealth.  The  House,  with  its  far  greater  numbers  and  its  far 
greater  proportion  of  inexperienced  members,  suffers  from  the 
want  of  internal  organization,  and  seems  unable  to  keep  pace 
with  the  increasing  demands  made  on  it  for  constructive  legis¬ 
lation.  Now  and  then  the  helplessness  of  the  House  when  a 
party  majority  happens  to  be  torn  by  internal  dissensions,  or 
the  workings  of  self-interest  visible  in  the  Senate,  when  the 
animosities  or  personal  aims  of  individual  senators  or  groups 
retard  or  confuse  its  action,  causes  delays  and  leads  to  com¬ 
promises  or  half  measures  which  exasperate  even  this  all  too 
patient  people.  One  is  sometimes  inclined  to  think  that  Con- 


908 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  YI 


gress  might  lose  its  hold  on  the  esteem  and  confidence  of  the 
nation,  and  sink  into  a  subordinate  position,  were  there  any 
other  authority  which  could  be  substituted  for  it.  There  is, 
however,  no  such  authority,  for  law-making  cannot  be  given 
to  a  person  or  to  a  court,  while  the  State  legislatures  have  the 
same  faults  as  Congress  in  a  greater  degree.  We  may  accord¬ 
ingly  surmise  that  Congress  will  retain  its  present  place ;  but  so 
far  as  can  be  gathered  from  present  phenomena,  it  will  re¬ 
tain  this  place  in  respect  not  of  the  satisfaction  of  the  people 

with,  its  services,  but  of  their  inability  to  provide  a  better 

» 

servant. 

The  weakness  of  Congress  is  the  strength  of  the  President. 
Though  it  cannot  be  said  that  his  office  has  grown  in  power  or 
dignity  since  the  days  when  it  was  held  by  Washington,  there 
are  reasons  for  believing  that  it  has  been  rising  to  a  higher 
point  than  it  has  occupied  at  any  time  since  the  Civil 
War.  The  tendency  everywhere  in  America  to  concentrate 
power  and  responsibility  in  one  man  is  unmistakable.  There 
is  no  danger  that  the  President  should  become  a  despot, 
that  is,  should  attempt  to  make  his  will  prevail  against  the 
will  of  the  majority.  But  he  may  have  a  great  part  to  play 
as  the  leader  of  the  majority  and  the  exponent  of  its  will.  He 
is  in  some  respects  better  fitted  both  to  represent  and  to  influ¬ 
ence  public  opinion  than  Congress  is.  No  doubt  he  suffers 
from  being  the  nominee  of  a  party,  because  this  draws  on  every 
act  he  does  the  hostility  of  zealots  of  the  opposite  party.  But 
the  number  of  voters  who  are  not  party  zealots  increases,  in¬ 
creases  from  bad  causes  as  well  as  from  good  causes ;  for  as  a 
capable  President  sways  the  dispassionately  patriotic,  so  a 
crafty  President  can  find  means  of  playing  upon  those  who 
have  their  own  ends  to  serve.  A  vigorous  personality  attracts 
the  multitude,  and  attracts  it  the  more  the  huger  it  grows 
and  the  more  the  characteristic  weaknesses  of  an  assembly 
stand  revealed ;  while  a  chief  magistrate’s  influence,  though  his 
political  opponents  may  complain  of  it,  excites  little  alarm  when 
exerted  in  leading  a  majority  which  acts  through  the  constitu¬ 
tional  organs  of  government.  There  may  therefore  be  still 
undeveloped  possibilities  of  greatness  in  store  for  the  Presidents 
of  the  future.  But  as  these  possibilities  depend,  like  the  pos¬ 
sibilities  of  the  British  and  German  Crowns,  perhaps  one  may 
add  of  the  Papacy,  on  the  wholly  unpredictable  element  of  per- 


chap,  cxxii  FUTURE  OF  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS 


909 


sonal  capacity  in  the  men  who  may  fill  the  office,  we  need  specu¬ 
late  on  them  no  further. 

From  the  organs  of  government  I  pass  to  the  party  system, 
its  machinery  and  its  methods.  Nothing  in  recent  history  sug¬ 
gests  that  the  politicians  who  act  as  party  managers,  are  dis¬ 
posed  either  to  loosen  the  grip  with  which  their  organization 
has  clasped  the  country,  or  to  improve  the  methods  it  em¬ 
ploys.  Changes  in  party  measures  there  will  of  course  be  in 
the  future,  as  there  have  been  in  the  past ;  but  the  profes¬ 
sionals  are  not  the  men  to  make  them  changes  for  the  better. 
The  Machine  will  not  be  reformed  from  within :  it  must  be 
assailed  from  without.  Three  heavy  blows  have  been  struck 
at  it.  The  first  was  the  Civil  Service  Reform  Act  of  1883.  If 
this  Act  continues  to  be  honestly  administered,  and  its  principle 
extended  to  other  Federal  offices,  if  States  and  cities  follow,  as 
a  few  have  done,  in  the  wake  of  the  National  government,  the 
Spoils  System  may  be  rooted  out,  and  with  that  system  the 
power  of  the  Machine  will  crumble.  The  Spoils  System  has 
stood  since  Jackson’s  days,  and  the  bad  habits  it  has  formed 
cannot  at  once  be  unlearned.  But  its  extinction  will  deprive 
professionals  of  their  chief  present  motive  for  following  politics. 
The  tares  which  now  infest  the  wheat  will  presently  wither 
away,  and  the  old  enemy  will  have  to  sow  a  fresh  crop  of  some 
other  kind.  The  second  blow  has  been  the  passing  of  secret 
ballot  laws  and  other  measures  which  have  reduced  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  for  tampering  with  elections,  and  have  made  them  purer. 
And  the  third  has  been  that  uprising  of  independent  citizens 
which  has  induced  the  enactment  of  the  so-called  Primary  Laws, 
intended  to  take  nominations  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Machine 
and  place  them  in  those  of  the  voters  as  a  whole.  Whether  these 
laws  succeed  or  not,  they  testify  to  a  new  spirit  among  the  better 
citizens,  impatient  of  the  perversion  of  republican  institutions  to 
selfish  ends.  There  is  now  often  seen  in  State  and  municipal 
elections,  a  strong  group  of  independent  men  pledged  to  vote 
for  honest  candidates  irrespective  of  party.  The  absence  for  a 
number  of  years  past  of  genuine  political  issues  dividing  the  two 
parties,  if  it  has  worked  ill  in  taking  moral  and  intellectual  life 
out  of  the  parties,  and  making  their  contests  mere  scrambles  for 
office,  has  worked  well  in  disposing  intelligent  citizens  to  sit  more 
loose  to  party  ties,  and  to  consider,  since  it  is  realty  on  men  rather 
than  on  measures  that  they  are  required  to  vote,  what  the 


910 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


personal  merits  of  candidates  are.  In  and  after  1840,  at  the  time 
when  the  fruits  of  Jacksonism,  that  is  to  say,  of  wild  democratic 
theory  coupled  with  sordid  and  quite  undemocratic  practice,  had 
begun  to  be  felt  by  thoughtful  persons,  the  urgency  of  the  slavery 
question  compelled  the  postponement  of  reforms  in  political 
methods,  and  made  patriotic  men  fling  themselves  into  party 
warfare  with  unquestioning  zeal.  When  the  winning  of  elections, 
no  less  than  the  winning  of  battles,  meant  the  salvation  of  the 
Union,  no  one  could  stop  to  examine  the  machinery  of  party. 
For  ten  years  after  the  war,  the  party  which  was  usually  in  the 
majority  in  the  North  was  the  party  which  had  saved  the  Union, 
and  on  that  score  commanded  the  devotion  of  its  old  adherents ; 
while  the  opposite  party  was  so  much  absorbed  in  struggling 
back  to  power  that  it  did  not  think  of  mending  its  ways.  But 
when  the  war  issues  had  been  practically  settled  and  dismissed, 
public-spirited  citizens  at  last  addressed  themselves  to  the  task, 
which  ought  to  have  been  undertaken  in  1850,  of  purifying 
politics.  Their  efforts  began  with  city  government,  where  the 
evils  were  greatest,  but  have  now  become  scarcely  less  assidu¬ 
ous  in  State  and  national  politics. 

Will  these  efforts  continue,  and  be  crowned  by  a  growing 
measure  of  success  ? 

To  a  traveller  revisiting  America  at  intervals,  the  progress 
seems  to  be  steadily  though  very  slowly  upward.  This  is  also 
the  belief  of  those  Americans  who,  having  most  exerted  them¬ 
selves  in  the  struggle  against  Bosses  and  spoilsmen,  have  had 
most  misrepresentation  to  overcome  and  most  disappointments 
to  endure.  The  Presidents  of  this  generation  are  abler  and 
more  high-minded  men  than  those  of  1834-1860,  and  neither 
the  members  of  a  knot  of  party  managers  nor  its  creatures. 
The  poisonous  influence  of  slavery  is  no  longer  felt.  There 
is  every  day  less  of  sentimentalism,  but  not  less  of  earnest¬ 
ness  in  political  discussions.  There  is  less  blind  obedience 
to  party,  less  disposition  to  palliate  sins  committed  from 
party  motives.  The  standard  of  purity  among  public  men, 
especially  in  the  Federal  government,  is  higher.  The  num¬ 
ber  of  able  men  who  occupy  themselves  with  scientific  eco¬ 
nomics  and  politics  is  larger,  their  books  and  articles  are 
more  widely  read.  The  press  more  frequently  helps  in  the 
work  of  reform :  the  pulpit  deals  more  largely  with  questions 
of  practical  philanthropy  and  public  morals.  That  it  should 


chap,  cxxii  FUTURE  OF  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS 


911 


be  taken  as  a  good  sign  when  the  young  men  of  a  city  throw 
themselves  into  politics,  shows  that  the  new  generation  is 
believed  to  have  either  a  higher  sense  of  public  duty  or  a 
less  slavish  attachment  to  party  ties  than  that  whose  votes 
ruled  from  1870  till  1890.  Above  all,  the  nation  is  less 
self-sufficient  and  self-satisfied  than  it  was  in  days  when  it 
had  less  to  be  proud  of.  In  the  middle  of  last  century  the 
Americans  walked  in  a  vain  conceit  of  their  own  greatness  and 
freedom  and  scorned  instruction  from  the  effete  monarchies  of 
the  Old  World,  which  repaid  them  with  contemptuous  indiffer¬ 
ence.  No  despot  ever  exacted  more  flattery  from  his  courtiers 
than  they  from  their  statesmen.  Now  when  Europe  admires 
their  power,  envies  their  wealth,  looks  to  them  for  instruction 
in  not  a  few  subj  ects,  they  have  become  more  modest,  and  listen 
willingly  to  speakers  and  writers  who  descant  upon  their  failings. 
They  feel  themselves  strong  enough  to  acknowledge  their 
weaknesses,  and  are  anxious  that  the  moral  life  of  the  nation 
should  be  worthy  of  its  expanding  fortunes.  As  these  happy 
omens  have  become  more  visible  from  year  to  year,  there  is  a 
reasonable  presumption  that  they  represent  a  steady  current 
which  will  continue  to  work  for  good.  To  judge  of  America 
rightly  the  observer  must  not  fix  his  eye  simply  upon  her  present 
condition,  seeking  to  strike  a  balance  between  the  evil  and  the 
good  that  now  appear.  He  must  look  back  at  what  the  best 
citizens  and  the  most  judicious  strangers  perceived  and  recorded 
seventy,  forty,  twenty  years  ago,  and  ask  whether  the  shadows 
these  men  saw  were  not  darker  than  those  of  to-day,  whether  the 
forecasts  of  evil  they  were  forced  to  form  have  not  in  many 
cases  been  belied  by  the  event.  Tocqueville  was  a  sympathetic 
as  well  as  penetrating  observer.  Many  of  the  evils  he  saw,  and 
which  he  thought  inherent  and  incurable,  have  now  all  but  van¬ 
ished.  Other  evils  have  indeed  revealed  themselves  which  he 
did  not  discern,  but  these  may  prove  as  transient  as  those  with 
which  he  affrighted  European  readers  in  1834.  The  men  I  have 
met  in  America,  whose  recollections  went  back  to  the  fourth 
decade  of  last  century,  agreed  in  saying  that  there  was  in  those 
days  a  more  violent  and  unscrupulous  party  spirit,  a  smaller 
respect  for  law,  a  greater  disposition  to  violence,  less  respect  for 
the  opinion  of  the  wise,  a  completer  submission  to  the  prejudices 
of  the  masses,  than  there  is  to-day.  No  ignorant  immigrants 
had  yet  arrived  upon  the  scene,  but  New  York  was  already 


912 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


given  over  to  spoilsmen.  Great  corporations  had  scarcely 
arisen ;  yet  corruption  was  neither  uncommon  nor  fatal  to  a 
politician’s  reputation.  A  retrospect  which  shows  us  that 
some  evils  have  declined  or  vanished  while  the  regenerative  forces 
are  more  numerous  and  more  active  in  combating  new  mischiefs 
than  they  ever  were  before,  encourages  the  belief  that  the 
general  stream  of  tendency  is  towards  improvement,  and  will 
in  time  bring  the  public  life  of  the  country  nearer  to  the  ideal 
which  democracy  is  bound  to  set  before  itself. 

When  the  Americans  say,  as  they  often  do,  that  they  trust 
to  time,  they  mean  that  they  trust  to  reason,  to  the  generally 
sound  moral  tone  of  the  multitude,  to  a  shrewdness  which  after 
failures  and  through  experiments  learns  what  is  the  true  inter¬ 
est  of  the  majority,  and  finds  that  this  interest  coincides  with 
the  teachings  of  morality.  They  can  afford  to  wait,  because 
they  have  three  great  advantages  over  Europe,  —  an  absence  of 
class  distinctions  and  class  hatred,  a  diffusion  of  wealth  among 
an  immense  number  of  small  proprietors  all  interested  in  the 
defence  of  property,  an  exemption  from  chronic  pauperism  and 
economical  distress,  work  being  at  most  times  abundant,  many 
careers  open,  the  still  undeveloped  parts  of  the  West  providing 
a  safety  valve  available  in  times  of  depression.  With  these 
advantages  the  Americans  conceive  that  were  their  country 
now  left  entirely  to  itself,  so  that  full  and  free  scope  could  be 
secured  to  the  ameliorative  forces,  political  progress  would 
be  sure  and  steady;  the  best  elements  would  come  to  the  top, 
and  when  the  dregs  had  settled  the  liquor  would  run  clear. 

In  a  previous  chapter  I  have  observed  that  this  sanguine 
view  of  the  situation  omits  two  considerations.  One  is  that 
the  country  is  not  being  left  to  itself.  European  immigration 
continues,  and  though  more  than  two-thircls  of  the  immigrants 
make  valuable  citizens,  the  remainder,  many  by  their  political 
ignorance  and  instability,  some  few  by  their  proneness  to  em¬ 
brace  anti-social  doctrines,  are  a  source  of  danger  to  the  com¬ 
munity,  lowering  its  tone,  providing  material  for  demagogues 
to  work  on,  threatening  outbreaks  like  those  of  Pennsylvania 
in  1877,  of  Cincinnati  in  1884,  of  Chicago  in  1886  and  1894,  of 
large  districts  in  the  West  in  1893  and  subsequently. 

The  other  fact  to  be  borne  in  mind  is  of  still  graver  import. 
There  is  a  part  of  the  Atlantic  where  the  westward  speeding 
steam-vessel  always  expects  to  encounter  fogs.  On  the  fourth 


chap,  cxxii  FUTURE  OF  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS 


913 


or  fifth  clay  of  the  voyage,  while  still  in  bright  sunlight,  one  sees 
at  a  distance  a  long  low  dark-gray  line  across  the  bows,  and  is 
told  this  is  the  first  of  the  fog-banks  which  have  to  be  traversed. 
Presently  the  vessel  is  upon  the  cloud,  and  rushes  into  its 
chilling  embrace,  not  knowing  what  perils  of  icebergs  may  be 
shrouded  within  the  encompassing  gloom.  So  America,  in  her 
swift  onward  progress,  sees,  looming  on  the  horizon  and  now 
no  longer  distant,  a  time  of  mists  and  shadows,  wherein  dangers 
may  lie  concealed  whose  form  and  magnitude  she  can  scarcely 
yet  conjecture.  As  she  fills  up  her  western  regions  with  inhabit¬ 
ants,  she  sees  the  time  approach  when  all  the  best  land,  even 
that  which  the  extension  of  irrigation  has  made  available,  will 
have  been  occupied,  and  when  the  land  now  under  cultivation 
will  have  been  so  far  exhausted  as  to  yield  scantier  crops  even 
to  more  expensive  culture.  Although  transportation  may 
also  have  then  become  cheaper,  the  price  of  food  will  rise  ;  farms 
will  be  less  easily  obtained  and  will  need  more  capital  to  work 
them  with  profit ;  the  struggle  for  existence  will  become  more 
severe.  And  while  the  outlet  which  the  West  now  provides  for 
the  overflow  of  the  great  cities  will  have  become  less  available, 
the  cities  will  have  grown  immensely  more  populous ;  pauperism, 
now  confined  to  some  six  or  seven  of  the  greatest,  may  be  more 
widely  spread ;  and  even  if  wages  do  not  sink  work  may  be  less 
abundant.  In  fact  the  chronic  evils  and  problems  of  old  socie¬ 
ties  and  crowded  countries,  such  as  we  see  them  to-day  in  Europe, 
will  have  reappeared  on  this  new  soil,  while  the  demand  of  the 
multitude  to  have  a  larger  share  of  the  nation’s  collective  wealth 
may  well  have  grown  more  insistent. 

High  economic  authorities  pronounce  that  the  beginnings  of 
this  time  of  pressure  lie  not  more  than  twenty  years  ahead. 
All  of  the  best  arable  land  in  the  West  is  already  occupied; 
much  even  of  the  second  and  third  best  is  already  under 
cultivation.;  and  unless  agricultural  science  renders  further 
aid,  the  exhaustion  already  complained  of  in  farms  which 
have  been  under  the  plough  for  three  or  four  decades  will 
be  increasingly  felt.  It  may  be  a  time  of  trial  for  democratic 
institutions.  The  future  of  the  United  States  during  the  next 
half  century  sometimes  presents  itself  to  the  mind  as  a 
struggle  between  two  forces,  the  one  beneficent,  the  other 
malign,  the  one  striving  to  speed  the  nation  on  to  a  port  of 
safety  before  this  time  of  trial  arrives,  the  other  to  retard  its 


914 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


progress,  so  that  the  tempest  may  be  upon  it  before  the  port  is 
reached.  And  the  question  to  which  one  reverts  in  musing  on 
the  phenomena  of  American  politics  is  this  —  Will  the  progress 
now  discernible  towards  a  wiser  public  opinion  and  a  higher 
standard  of  public  life  succeed  in  bringing  the  mass  of  the  people 
up  to  the  level  of  what  are  now  the  best  districts  in  the  country 
before  the  days  of  pressure  are  at  hand  ?  Or  will  existing  evils 
prove  so  obstinate,  and  European  immigration  so  continue  to 
depress  the  average  of  intelligence  and  patriotism  among  the 
voters,  that  when  the  struggle  for  life  grows  far  harder  than  it 
now  is,  the  masses  will  yield  to  the  temptation  to  abuse  their 
power  and  will  seek  violent,  and  because  violent,  probably  vain 
and  useless  remedies,  for  the  evils  which  will  afflict  them? 
Some  such  are  indeed  now  proposed,  and  receive  a  support  which, 
small  as  it  is,  is  larger  than  any  one  would  in  1870  have  predicted 
for  them. 

If  the  crisis  should  arrive  while  a  large  part  of  the  population 
still  lacks  the  prudence  and  self-control  which  a  democracy 
ought  to  possess,  what  result  may  be  looked  for?  This  is  a 
question  which  no  experience  from  similar  crises  in  the  past 
helps  us  to  answer,  for  the  phenomena  will  be  new  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  There  may  be  pernicious  experiments  tried  in 
legislation.  There  may  be  —  indeed  there  have  been  already 
—  occasional  outbreaks  of  violence.  There  may  even  be,  though 
nothing  at  present  portends  it,  a  dislocation  of  the  present  frame 
of  government.  One  thing,  however,  need  not  be  apprehended, 
the  thing  with  which  alarmists  most  frequently  terrify  us : 
there  will  not  be  anarchy.  The  forces  which  restore  order  and 
maintain  it  when  restored  are  as  strong  in  America  as  anywhere 
else  in  the  world. 

While  admitting  the  possibility  of  such  a  time  of  strife  and 
danger,  he  who  has  studied  America  will  not  fail  to  note  that 
she  will  have  elements  of  strength  for  meeting  it  which  are 
lacking  in  some  European  countries.  The  struggles  of  labour 
and  capital,  though  they  have  of  late  years  become  more  viru¬ 
lent,  do  not  seem  likely  to  take  the  form  of  a  widely  prevailing 
enmity  between  classes.  The  distribution  of  landed  property- 
among  a  great  many  small  owners  is  likely  to  continue.  The 
habits  of  freedom,  together  with  the  moderation  and  self-control 
which  they  foster,  are  likely  to  stand  unimpaired,  or  to  be  even 
confirmed  and  mellowed  by  longer  use.  The  restraining  and 


chap,  cxxii  FUTURE  OF  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS 


915 


conciliating  influence  of  religion  is  stronger  than  in  France  or 
Germany,  and  more  enlightened  than  in  those  continental 
countries  where  religion  now  seems  strongest.  I  admit  that 
no  one  can  say  how  far  the  United  States  of  fifty  years  hence 
will  in  these  respects  resemble  the  United  States  of  to-day.  But 
if  we  are  to  base  our  anticipations  on  the  facts  of  to-day,  we  may 
look  forward  to  the  future,  not  indeed  without  anxiety,  when  we 
mark  the  clouds  that  hang  on  the  horizon,  yet  with  a  hope  that 
is  stronger  than  anxiety. 


CHAPTER  CXXIII 


SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 

If  it  be  hard  to  forecast  the  development  of  political  insti¬ 
tutions  and  habits,  how  much  harder  to  form  a  conception  of 
what  the  economic  and  social  life  of  the  United  States  will 
have  become  when  another  half-century  of  marvellously  swift 
material  progress  has  quintupled  its  wealth  and  tripled  its 
population ;  and  when  the  number  of  persons  pursuing  arts  and 
letters,  and  educated  to  enjoy  the  most  refined  pleasures  of 
life,  will  have  become  proportionately  greater  than  it  is  now. 
The  changes  of  the  last  fifty  years,  great  as  they  have  been,  may 
then  prove  to  have  been  no  greater  than  those  which  the  next 
fifty  will  have  brought.  Prediction  is  even  more  difficult  in  this 
sphere  than  in  the  sphere  of  government,  because  the  forces 
at  work  to  modify  society  are  more  numerous,  as  well  as  far  more 
subtle  and  complex,  and  because  not  only  the  commercial  pros¬ 
perity  of  the  country,  but  its  thought  and  culture  are  more 
likely  than  its  politics  to  be  affected  by  the  course  of  events 
in  the  Old  World.  All  I  can  attempt  is,  as  in  the  last  preced¬ 
ing  chapter,  to  call  attention  to  some  of  the  changes  which 
are  now  in  progress,  and  to  conjecture  whether  the  phenomena 
we  now  observe  are  due  to  permanent  or  to  transitory  causes. 
I  shall  speak  first  of  economic  changes  and  their  influence  on 
certain  current  problems,  next  to  the  movements  of  population 
and  possible  alterations  in  its  character,  lastly,  of  the  ten¬ 
dencies  which  seem  likely  to  continue  to  affect  the  social  and 
intellectual  life  of  the  nation. 

The  most  remarkable  economic  feature  of  the  years  that 
have  elapsed  since  the  war  has  been  the  growth  of  great  for¬ 
tunes.  There  is  a  passage  in  the  Federalist ,  written  in  1788, 
which  says,  “the  private  fortunes  of  the  President  and  Sen¬ 
ators,  as  they  must  all  be  American  citizens,  cannot  possibly 
be  sources  of  danger.”  Even  in  1833,  Tocqueville  was  struck 
by  the  equal  distribution  of  wealth  in  the  United  States  and 

916 


chap,  cxxiii  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


917 


the  absence  of  capitalists.  To-day,  however,  there  are  more 
great  millionaires,  as  well  as  more  men  with  a  capital  of  from 
$500,000  to  $2,000,000,  in  America  than  in  any  other  country  ; 
and  before  1950  it  may  probably  contain  as  many  large  fortunes 
as  will  exist  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe  put  together.  Nor 
are  these  huge  accumulations  due  to  custom  and  the  policy  of 
the  law,  which  have  in  England  kept  property,  and  especially 
landed  property,  in  the  hands  of  a  few  by  the  so-called  custom 
of  primogeniture,  whereas  in  the  United  States  the  influence 
of  law  has  tended  the  other  way.  An  American  testator  usually 
distributes  his  wealth  among  his  children  equally.  However 
rich  he  may  be,  he  does  not  expect  his  daughters  to  marry  rich 
men,  but  is  just  as  willing  to  see  them  mated  to  persons  sup¬ 
porting  themselves  by  their  own  efforts.  And  he  is  far  more 
inclined  than  Europeans  are  to  bestow  large  part  of  his  wealth 
upon  objects  of  public  utility,  instead  of  using  it  to  found  a 
family.  In  spite  of  these  dispersing  forces,  great  fortunes 
grow  with  the  growing  wealth  of  the  country,  and  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  it  offers  of  amassing  enormous  piles  by  bold  operations. 
Even  an  unspeculative  business  may,  if  skilfully  conducted, 
bring  in  greater  gains  than  can  often  be  hoped  for  in  Europe, 
because  the  scale  of  operations  is  in  America  so  large  that  a 
comparatively  small  percentage  of  profit  may  mean  a  very 
large  income.  These  causes  are  likely  to  be  permanent ;  nor 
can  any  legislation  that  is  compatible  with  the  rights  of  prop¬ 
erty  as  now  understood,  do  much  to  restrict  them.  We  may 
therefore  expect  that  the  class  of  very  rich  men,  men  so  rich 
as  to  find  it  difficult  to  spend  their  income  in  enjoying  life, 
though  they  may  go  on  employing  it  in  business,  will  continue 
to  increase. 

It  may  be  suggested  that  the  great  fortunes  of  to-day  are 
due  to  the  swift  development  of  the  West,  so  that  after  a  time 
they  will  cease  to  arise  in  such  numbers,  while  those  we  now  see 
will  have  been  scattered.  The  development  of  the  West  must, 
however,  continue  at  least  till  the  middle  of  the  century ;  and 
though  the  wealthy  seldom  seek  to  keep  their  wealth  together 
after  their  death  by  elaborate  devices,  many  are  the  sons  of  the 
rich  who  start  with  capital  enough  to  give  them  a  great  advan¬ 
tage  for  further  accumulation.  There  are  as  yet  comparatively 
few  careers  to  compete  with  business ;  nor  is  it  as  easy  as  in 
Europe  to  spend  a  fortune  on  pleasure.  The  idle  rich  of  Amer- 


918 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


ica,  who,  though  relatively  few,  are  numerous  enough  to  form 
a  class  in  the  greatest  Atlantic  cities,  are  by  no  means  the 
most  contented  class  in  the  country. 

The  growth  of  vast  fortunes  has  helped  to  create  apolitical  prob¬ 
lem,  for  they  become  a  mark  for  the  invective  of  the  more  ex¬ 
treme  sections  of  the  Labour  or  Socialist  parties.  But  should  the 
Collectivist  propaganda  so  far  prosper  as  to  produce  legislative 
attacks  upon  accumulated  wealth,  such  attacks  will  be  directed 
(at  least  in  the  first  instance),  not  against  individual  rich  men, 
but  against  incorporated  companies,  since  it  is  through  corpo¬ 
rations  that  wealth  has  made  itself  obnoxious.  Why  the  power 
of  these  bodies  should  have  grown  so  much  greater  in  the  United 
States  than  in  Europe,  and  why  they  should  be  more  often 
controlled  by  a  small  knot  of  men,  are  questions  too  intricate 
to  be  here  discussed.  Companies  are  in  many  ways  so  useful 
that  any  general  diminution  of  the  legal  facilities  for  forming 
them  seems  improbable ;  but  I  conceive  that  they  will  be  even 
more  generally  than  hitherto  subjected  to  special  taxation; 
and  that  their  power  of  taking  and  using  public  franchises 
will  be  still  further  restricted.  He  who  considers  the  irrespon¬ 
sible  nature  of  the  power  which  three  or  four  men,  or  perhaps 
one  man,  can  exercise  through  a  great  corporation,  such  as  a 
railroad  or  telegraph  company,  the  injury  they  can  inflict  on 
the  public  as  well  as  on  their  competitors,  the  cynical  audacity 
with  which  they  have  often  used  their  wealth  to  seduce  officials 
and  legislators  from  the  path  of  virtue,  will  find  nothing  un¬ 
reasonable  in  the  desire  of  the  American  masses  to  regulate  the 
management  of  the  corporations  and  narrow  the  range  of  their 
action.  The  same  remark  applies,  with  even  more  force,  to 
combinations  of  men  not  incorporated  but  acting  together, 
the  so-called  Trusts,  i.e.  commercial  rings  or  syndicates.  The 
next  few  years  or  even  decades  may  be  largely  occupied  with 
the  effort  to  deal  with  these  phenomena  of  a  commercial  system 
far  more  highly  developed  than  the  world  has  yet  seen  elsewhere. 
The  economic  advantages  of  the  amalgamation  of  railroads  and 
the  tendency  in  all  departments  of  trade  for  large  concerns  to 
absorb  or  supplant  small  ones,  are  both  so  marked  that  prob¬ 
lems  of  this  order  seem  likely  to  grow  even  larger  and  more 
urgent  than  they  now  are.  Their  solution  will  demand,  not 
only  great  legal  skill,  but  great  economic  wisdom. 

Of  the  tendency  to  aggregation  there  are  happily  few  signs  so 


chap,  cxxm  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


919 


far  as  relates  to  agriculture.  Almost  the  only  great  landed  estates 
are  in  the  Far  West,  particularly  in  California,  where  they  are 
a  relic  from  Spanish  days,  together  with  some  properties  held  by 
land  companies  or  individual  speculators  in  the  Upper  Missis¬ 
sippi  States,  properties  which  are  being  generally  sold  in  small 
farms  to  incoming  settlers.  The  census  returns  of  1890  and  of 
1900  did  no  doubt  show  an  increase  in  the  number  of  persons 
who  hire  from  others  the  lands  they  till.  While  the  increase 
in  the  number  of  farms  cultivated  by  the  owner  during  the 
decade  ending  with  the  latter  year  was  only  13.05  per  cent, 
that  of  farms  rented  for  money  by  the  cultivator  was  65  per 
cent,  and  that  of  farms  rented  for  a  share  of  the  products  51.5 
per  cent.  This  may,  however,  be  due  partly  to  the  growth 
of  small  negro  farms  in  the  South,  partly  to  the  disposition 
of  many  Western  farmers  to  retire  from  active  labour  when  old 
age  approaches,  letting  their  farms,  and  living  on  the  rent 
thereof,  partly  also  to  the  buying  up  of  lands  near  a  “boom 
town”  by  speculators  for  a  rise.  Taking  the  country  as  a 
whole,  there  is  no  indication  of  any  serious  change  to  large 
properties.1  In  the  South,  large  plantations  are  more  rare 
than  before  the  war,  and  much  of  the  cotton  crop  is  raised  by 
peasant  farmers,  as  the  increase  in  the  number  of  farms  re¬ 
turned  in  1900  proves.  It  is  of  course  possible  that  cultivation 
on  a  large  scale  may  in  some  regions  turn  out  to  be  more  profit¬ 
able  than  that  of  small  freeholders :  agriculture  as  an  art  may 
be  still  in  its  infancy,  and  science  may  alter  the  conditions  of 
production  in  this  highly  inventive  country.  But  at  present 
nothing  seems  to  threaten  that  system  of  small  proprietors 
tilling  the  soil  they  live  on  which  so  greatly  contributes  to  the 
happiness  and  stability  of  the  commonwealth.  The  motives 
which  in  Europe  induce  rich  men  to  buy  large  estates  are  here 
wholly  wanting,  for  no  one  gains  either  political  power  or  social 
status  by  becoming  a  landlord. 

Changes  in  economic  conditions  have  begun  to  bring  about 
changes  in  population  which  will  work  powerfully  on  the  future 

1  Of  5,698,901  farms  returned  in  the  census  of  1900,  3,712,408  were  cultivated 
by  the  owner  and  2,024,964  rented  by  the  farmer  ;  and  of  those  owned  a  little 
less  than  one-third  (a  number  probably  since  reduced)  would  appear  to  be  sub¬ 
ject  to  mortgages.  The  proportion  to  the  whole  number  of  dwellings  not  owned 
but  hired  by  those  who  live  in  them  is,  of  course,  very  much  larger,  viz.  53.5  per 
cent  for  the  whole  country,  and  74.3  per  cent  for  160  cities  with  at  least  25,000 
inhabitants. 


920 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


of  society  and  politics.  One  such  change  has  been  passing  on 
New  England  during  the  last  twenty  years.  Its  comparatively 
thin  and  ungenial  soil,  which  has  generally  hard  rock  at  no 
great  depth  below  the  surface,  and  has  been  cultivated  in  many 
places  for  nigh  two  hundred  years,  has  been  unable  to  sustain 
the  competition  of  the  rich  and  virgin  lands  of  the  West.  The 
old  race  of  New  England  yeomen  have  accordingly  mostly 
sold  or  abandoned  their  farms  and  migrated  to  the  upper  val¬ 
ley  of  the  Mississippi,  where  they  make  the  prosperity  of  the 
North-western  States.  The  lands  which  they  have  left  vacant 
are  frequently  occupied  by  immigrants,  sometimes  French 
Canadians,  but  chiefly  Irish,  with  some  Poles  and  other  Slavs 
and  a  few  Italians,  for  comparatively  few  Germans  settle  in 
rural  New  England;  and  thus  that  which  was  the  most  purely 
English  part  of  America  is  now  becoming  one  of  the  least 
English,  since  the  cities  also  are  full  of  Irish,  Jews,  Slavs,  and 
Canadians.  In  Massachusetts,  for  instance,  the  persons  of 
foreign  birth  were  in  1900  30.2  per  cent  of  the  population, 
while  the  foreign  born  and  their  children  were  more  than  half. 
In  Rhode  Island  the  percentages  of  foreigners  are  even  higher. 
It  is  impossible  not  to  regret  the  disappearance  of  a  picturesquely 
primitive  society  which  novelists  and  essayists  have  made 
familiar  to  us,  with  its  delightful  mixture  of  homely  simplicity 
and  keen  intelligence.  Of  all  the  types  of  rustic  life  which  im¬ 
agination  has  since  the  days  of  Theocritus  embellished  for  the 
envy  or  refreshment  of  the  dwellers  in  cities,  this  latest  type 
has  been  to  English  readers  the  most  real  and  not  the  least 
attractive.  It  has  now  almost  entirely  passed  away ;  nor  will 
the  life  of  the  robust  sons  of  the  Puritans  in  the  North-western 
prairies,  vast  and  bare  and  new,  reproduce  the  idyllic  quality 
of  their  old  surroundings.  But  the  Irish  squatters  on  the  for¬ 
saken  farms  rear  their  children  under  better  conditions  than 
do  those  either  of  the  American  cities  or  of  the  island  of  their 
birth,  and  they  are  replenishing  New  England  with  a  vigorous 
stock. 

Another  change  is  now  beginning  to  be  seen,  for  immigration  is 
already  turning  from  the  North-west  towards  the  Southern  region, 
the  far  greater  part  of  which  has  remained  until  now  undeveloped. 
Western  North  Carolina,  Northern  Georgia  and  Alabama,  and 
Eastern  Tennessee  possess  enormous  mineral  deposits,  only  a  few 
of  which  have  yet  begun  to  be  worked.  There  are  also  splendid 


chap,  cxxm  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


921 


forests ;  there  is  in  many  places,  as  for  instance  in  the  vast 
swamp  regions  of  Florida,  a  soil  believed  to  be  fertile,  much  of 
it  not  yet  brought  under  cultivation ;  while  the  climate  is  not, 
except  in  a  very  few  low  maritime  tracts,  too  hot  for  white  labour. 
As  the  vacant  spaces  of  the  West  are  ceasing  to  be  able  to  re¬ 
ceive  the  continued  influx  of  settlers,  even  with  the  room  which 
has  been  made  by  the  migration  of  farmers  into  the  Western 
provinces  of  Canada,  these  Southern  regions  will  more  and 
more  attract  settlers  from  the  Northern  and  Western  States, 
and  these  will  carry  with  them  habits  and  ideas  which  may 
further  quicken  the  progress  of  the  South,  and  bring  her  into 
a  more  perfect  harmony  with  the  rest  of  the  country. 

The  mention  of  the  South  raises  a  group  of  questions,  bear¬ 
ing  on  the  future  of  the  Negro  and  the  relation  she  will  sustain 
to  the  whites,  which  need  not  be  discussed  here,  as  they  have 
been  dealt  with  in  preceding  chapters  (Chapters  XCIII.  to 
XCV.).  The  alarm  which  the  growth  of  the  coloured  peo¬ 
ple  formerly  excited  was  allayed  by  the  census  of  1890,  which 
showed  that  they  increase  more  slowly  than  the  whites,  even 
in  the  South,  and  form  a  constantly  diminishing  proportion 
of  the  total  population  of  the  country.  The  negro  is  doubt¬ 
less  a  heavy  burden  for  American  civilization  to  carry.  No 
problems  seem  likely  so  long  to  confront  the  nation,  and  so 
severely  to  tax  the  national  character  on  its  moral  side,  as 
those  which  his  presence  raises.  Much  patience  will  be  needed, 
and  much  sympathy.  The  negroes,  however,  are  necessary  to 
the  South,  which  has  not  enough  white  workers ;  and  their  la¬ 
bour  is  helpful  not  only  to  the  agriculturist  but  also  to  the 
mine-owners  and  iron-masters  of  the  mining  regions  I  have  just 
referred  to.  Their  progress  since  emancipation  has  been  more 
rapid  than  those  who  saw  them  in  slavery  expected,  for  no 
section  has  relapsed  into  sloth  and  semi-barbarism,  while  in 
many  districts  there  has  been  a  steady  rise  in  education,  in 
intelligence,  in  thrift,  and  in  the  habit  of  sustained  industry. 
The  relation  of  the  two  races,  though  it  presents  some  painful 
features,  is  not,  on  the  whole,  one  of  hostility,  and  contains 
no  present  elements  of  political  danger.  Though  the  great 
majority  of  the  negroes  are  now  excluded  from  the  exercise  of 
the  suffrage,  their  condition  is  not  the  same  as  though  that 
gift  had  never  been  bestowed,  for  the  fact  that  the  negro  is 
legally  a  citizen  has  raised  both  the  white’s  view  of  him  and 


922 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


his  own  view  of  himself.  Thoughtful  observers  in  the  South 
seem  to  feel  little  anxiety,  and  expect  that  for  many  years  to 
come  the  negroes,  naturally  a  good-natured  and  easy-going 
race,  will  be  content  with  the  position  of  an  inferior  caste, 
doing  the  humbler  kinds  of  work,  but  gradually  permeated  by 
American  habits  and  ideas,  and  sending  up  into  the  walks  of 
commercial  and  professional  life  a  slowly  increasing  number  of 
its  most  capable  members.  It  might  be  thought  that  this 
elevating  process  would  be  accelerated  by  the  sympathy  of 
the  coloured  people  at  the  North,  who,  as  they  enjoy  greater 
educational  opportunities,  might  be  expected  to  advance  more 
quickly.  But  the  negro  race  increases  comparatively  slowly  to 
the  north  of  latitude  40°,  and  does  not  make  sufficient  progress  in 
wealth  and  influence  to  be  able  to  help  its  Southern  members.1 

Two  other  questions  relating  to 'changes  in  population  must 
be  adverted  to  before  we  leave  this  part  of  the  subject.  There 
are  Europeans  who  hold  —  and  in  this  physiologically-minded 
age  it  is  natural  that  men  should  hold  —  that  the  evolution  of 
a  distinctively  American  type  of  character  and  manners  must 
be  still  distant,  because  the  heterogeneous  elements  of  the 
population  (in  which  the  proportion  of  English  blood  is  far 
smaller  now  than  it  was  in  1850)  must  take  a  long  time  to  be¬ 
come  mixed  and  assimilated.  This  is  a  plausible  view;  yet  I 
doubt  whether  differences  of  blood  have  the  importance  which 
it  assumes.  What  strikes  the  traveller,  and  what  the  Ameri¬ 
cans  themselves  delight  to  point  out,  is  the  amazing  solvent 
power  which  American  institutions,  habits,  and  ideas  exercise 
upon  newcomers  of  all  races.  The  children  of  Irishmen,  Ger¬ 
mans,  and  Scandinavians  are  certainly  far  more  like  native 
Americans  than  the  current  views  of  heredity  would  have  led 
us  to  expect ;  nor  is  it  without  interest  to  observe  that  Nature 
has  here  repeated  on  the  Western  continent  that  process  of  mix¬ 
ing  Celtic  with  Germanic  and  Norse  blood  which  she  began  in 
Britain  more  than  a  thousand  years  ago.  The  ratio  borne  by 
the  Celtic  elements  in  the  population  of  Great  Britain  (i.e.  the 
Piets  and  Gaels  of  Northern  Britain  and  those  of  the  Cymry 
of  Middle  and  Western  Britain  who  survived  the  onslaught  of 
the  Angles  and  Saxons  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries)  to  the 

1  In  1790  the  coloured  people  were  19.3  per  cent  of  the  total  population  of  the 
United  States,  and  in  1880  only  13.1.  In  1890  the  percentage  had  sunk  to  11.9, 
in  1900  to  8.59,  and  is  still  on  the  decrease. 


chap,  cxxiii  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


923 


Teutonic  (Low  German  and  Norse)  elements  in  that  population 
as  it  stood  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  England  began  to 
colonize  North  America,  may  probably  be  a  ratio  not  much  smal¬ 
ler  than  that  which  the  Irish  immigrants  to  America  bear  to  the 
German  immigrants :  so  that  the  relative  proportions  of  Celtic 
and  Teutonic  blood,  as  these  proportions  may  be  taken  to  have 
existed  in  the  Americans  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  have  not  been 
greatly  altered  by  Irish  and  the  German  immigration.1 

On  the  whole,  we  may  conclude  that  the  intellectual  and  moral 
atmosphere  into  which  the  settlers  from  Europe  come  has  more 
power  to  assimilate  them  than  their  race  qualities  have  power 
to  change  it ;  and  that  the  future  of  America  will  be  less  affected 
by  this  influx  of  new  blood,  even  Italian  and  Slavonic  blood, 
than  any  one  who  has  not  studied  the  facts  on  the  spot  can 
realize.  The  influence  of  European  immigration  is  so  far  to 
be  traced,  not  in  any  tinging  of  the  national  character,  but 
economically  in  the  amazingly  swift  growth  of  the  agricul¬ 
tural  West,  and  politically  in  the  unfortunate  results  it  has 
had  upon  the  public  life  of  cities,  in  the  outbreaks  of  savage 
violence  which  may  be  traced  to  it,  particularly  in  the  mining 
districts,  and  in  the  severe  strain  it  has  put  on  universal  suffrage. 
Another  possible  source  of  evil  has  caused  disquiet.  The 
most  conspicuous  evidence  of  American  prosperity  has  been 
hitherto  seen  in  the  high  standard  of  living  to  which  the  native 
working  classes  of  the  North  have  risen,  in  the  abundance  of  their 
food  and  the  quality  of  their  clothing,  in  the  neatness  and  com¬ 
fort  of  their  homes,  in  the  decent  orderliness  of  their  lives,  and 
the  fondness  for  reading  of  their  women.  The  Irish  and  Ger¬ 
man  settlers  of  last  century,  though  at  first  behind  the  native 
Americans  in  all  these  respects,  have  now  risen  to  their  level  and, 
except  in  a  few  of  the  larger  cities,  have  adopted  American 
standards  of  comfort.  Will  the  same  thing  happen  with  the 
new  swarms  of  European  immigrants  who  have  been  drawn 
from  their  homes  in  the  eastern  parts  of  Central  Europe  by 


1  The  analogy  may  be  carried  one  step  farther  by  observing  that  the  Scan¬ 
dinavians  who  now  settle  in  the  North-western  States,  as  they  have  come  to 
America  later  than  Celts  or  Germans,  so  also  have  come  in  a  proportion  to  Celts 
and  Germans  corresponding  to  that  borne  to  the  previous  inhabitants  of  Britain 
by  the  Danes  and  Norwegians  who  poured  their  vigorous  blood  into  the  veins 
of  the  English  race  from  the  ninth  century  onwards.  The  larger  and  more  ob¬ 
scure  question  of  the  influence  of  Slavonic,  Jewish  and  Italian  immigrants  has 
been  dealt  with  in  Chapter  XCII. 


924 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


the  constant  cheapening  of  ocean  transit  and  by  that  more 
thorough  drainage,  so  to  speak,  of  the  inland  regions  of  Europe 
which  is  due  to  the  extension  of  railways  ? 1 

Some  have  feared  that  possibly  these  immigrants,  coming 
from  a  lower  stratum  of  civilization  than  the  German  immi¬ 
grants  of  the  past,  and,  since  they  speak  foreign  tongues,  less 
quickly  amenable  to  American  influences  than  are  the  Irish, 
retain  their  own  low  standard  of  decency  and  comfort,  and 
menace  the  continuance  among  the  white  work  people  of  that 
far  higher  standard  which  has  hitherto  prevailed.  But  expe¬ 
rience  has  hitherto  shown  that  these  latest  comers,  though 
they  live  far  more  roughly  than  native  Americans,  soon  cease 
to  be  content  with  lower  wages,  so  if  they  do  depress  the 
average  of  decent  living,  it  will  not  be  through  underbidding 
the  older  inhabitants. 

The  intrusion  of  new  inauspicious  elements  is  not  the  only 
change  in  the  population  which  may  cause  anxiety.  For  many 
years  past  there  has  been  an  indraught  of  people  from  the 
rural  districts  to  the  cities.  More  than  one-third  of  the 
whole  population  is  now,  it  is  estimated,  to  be  found  in  cities 
with  a  population  exceeding  8000,  and  the  transfer  of  people 
from  a  rural  to  an  urban  life  goes  on  all  the  faster  because  it 
is  due  not  merely  to  economic  causes,  such  as  operate  all  the 
world  over,  and  to  the  spirit  of  enterprise  which  is  strong  in 
the  American  youth,  but  also  to  the  distaste  which  the  average 
native  American,  a  more  sociable  and  amusement-loving  being 
than  the  English  or  German  peasant,  feels  for  the  isolation  of  farm 
life  and  the  monotony  of  farm  labour.2  Even  in  1844  R.  W. 
Emerson  wrote:  “The  cities  drain  the  country  of  the  best 
part  of  its  population,  the  flower  of  the  youth  of  both  sexes 
goes  into  the  towns,  and  the  country  is  cultivated  by  a  much 
inferior  class.”  Since  then  the  Western  forests  have  been  felled 

1  The  largest  percentages  of  increase  of  foreign  population  were,  in  the  decade 
of  1890—1900,  the  following  :  Persons  born  in  Hungary  133  per  cent,  in  Russia 
132  per  cent,  in  Italy  165  per  cent,  in  Austria  124  per  cent,  in  Poland  160  per 
cent.  In  the  preceding  decade  these  percentages  had  been  441,  411,  312,  124, 
and  203  respectively. 

2  There  is  sometimes  a  scarcity  of  labour  on  farms  in  the  Eastern  States, 
while  the  cities  are  crowded  with  men  out  of  work. 

The  percentage  of  urbans  to  total  population,  which  in  1790  was  3.35,  was,  in 
1890,  29.12,  and  in  1900,  33.1.  In  the  North  Atlantic  States  it  was  58.6  per  cent 
of  the  population  of  those  States.  The  increase  in  these  States  was  chiefly  in 
Massachusetts,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  and  a  part  was  of  course  due 
to  the  large  increase  of  immigration  into  New  York  City. 


chap,  cxxm  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


925 


and  the  Western  prairies  brought  under  the  plough  by  the  stal¬ 
wart  sons  of  New  England  and  New  York.  But  now  again,  and 
in  the  West  hardly  less  than  in  the  East,  the  complaint  goes 
up  that  native  American  men  and  women  long  for  a  city  life, 
and  gladly  leave  tillage  to  the  newcomers  from  Germany  and 
Scandinavia.  To  make  rural  life  more  attractive  and  so  check 
the  inflow  to  the  cities,  is  one  of  the  chief  tasks  of  American 
statesmanship  to-day.  Fortunately,  the  introduction  of  the 
telephone,  of  electric  car  lines  traversing  the  rural  districts,  of 
automobiles,  and  of  a  delivery  of  letters  over  the  country  are  all 
tending  to  reduce  the  loneliness  and  isolation  which  have  made 
country  life  distasteful. 

Whether  a  city-bred  population  will  have  the  physical  vigour 
which  the  native  rural  population  has  shown  —  a  population 
which  in  some  of  the  Western  States  strikes  one  as  perhaps  more 
vigorous  than  any  Europe  can  point  to  —  is  at  least  doubtful, 
for  though  American  cities  have  sanitary  advantages  greater 
than  those  of  most  towns  in  Europe,  the  stress  and  strain  of  their 
city  life  is  more  exhausting.  And  it  need  scarcely  be  added  that 
in  the  oldest  and  most  highly  civilized  districts  of  the  country, 
and  among  the  wealthier  or  more  refined  classes  of  the  people, 
the  natural  increase  of  population  is  much  smaller  than  it  is 
among  the  poorer  and  the  ruder. 

We  have  been  wont  to  think  of  the  principle  of  natural  selec¬ 
tion  as  that  which  makes  for  the  progress  of  the  race  in  man¬ 
kind,  as  it  has  done  in  the  other  families  of  animated  creatures. 
But  in  the  most  advanced  communities  this  principle  is  apt  to 
be  reversed,  and  the  section  of  the  population  which  tends  to 
propagate  itself  most  largely  is  that  very  section  which  is  least 
fitted  to  raise,  or  even  to  sustain,  the  intellectual  and  moral 
level,  as  well  as  the  level  of  physical  excellence,  already  attained. 
Marriages  are  later  and  families  smaller  among  the  best  nurtured 
and  most  cultivated  class  than  they  are  among  the  uneducated 
and  improvident ;  more  children  are  born  to  the  physically  weak 
and  morally  untrained  than  to  those  among  the  rich  whose 
natural  gifts  would  in  ages  of  violence,  when  men  and  families 
survived  by  physical  and  mental  strength,  have  enabled  them 
to  prevail  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Thus  a  force  which 
once  worked  powerfully  for  the  improvement  of  a  national 
stock  has  now  been  turned  the  other  way,  and  makes  for  a  decline 
in  the  average  capacities  wherewith  each  man  is  born  into  the 


926 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


world.  So  in  New  England  and  the  Eastern  States  generally, 
though  there  are  a  few  families,  historic  by  the  number  of  eminent 
names  they  have  produced,  which  still  flourish  and  count  their 
cousinhood  by  hundreds,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  original 
English  stock,  if  it  maintains  its  numbers  (which  seems  in  some 
parts  of  the  country  to  be  doubtful),  grows  less  swiftly  than 
do  the  immigrant  stocks,  and  far  less  swiftly  than  it  did  a 
century  ago.1  Yet  here  also  that  assimilative  power  of  which 
I  have  spoken  comes  to  the  help  of  the  nation.  Those  who 
rise  from  the  less  cultivated  classes,  whether  of  native  or 
foreign  extraction,  are  breathed  upon  by  the  spirit  of  the 
country ;  they  absorb  its  culture  and  carry  on  its  traditions ; 
and  they  do  so  all  the  more  readily  because  the  pervading 
sense  of  equality  makes  a  man’s  entrance  into  a  class  higher 
than  that  wherein  he  was  born  depend  solely  on  his  personal 
qualities. 

European  readers  may  ask  whether  the  swift  growth  not  only 
of  wealth  but  of  great  fortunes  in  the  United  States  will  not  end 
in  creating  an  aristocracy  of  rich  families,  and  therewith  a  new 
structure  of  society.  I  see  no  ground  for  expecting  this,  not 
merely  because  the  wealthiest  class  passes  down  by  impercep¬ 
tible  gradations  of  fortune  to  a  working  class  far  better  off 
than  the  working  classes  of  Europe,  but  also  because  the  faith 
in  equality  and  the  love  of  equality  are  too  deeply  implanted 
in  every  American  breast  to  be  rooted  out  by  any  economic 
changes.  They  are  the  strongest  beliefs  and  passions  of  the 
people.  They  make  no  small  part  of  the  people’s  daily  happi¬ 
ness;  and  I  can  more  easily  imagine  the  United  States  turned 
into  a  monarchy  on  the  one  hand  or  a  group  of  petty  republics 
on  the  other  than  the  aristocratic  ideas  and  habits  of  Germany 
established  on  American  soil.  Social  exclusiveness  there  may  be, 
—  signs  of  it  are  already  discernible,  —  but  visible  and  overt 
recognitions  of  differences  of  rank,  whether  in  the  use  of  hered- 

1  General  F.  A.  Walker  gave  the  rate  of  increase  of  the  native  whites  generally  in 
the  United  States  at  31.25  per  cent  in  the  decade  1870-80,  but  that  of  native  whites 
born  of  native  parents  at  28  per  cent.  The  Twelfth  Census,  1900,  gives  the  rate 
of  increase  in  the  years  1890-1900  as  23.1  per  cent  of  native  whites,  and  of  native 
whites  born  of  native  parents  as  18.9  per  cent.  The  average  size  of  the  family 
decreased  in  1870-80  from  5.09  persons  to  5.04.  In  1900  it  had  further  fallen  to 
4.7,  and  in  some  of  the  States  where  the  population  is  most  largely  native  born 
it  was  still  lower,  e.g.  Maine  (4.30),  New  Hampshire  (4.20),  Indiana  (4.40), 
whereas  in  the  South  it  was  comparatively  high,  e.g.  West  Virginia  (5. 10), Texas 
(5.20). 


chap,  cxxm  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


927 


itary  titles,  or  in  the  possession  by  one  class  of  special  privileges, 
or  in  the  habit  of  deference  by  one  class  to  another,  would  imply 
a  revolution  in  national  ideas,  and  a  change  in  what  may  be 
called  the  chemical  composition  of  the  national  mind,  which  is 
of  all  things  the  least  likely  to  arrive. 

I  have  left  to  the  last  the  most  difficult  problem  which  a 
meditation  on  the  future  of  American  society  raises.  From 
those  first  days  of  the  Republic  in  which  its  people  realized  that 
they  were  Americans  and  no  longer  merely  English  colonists, 
it  has  been  a  question  of  the  keenest  interest  for  them,  as  it  is 
now  for  the  world,  when  and  how  and  in  what  form  they  would 
develop  a  distinctively  new  and  truly  national  type  of  character 
and  genius.  In  1844  Emerson  said,  addressing  those  who  had 
lately  seen  the  coincidence  of  two  fateful  phenomena  —  the 
extension  of  railways  into  the  West  and  the  establishment  of 
lines  of  swift  ocean  steamers  to  Europe  — 

“We  in  the  Atlantic  States  by  position  have  been  commercial  and 
have  imbibed  easily  a  European  culture.  Luckily  for  us,  now  that  steam 
has  narrowed  the  Atlantic  to  a  strait,  the  nervous  rocky  West  is  intrud¬ 
ing  a  new  and  continental  element  into  the  national  mind,  and  we  shall 
yet  have  an  American  genius.  We  cannot  look  on  the  freedom  of  this 
country  in  connection  with  its  youth  without  a  presentiment  that  here 
shall  laws  and  institutions  exist  on  some  scale  of  proportion  to  the 
majesty  of  nature.  To  men  legislating  for  the  area  between  the  two 
oceans,  betwixt  the  snows  and  the  tropics,  somewhat  of  the  gravity  of 
nature  will  infuse  itself  into  the  code.” 

Since  these  words  were  spoken,  many  events  have  intervened 
to  delay  that  full  expression  of  the  national  gifts  in  letters  and 
arts,  as  well  as  in  institutions,  by  which  a  modern  people  must 
reveal  the  peculiar  nature  of  its  genius.  Emerson  would  doubt¬ 
less  have  admitted  in  1874  that  the  West  had  contributed  less 
of  a  "new  and  continental  element”  than  he  expected,  and  that 
the  majesty  of  nature  had  not  yet  filled  Congress  with  its  inspira¬ 
tion.  Probably  another  generation  must  arise,  less  preoccupied 
with  the  task  of  material  development  than  the  three  last  have 
been,  before  this  expression  can  be  looked  for.  Europe,  which 
used  to  assume  in  its  contemptuous  way  that  neither  arts  nor 
letters  could  be  expected  from  commercial  America  —  as  Charles 
Lamb  said  that  the  whole  Atlantic  coast  figured  itself  to  him 
as  one  long  counter  spread  with  wares  —  Europe  has  now  fallen 
into  the  opposite  error  of  expecting  the  development  of  arts  and 


928 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


letters  to  keep  pace  with  and  be  immediately  worthy  of  the 
material  greatness  of  the  country.  And  the  Americans  them¬ 
selves  have  perhaps,  if  a  stranger  may  be  pardoned  the  remark, 
erred  in  supposing  that  they  made,  either  in  the  days  of  the  first 
settlements  or  in  those  when  they  won  their  independence,  an 
entirely  new  departure,  and  that  their  new  environment  and 
their  democratic  institutions  rendered  them  more  completely 
a  new  people  than  the  children  of  England,  continuing  to  speak 
the  English  tongue  and  to  be  influenced  by  European  literature, 
could  in  truth  have  been  expected  to  become.  As  Protestants 
have  been  apt  to  forget  the  traditions  of  the  mediaeval  Church 
and  to  renounce  the  glories  of  St.  Anselm  and  St.  Bernard  and 
Dante,  so  the  Americans  of  1850  —  for  this  is  a  mistake  which 
they  have  now  outgrown  —  sought  to  think  of  themselves  as 
superior  in  all  regards  to  the  aristocratic  society  from  which  they 
had  severed  themselves,  and  looked  for  an  elevation  in  their 
character  and  an  originality  in  their  literature  which  neither 
the  amplitude  of  their  freedom  nor  the  new  conditions  of  their 
life  could  at  once  produce  in  the  members  of  an  ancient  people. 

What  will  be  either  the  form  or  the  spirit  of  transatlantic 
literature  and  thought  when  they  have  fully  ripened  is  a  ques¬ 
tion  on  which  I  do  not  attempt  to  speculate,  for  the  forces  that 
shape  literature  and  thought  are  the  subtlest  the  historian  has 
to  deal  with.  I  return  to  the  humbler  task  of  pointing  to  causes 
whose  already  apparent  power  is  producing  a  society  such  as 
has  never  yet  been  seen  in  Europe.  Nowhere  in  the  world  is 
there  growing  up  such  a  vast  multitude  of  intelligent,  cultivated, 
and  curious  readers.  It  is  true  that  of  the  whole  population 
a  vast  majority  of  the  men  read  little  but  newspapers,  and  many 
of  the  women  little  but  fiction.  Yet  there  remains  a  number  to 
be  counted  by  millions  who  enjoy  and  are  moved  by  the  higher 
products  of  thought  and  imagination ;  and  it  must  be  that  as 
this  number  continues  to  grow,  each  generation  rising  somewhat 
above  the  level  of  its  predecessors,  history  and  science,  and  even 
poetry,  will  exert  a  power  such  as  they  have  never  yet  exerted 
over  the  masses  of  any  country.  And  the  masses  of  America 
seem  likely  to  constitute  one-half  of  civilized  mankind.  There 
are  those  now  living  who  may  see  before  they  die  three  hundred 
millions  of  men  dwelling  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific, 
obeying  the  same  government,  speaking  the  same  tongue,  read¬ 
ing  the  same  books.  A  civilized  society  like  this  is  so  much  vaster 


chap,  cxxiii  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


929 


than  any  which  history  knows  of,  that  we  can  scarcely  figure  to 
ourselves  what  its  character  will  be,  nor  how  the  sense  of  its 
immensity  will  tell  upon  those  who  address  it.  The  range  of 
a  writer’s  power  will  be  such  as  no  writers  have  ever  yet  pos¬ 
sessed;  and  the  responsibility  which  goes  hand  in  hand  with 
the  privilege  of  moving  so  great  a  multitude  will  devolve  upon 
the  thinkers  and  poets  of  England  hardly  less  than  upon  those 
of  America. 

The  same  progress  which  may  be  expected  in  the  enjoyment 
of  literature  and  in  its  influence  may  be  no  less  expected  in  the 
other  elements  of  what  we  call  civilization.  Manners  are  becom¬ 
ing  in  America  more  generally  polished,  life  more  orderly,  equal¬ 
ity  between  the  sexes  more  complete,  the  refined  pleasures  more 
easily  accessible  than  they  have  ever  yet  been  among  the  masses 
of  any  people.  And  this  civilization  attains  a  unity  and  harmony 
which  makes  each  part  of  the  nation  understand  the  other  parts 
more  perfectly,  and  enables  an  intellectual  impulse  to  be  propa¬ 
gated  in  swifter  waves  of  light  than  has  been  the  case  among  the 
far  smaller  and  more  ancient  states  of  Europe. 

While  this  unity  and  harmony  strengthen  the  cohesion  of  the 
Republic,  while  this  diffused  cultivation  may  be  expected  to 
overcome  the  economic  dangers  that  threaten  it,  they  are  not 
wholly  favourable  to  intellectual  creation,  or  to  the  variety  and 
interest  of  life.  I  will  try  to  explain  my  meaning  by  describing 
the  impression  which  stamps  itself  on  the  mind  of  the  stranger 
who  travels  westward  by  railway  from  New  York  to  Oregon. 
In  Ohio  he  sees  communities  which  a  century  ago  were  clusters 
of  log-huts  among  forests,  and  which  are  now  cities  better  sup¬ 
plied  with  all  the  appliances  of  refined  and  even  luxurious  life 
than  were  Philadelphia  and  New  York  in  those  days.  In  Illinois 
he  sees  communities  which  were  in  1848  what  Ohio  was  in  1805. 
In  the  newer  States  of  Wyoming  and  Washington  he  sees  settle¬ 
ments  not  long  emerged  from  a  rudeness  like  that  of  primitive 
Ohio  or  Illinois,  and  reflects  that  such  as  Ohio  is  now,  such  as 
Illinois  is  fast  becoming,  such  in  a  few  years  more  will  Wyoming 
and  Washington  have  become,  the  process  of  development  mov¬ 
ing,  by  the  help  of  science,  with  an  always  accelerated  speed. 
“If  I  return  this  way  twenty  years  hence,”  he  thinks,  “I  shall 
see,  except  in  some  few  tracts  which  nature  has  condemned  to 
sterility,  nothing  but  civilization,  a  highly  developed  form  of 
civilization,  stretching  from  the  one  ocean  to  the  other ;  the 
3  o 


930 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


busy,  eager,  well-ordered  life  of  the  Hudson  will  be  the  life  of 
those  who  dwell  on  the  banks  of  the  Yellowstone,  or  who  look 
up  to  the  snows  of  Mount  Shasta  from  the  valleys  of  California.” 
The  Far  West  has  hitherto  been  to  Americans  of  the  Atlantic 
States  the  land  of  freedom  and  adventure  and  mystery,  the  land 
whose  forests  and  prairies,  with  trappers  pursuing  the  wild 
creatures,  and  Indians  threading  in  their  canoes  the  maze  of 
lakes,  have  touched  their  imagination  and  supplied  a  background 
of  romance  to  the  prosaic  conditions  which  surround  their  own 
lives.  All  this  is  fast  vanishing ;  and  as  the  world  has  by  slow 
steps  lost  all  its  mystery  since  the  voyage  of  Columbus,  so 
America  will  from  end  to  end  be  to  the  Americans  even  as  Eng¬ 
land  is  to  the  English.  What  new  background  of  romance  will 
be  discovered  ?  Where  will  the  American  imagination  of  the 
future  seek  its  materials  when  it  desires  to  escape  from  dramas 
of  domestic  life  ?  Where  will  bold  spirits  find  a  field  in  which  to 
relieve  their  energies  when  the  Western  world  of  adventure  is 
no  more  ?  As  in  our  globe  so  in  the  North  American  continent, 
there  will  be  something  to  regret  when  all  is  known  and  the 
waters  of  civilization  have  covered  the  tops  of  the  highest 
mountains. 

He  who  turns  away  from  a  survey  of  the  government  and 
society  of  the  United  States  and  tries  to  estimate  the  place 
they  hold  in  the  history  of  the  world’s  progress  cannot  repress 
a  slight  sense  of  disappointment  when  he  compares  what  he 
has  observed  and  studied  with  that  which  idealists  have  hoped 
for,  and  Americans  have  desired  to  establish.  “I  have  seen,” 
he  says,  “the  latest  experiment  which  mankind  have  tried, 
and  the  last  which  they  can  ever  hope  to  try  under  equally 
favouring  conditions.  A  race  of  unequalled  energy  and  un¬ 
surpassed  variety  of  gifts,  a  race  apt  for  conquest  and  for  the 
arts  of  peace,  which  has  covered  the  world  with  the  triumphs 
of  its  sword,  and  planted  its  laws  in  a  hundred  islands  of  the 
sea,  sent  the  choicest  of  its  children  to  a  new  land,  rich  with 
the  bounties  of  nature,  bidding  them  increase  and  multiply, 
with  no  enemies  to  fear  from  Europe,  and  few  of  those  evils  to 
eradicate  which  Europe  inherits  from  its  feudal  past.  They 
have  multiplied  till  the  sapling  of  two  centuries  ago  overtops 
the  parent  trunk;  they  have  drawn  from  their  continent  a 
wealth  which  no  one  dreamed  of,  they  have  kept  themselves 
aloof  from  Old  World  strife,  and  have  no  foe  in  the  world  to 


chap,  cxxm  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


931 


fear ;  they  have  destroyed,  after  a  tremendous  struggle,  the  one 
root  of  evil  which  the  mother  country  in  an  unhappy  hour 
planted  among  them.  And  yet  the  government  and  insti¬ 
tutions,  as  well  as  the  industrial  civilization  of  America,  are 
far  removed  from  that  ideal  commonwealth  which  European 
philosophers  imagined,  and  Americans  expected  to  create.” 
The  .feeling  expressed  in  these  words,  so  often  heard  from 
European  travellers,  is  natural  to  a  European,  who  is  struck 
by  the  absence  from  America  of  many  of  those  springs  of  trouble 
to  which  he  has  been  wont  to  ascribe  the  ills  of  Europe.  But 
it  is  only  the  utterance  of  the  ever-fresh  surprise  of  mankind 
at  the  discovery  of  their  own  weaknesses  and  shortcomings. 
Why  should  either  philosophers  in  Europe,  or  practical  men 
in  America  have  expected  human  nature  to  change  when  it 
crossed  the  ocean  ?  when  history  could  have  told  them  of  many 
ideals  not  less  high  and  hopes  not  less  confident  than  those 
that  were  formed  for  America  which  have  been  swallowed  up 
in  night.  The  vision  of  a  golden  age  has  often  shimmered 
far  off  before  the  mind  of  men  when  they  have  passed  through 
some  great  crisis,  or  climbed  to  some  specular  mount  of  faith, 
as  before  the  traveller  when  he  has  reached  the  highest  pas¬ 
tures  of  the  Jura,  the  line  of  Alpine  snows  stands  up  and  glitters 
with  celestial  light.  Such  a  vision  seen  by  heathen  antiquity 
still  charms  us  in  that  famous  poem  of  Virgil’s  which  was  long 
believed  to  embody  an  inspired  prophecy.  Such  another  re¬ 
joiced  the  souls  of  pious  men  in  the  days  of  Constantine,  when 
the  Christian  Church,  triumphant  over  her  enemies,  seemed 
about  to  realize  the  kingdom  of  heaven  upon  earth.  Such  a 
one  reappeared  to  the  religious  reformers  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  who  conceived  that  when  they  had  purged  Chris¬ 
tianity  of  its  corrupt  accretions,  the  world  would  be  again  filled 
with  the  glory  of  God,  and  men  order  their  lives  according  to 
His  law.  And  such  a  vision  transported  men  near  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  it  was  not  unnaturally  be¬ 
lieved  that  in  breaking  the  fetters  by  which  religious  and  sec¬ 
ular  tyranny  had  bound  the  souls  and  bodies  of  men,  and  in 
proclaiming  the  principle  that  government  sprang  from  the 
consent  of  all,  and  must  be  directed  to  their  good,  enough  had 
been  done  to  enable  the  natural  virtues  to  secure  the  peace  and 
happiness  of  nations.  Since  1789  many  things  have  happened, 
and  men  have  become  less  inclined  to  set  their  hopes  upon 


932 


SOCIAL  INSTITUTIONS 


PART  VI 


political  reforms.  Those  who  still  expect  a  general  amelio¬ 
ration  of  the  world  from  sudden  changes  look  to  an  industrial 
and  not  a  political  revolution,  or  seek  in  their  impatience  to 
destroy  all  that  now  exists,  fancying  that  from  chaos  some¬ 
thing  better  may  emerge.  In  Europe,  whose  thinkers  have 
seldom  been  in  a  less  cheerful  mood  than  they  are  to-day, 
there  are  many  who  seem  to  have  lost  the  old  faith  in  progress ; 
many  who  feel  when  they  recall  the  experiences  of  the  long 
pilgrimage  of  mankind,  that  the  mountains  which  stand  so 
beautiful  in  the  blue  of  the  distance,  touched  here  by  flashes 
of  sunlight  and  there  by  shadows  of  the  clouds,  will  when  one 
comes  to  traverse  them  be  no  Delectable  Mountains,  but 
scarred  by  storms  and  seamed  by  torrents,  with  wastes  of  stone 
above,  and  marshes  stagnating  in  the  valleys.  Yet  there  are 
others  whose  review  of  that  pilgrimage  convinces  them  that 
though  the  ascent  of  man  may  be  slow  it  is  also  sure ;  that  if 
we  compare  each  age  with  those  which  preceded  it  we  find 
that  the  ground  which  seems  for  a  time  to  have  been  lost  is 
ultimately  recovered,  we  see  human  nature  growing  gradually 
more  refined,  institutions  better  fitted  to  secure  justice,  the 
opportunities  and  capacities  for  happiness  larger  and  more 
varied,  so  that  the  error  of  those  who  formed  ideals  never  yet 
attained  lay  only  in  their  forgetting  how  much  time  and  effort 
and  patience  under  repeated  disappointment  must  go  to  that 
attainment. 

This  less  sombre  type  of  thought  is  more  common  in  the 
United  States  than  in  Europe,  for  the  people  not  only  feel  in 
their  veins  the  pulse  of  youthful  strength,  but  remember  the 
magnitude  of  the  evils  they  have  vanquished,  and  see  that 
they  have  already  achieved  many  things  which  the  Old  World 
has  longed  for  in  vain.  And  by  so  much  as  the  people  of  the 
United  States  are  more  hopeful,  by  that  much  are  they  more 
healthy.  They  do  not,  like  their  forefathers,  expect  to  attain 
their  ideals  either  easily  or  soon ;  but  they  say  that  they  will 
continue  to  strive  towards  them,  and  they  say  it  with  a  note 
of  confidence  in  the  voice  which  rings  in  the  ear  of  the  Euro¬ 
pean  visitor,  and  fills  him  with  something  of  their  own  sanguine 
spirit.  America  has  still  a  long  vista  of  years  stretching  before 
her  in  which  she  will  enjoy  conditions  far  more  auspicious 
than  any  European  country  can  count  upon.  And  that  Amer¬ 
ica  marks  the  highest  level,  not  only  of  material  well-being, 


chap,  cxxm  SOCIAL  AND  ECONOMIC  FUTURE 


933 


but  of  intelligence  and  happiness,  which  the  race  has  yet  at¬ 
tained,  will  be  the  judgment  of  those  who  look  not  at  the 
favoured  few  for  whose  benefit  the  world  seems  hitherto  to 
have  framed  its  institutions,  but  at  the  whole  body  of  the 
people. 


APPENDIX 


NOTE  TO  CHAPTER  LXI 

EXPLANATION  (BY  MR.  G.  BRADFORD)  OF  THE  NOMINATING  MACHINERY 
AND  ITS  PROCEDURE  IN  THE  STATE  OF  MASSACHUSETTS1 

1.  By  an  Act  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature  of  1909,  the  whole  elec¬ 
tive  organization  of  the  City  of  Boston  was  changed.  The  two  branches 
of  twelve  aldermen  elected  at  large  and  seventy-five  councilmen  elected  by 
wards  and  precincts,  as  well  as  the  system  of  ward  primaries  and  ward  and 
city  committees,  were  abolished.  In  place  of  a  mayor  elected  for  two 
years,  he  was  to  be  elected  for  four  years,  subject  to  recall  at  the  end 
of  two  years  by  not  less  than  a  majority  of  all  the  voters  in  the  city. 
The  new  city  council  was  to  consist  of  nine  members  elected  at  large 
for  three  years,  renewable  by  three  members  elected  in  each  year. 

The  sweeping  character  of  the  change  may  be  best  described  by  two 
Sections  of  the  new  Act :  — 

Section  52.  No  primary  election  or  caucus  for  municipal  offices 
shall  be  held  hereafter  in  the  city  of  Boston,  and  all  laws  relating  to 
primary  elections  and  caucuses  for  such  offices  in  said  city  are  hereby 
repealed. 

Section  53.  Any  male  qualified  registered  voter  in  said  city  may  be 
nominated  for  any  municipal  elective  office  in  said  city,  and  his  name 
as  such  candidate  shall  be  printed  on  the  official  ballot  to  be  used  at 
the  municipal  election :  provided,  that  at  or  before  five  o’clock  p.m.  of 
the  twenty-fifth  day  prior  to  such  election  nomination  papers  prepared 
and  issued  by  the  election  commissioners,  signed  in  person  by  at  least 
five  thousand  registered  voters  in  said  city  qualified  to  vote  for  such 
candidate  at  said  election,  shall  be  filed  with  said  election  commis¬ 
sioners,  and  the  signatures  on  the  same  to  the  number  required  to  make 
a  nomination  are  subsequently  certified  by  the  election  commissioners 
as  hereinafter  provided. 

The  Act  is  mandatory  in  Boston,  and  its  acceptance  optional  with 
other  cities  and  towns  of  which  thirteen  have  thus  far  been  reported  as 
voting  in  favor  of  it. 

2.  County.  —  The  county  is  much  less  important  in  New  England 
than  in  any  other  part  of  the  country.  There  are  to  be  chosen,  how¬ 
ever,  county  commissioners  (three  in  number,  one  retiring  each  year, 
having  charge  of  roads,  jails,  houses  of  correction,  registry  of  deeds, 


1  Copyright  by  Gamaliel  Bradford,  1888.  Revised  by  the  author,  1910. 

935 


936 


APPENDIX 


and,  in  part  of  the  courts),  county  treasurer,  registrar  of  deeds,  regis¬ 
trar  of  probate,  and  sheriff.  These  candidates  are  nominated  by  party 
conventions  of  the  county,  called  by  a  committee  elected  by  the  last 
county  convention.  The  delegates  are  selected  by  ward  and  town 
primaries  at  the  same  time  with  other  delegates. 

3.  State.  —  First  as  to  representatives  to  State  legislature,  240  in 
number.  The  State  is  districted  as  nearly  as  may  be  in  proportion  to 
population.  If  a  ward  of  a  city,  or  a  single  town,  is  entitled  to  a  repre¬ 
sentative,  the  party  candidate  is  nominated  in  the  primary,  and  must 
be  by  the  Constitution  (of  the  State)  a  resident  in  the  district.  If  two 
or  more  towns,  or  two  or  more  wards  send  a  representative  in  common, 
the  candidate  is  nominated  in  cities  by  a  joint  caucus  of  the  wards  in¬ 
terested  called  by  the  ward  and  city  committee,  and  in  towns  by  a  con¬ 
vention  called  by  a  committee  elected  by  the  previous  convention. 
The  tendency  in  such  cases  is  that  each  of  these  towns  or  wards  shall 
have  the  privilege  of  making  nomination  in  turn  of  one  of  its  residents. 

As  regards  senators  the  State  is  divided  into  forty  districts.  The 
district  convention  to  nominate  candidates  is  called  by  a  committee 
elected  by  the  preceding  convention,  and  consists  of  delegates  elected 
by  ward  and  town  primaries  at  the  same  time  with  those  for  State, 
county,  and  councillor  conventions.  Each  senatorial  district  conven¬ 
tion  elects  one  member  of  the  State  central  committee,  and,  among 
the  Democrats,  fifteen  members  at  large  are  added  to  this  central 
committee  by  the  last  preceding  State  convention. 

The  convention  for  nominating  members  of  the  governor’s  council 
(eight  in  number)  also  appoints  a  committee  to  call  the  next  conven¬ 
tion. 

The  State  convention  consists  of  delegates  from  ward  and  town 
primaries  in  proportion  to  their  party  votes  at  last  elections,  and 
is  summoned  by  the  State  central  committee,  consisting  of  forty  mem¬ 
bers,  elected  in  October  by  senatorial  convention,  and  taking  office 
on  1st  January.  The  State  committee  organizes  by  choice  of  chair¬ 
man,  secretary,  treasurer,  and  executive  committee,  who  oversee  the 
whole  State  campaign.  The  State  convention  nominates  the  party 
candidates  for  governor,  lieutenant-governor,  secretary  of  state,  treas¬ 
urer,  auditor,  attorney-general. 

4.  National.  —  First,  representatives  to  Congress.  Massachusetts 
is  now  (1910)  entitled  to  fourteen,  and  is  divided  into  fourteen  districts. 
The  convention  in  each  district  to  nominate  party  candidates  is  called 
every  two  years  by  a  committee  elected  by  the  last  convention.  The 
delegates  from  wards  and  primaries  are  elected  at  the  same  time  with 
the  other  delegates.  As  United  States  senators  are  chosen  by  the 
State  legislatures,  no  nominating  convention  is  needed,  though  it  has 
been  suggested  that  the  nominations  might  with  advantage  be  made 
in  the  State  convention,  and  be  morally  binding  on  the  party  in  the 
legislature.  Next  are  to  be  chosen,  every  four  years,  delegates  to  the 
National  convention,  —  that  is,  under  present  party  customs,  two 
for  each  senator  and  representative  of  the  State  in  Congress.  For 
Massachusetts,  therefore,  at  the  present  time,  thirty-two.  The  delegates 
corresponding  to  the  representative  districts  are  nominated  by  a  con- 


APPENDIX 


937 


vention  in  each  district,  called  in  the  spring  by  the  same  committee 
which  calls  the  congressional  representative  nominating  convention 
in  the  autumn.  The  delegates  corresponding  to  senators  are  chosen 
at  a  general  convention  in  the  spring,  called  by  the  State  central  com¬ 
mittee  from  wards  and  primaries,  as  always  ;  and  the  thirty-two  delegates 
at  the  meeting  of  the  National  convention  choose  the  State  members 
of  the  National  committee. 

The  National  convention  for  nominating  party  candidates  for  Presi¬ 
dent,  called  by  a  National  committee,  elected  one  member  by  the  dele¬ 
gates  of  each  State  at  the  last  National  convention.  The  National 
convention  (and  this  is  true  in  general  of  all  conventions)  may  make 
rules  for  its  own  procedure  and  election  —  as,  for  example,  that  all  State 
delegates  shall  be  chosen  at  large  instead  of  by  districts.  At  the  Na¬ 
tional  conventions,  especially  of  the  Republicans,  complaint  has  been 
frequently  made,  as  in  the  case  of  city  committees,  that  parts  of  the 
country  in  which  there  are  very  few  members  of  the  party  have  yet  an 
undue  share  of  representation  in  the  conventions ;  but  no  successful 
plan  has  yet  been  devised  for  overcoming  the  difficulty.  The  National 
committee  manage  the  party  campaign,  sending  money  and  speakers 
to  the  weaker  States,  issue  documents,  collect  subscriptions,  and  dfs- 
pense  general  advice. 

NOTE  TO  CHAPTER  XC 

REMARKS  BY  MR.  DENIS  KEARNEY  ON  “  KEARNEYISM  IN  CALIFORNIA” 

After  the  appearance  of  the  first  edition  of  this  book  I  received  a 
letter  from  Mr.  Denis  Kearney,  taking  exception  to  some  of  the  state¬ 
ments  contained  in  the  chapter  entitled  “Kearneyism  in  California.” 
This  letter  is  unfortunately  too  long  to  be  inserted  as  a  whole ;  and  it 
does  not  seem  to  me  seriously  to  affect  the  tenor  of  the  statements 
contained  in  that  chapter,  which  my  Californian  informants,  on  whom 
I  can  rely,  declare  to  be  quite  correct.  I  have,  however,  in  a  few 
passages  slightly  modified  the  text  of  the  former  edition ;  and  I  give 
here  such  extracts  from  Mr.  Kearney’s  letter  as  seem  sufficient  to  let 
his  view  of  his  own  conduct  be  fairly  and  fully  set  forth.  As  he  re¬ 
sponded  to  my  invitation  to  state  his  case,  made  in  reply  to  his  letter 
of  remonstrance,  I  am  anxious  that  all  the  justice  I  can  do  him  should 
be  done.1 

Page  431.  —  “In  September,  1877,  immediately  after  the  general 
State,  municipal,  and  congressional  elections,  I  called  a  meeting  of 
working  men  and  others  to  discuss  publicly  the  propriety  of  perma¬ 
nently  organizing  for  the  purpose  of  holding  the  politicians  up  to  the 
pledges  made  to  the  people  before  election.  ...  I  made  up  my  mind 
that  if  our  civilization  —  California  civilization  —  was  to  continue, 
Chinese  immigration  must  be  stopped,  and  I  saw  in  the  people  the 
power  to  enforce  that  ‘must.’  Hence  the  meeting.  This  meeting 
resolved  itself  into  a  permanent  organization,  and  ‘resoluted’  in  favour 

1  Mr.  Kearney  died  in  1907  (note  to  Edition  of  1910). 


938 


APPENDIX 


of  a  ‘red-hot’  agitation.  I  was,  in  spite  of  my  earnest  protests,  elected 
President  of  this  new  organization,  with  instructions  from  the  meeting 
to  ‘push  the  organization’  throughout  the  city  and  State  without 
delay.  Our  aim  was  to  press  Congress  to  take  action  against  the 
Chinese  at  its  next  sitting.  .  .  . 

Page  432.  — -  “True  I  am  not  one  of  the  literati,  that  is  to  say,  a  pro¬ 
fessor  of  degrees  and  master  of  languages,  although  I  can  speak  more 
than  one.  For  more  than  thirty  years  I  have  been  a  great  reader  and 
close  student  of  men  and  measures.  No  Chronicle  reporter  ever  wrote 
or  dressed  up  a  speech  for  me.  They  did  the  reverse  ;  always  made  it  a 
point  to  garble  and  misrepresent.  It  was  only  when  the  Chronicle  saw 
where  it  could  make  a  hit  that  it  spread  out  a  speech.  To  illustrate,  if 
I  attacked  a  monopoly  whose  rottenness  the  Chronicle  shielded  for 
money,  it  then  would  garble  and  misrepresent  that  speech ;  but  if  I 
attacked  an  institution  the  Chronicle  wanted  to  blackmail,  the  speech 
would  be  given  in  full  once  or  twice,  or  they  would  keep  it  up  until 
‘seen.’  ” 

Page  433.  —  (Meeting  on  Nob  Hill.) 

“I  did  not  use  any  such  language  as  is  imputed  to  me.  Nob  Hill  is 
the  centre  of  the  Sixth  Ward,  and  I  advertised  for  the  meeting  there 
to  organize  the  Sixth  Ward  Club.  We  had  bonfires  at  all  our  meetings 
so  as  to  direct  the  people  where  to  go.  .  .  .  No  such  construction  could 
have  been  put  upon  the  language  used  in  my  speech  of  that  evening. 
The  police  authorities  had  shorthand  reporters  specially  detailed  to 
take  down  my  speeches  verbatim.  ...  I  was  not  arrested  on  account  of 
the  Nob  Hill  meeting.  I  cannot  now  tell  without  looking  up  the  matter 
how  many  times  I  was  arrested.  At  last  the  authorities,  finding  their 
efforts  to  break  up  the  movement  of  no  avail,  decided  to  proclaim  the 
meetings  a  la  Balfour  in  Ireland. 

Page  435.  —  “Shortly  after  the  election  of  the  delegates  I  made  a 
tour  of  the  United  States,  speaking  everywhere  to  immense  audiences 
and  urging  that  they  petition  Congress  to  stop  Chinese  immigration.  .  .  . 
My  trip  was  a  brilliant  success.  In  less  than  a  year  I  had  succeeded 
in  lifting  the  Chinese  from  a  local  to  a  great  national  question.  This 
also  disputes  the  statement  that  my  trip  East  was  a  failure.” 

Page  441.  —  (“Since  1880  he  has  played  no  part  in  Californian  poli¬ 
tics.”) 

“  This  is  true  to  this  extent.  I  stopped  agitating  after  having  shown 
the  people  their  immense  power,  and  how  it  could  be  used.  The 
Chinese  question  was  also  in  a  fair  way  of  being  solved.  The  plains  of 
this  State  were  strewn  with  the  festering  carcasses  of  public  robbers. 
I  was  poor,  wth  a  helpless  family,  and  I  went  to  work  to  provide  for 
their  comfort.  Common  sense  would  suggest  that  if  I  sought  office, 
or  the  emoluments  of  office,  I  could  easily  have  formed  combinations 
to  be  elected  either  governor  of  my  State  or  United  States  senator.” 

Page  436  (“hoodlums  and  other  ragamuffins  who  formed  the  first 
Sand  Lot  meetings.”) 

“It  was  only  when  the  city  authorities,  who  while  persecuting  us, 
either  hired  all  of  the  halls  or  frightened  their  owners  or  lessees  into  not 
allowing  us  to  hire  them,  that  we  were  driven  to  the  Sand  Lots.  At 


APPENDIX 


939 


these  early  meetings  we  sometimes  had  to  raise  from  $500  to  $1000  to 
carry  on  the  agitation  inside  and  outside  the  courts.  If,  then,  the 
audiences  were  composed  of  hoodlums  and  ragamuffins,  how  could  we 
have  raised  so  much  money  at  a  single  meeting?” 

Page  440.  —  “I  also  dispute  some  of  the  statements  therein.  All 
of  the  bills  of  the  first  session  of  the  Legislature  under  the  new  Con¬ 
stitution  were  declared  unconstitutional  by  the  State  Supreme  Court 
on  account  of  the  little  scheming  jokers  tucked  away  in  them.  The 
Anti-Chinese  Bills  that  were  passed  —  and  all  introduced  were  passed 
—  were  declared  by  the  Federal  judges  as  in  conflict  with  the  United 
States  Constitution.  I  advocated  the  adoption  of  the  new  Constitution, 
and  delivered  one  hundred  and  thirty  speeches  in  that  campaign. 
The  San  Francisco  papers  sent  correspondents  with  me.  The  very 
prominence  of  the  questions  threw  me  into  the  foreground,  so  that  I  had 
to  stand  the  brunt  of  the  battle,  and  came  very  near  being  assassinated 
for  my  pains.” 

Page  443.  —  “I  don’t  quite  understand  what  you  mean  by  the  ‘  solid 
classes.’  The  money-lenders,  land  monopolists,  and  those  who  were 
growing  rich  by  importing  and  employing  Chinese  labourers  were 
against  me,  and  did  all  in  their  power  to  kill  both  the  movement  and 
myself.  .  .  .  My  only  crime  seems  to  have  been  that  I  opposed  the 
Mongolization  of  my  State  in  the  interest  of  our  own  people  and  their 
civilization.  I  never  received  a  dollar  from  public  office  or  private 
parties  for  my  services.  They  were  gratuitous,  and  have  secured  me, 
I  am  sure,  the  esteem  of  the  majority  of  my  fellow-citizens,  among 
whom  I  am  still  not  without  influence.” 


Sj 


/ 


INDEX 


Ability,  practical,  in  America  goes  into 
business,  ii.  72. 

Abolition,  and  the  Republican  party, 
ii.  31. 

Absence  of  a  capital,  ii.  855. 

Acha3an  League,  i.  23,  36,  71,  259,  350, 
357. 

Act  of  Settlement  (English),  i.  217,  242. 

Adams,  C.  F.,  “The  Centennial  Mile¬ 
stone  ”  quoted,  i.  620. 

Adams,  H.  B.,  “The  College  of  William 
and  Mary”  cited,  i.  623. 

Adams,  John  (President),  i.  41,  44,  77, 
92,  276;  ii.  7,  136,  177. 

Adams,  J.  Q.  (President),  i.  45,  47,  82, 
87;  ii.  178,  230. 

Adams,  Samuel,  Hosmer’s  Life  of,  i. 
600. 

“Administrative  Law”  of  France,  i. 
245. 

Alaska,  i.  584;  ii.  181. 

Albany,  the  people’s  representative  at, 
and  the  farmers,  ii.  241. 

Aldermen,  i.  630;  ii.  92;  (New  York), 
165,  242. 

Aliens,  allowed  to  vote,  i.  327 ;  recent 
Alien  Acts  declared  unconstitutional, 
335. 

Ambassadors,  appointment  of,  i.  53. 

Amendments  to  the  Federal  Constitu¬ 
tion,  i.  27,  55,  101,  126,  236,  328, 
705,  713,  715,  716  ;  to  State  Constitu¬ 
tions,  470,  475. 

America,  rapid  changes  in,  i.  2 ;  a 
commonwealth  of  commonwealths, 
16 ;  a  country  full  of  change  and 
movement,  ii.  28 ;  intense  faith  of 
its  people  in,  353. 

“American,”  meaning  of  the  term,  i. 

20. 

American  and  European  systems  com¬ 
pared  ;  in  the  proportion  of  first-rate 
ability  engaged  in  politics,  i.  77,  78 ; 
position  of  the  President,  91  ;  Con¬ 
gress,  99,  148,  185,  199,  202,  203, 
278  sqq. ;  contrast  with  the  Cabinet 
system,  278,  297 ;  ii.  223,  231 ;  de¬ 


fects  of  the  frame  of  government, 

i.  307 ;  fear  of  foreign  aggression, 
309 ;  the  foundations  of  party,  ii. 
16;  types  of  statesmen,  230,  238; 
general  interest  in  politics,  272  ;  pro¬ 
portion  of  urban  to  rural  population, 

ii.  283,  862 ;  faith  in  the  people, 
287;  education,  classes,  297,  310 
sqq. ;  aversion  to  constructive  legis¬ 
lation,  359  ;  laissez  faire,  587  ;  stabil¬ 
ity,  642  ;  religious  equality,  767  ; 
influence  of  religion,  781  sqq.  ;  posi¬ 
tion  of  women,  795  sqq.  ;  intellectual 
productivity,  832 ;  charm  of  life, 
870  sqq.  ;  its  uniformity,  878  sqq. 

American  Constitution.  See  Constitu¬ 
tion. 

American  dislike  of  humbug,  ii.  245. 

American  Experience,  incomparable 
significance  of,  i.  2 ;  applied  to 
European  problems,  187,  510 ;  ii. 
655,  662,  676-678,  778,  779,  875. 

American  Government.  See  Federal 
System. 

American  History,  rich  in  political 
instruction,  i.  4. 

American  life,  its  pleasantness,  ii.  870  ; 
causes  of  this,  876  ;  its  uniformity, 
seen  in  nature,  878  ;  in  the  cities,  880  ; 
exceptions  to  this,  881  ;  want  of 
history,  883  ;  uniformity  of  institu¬ 
tions,  884  ;  of  persons,  ib. ;  causes 
of  this,  887  ;  promise  of  the  future, 
888. 

American  oratory,  ii.  862.  See  Orator¬ 
ical  excellence. 

American  philanthropy,  ii.  790. 

American  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
and  its  liturgy,  i.  15. 

American  statesmen,  types  of,  ii.  230. 

American  Union  more  than  an  aggre¬ 
gate  of  States,  i.  17. 

Americans:  hopefulness  of,  an  antidote 
to  grave  political  dangers,  i.  10 ; 
their  national  characteristics,  ii.  285; 
good  nature,  ib.  ;  humour,  286,  813 ; 
hopefulness,  ib. ;  faith  in  the  people, 


942 


INDEX 


287,  367,  602;  education,  290,  311; 
morality,  '289,  293,  309 ;  reli¬ 

gion,  290  ;  want  of  reverence,  ib. ; 
business,  291 ;  want  of  sustained 
thought,  292  ;  shrewdness,  293,  309  ; 
impressionability,  293 ;  unsettled¬ 
ness,  ib. ;  sympathy,  295 ;  change¬ 
fulness,  ib. ;  conservatism,  295 ; 
characteristics  of  different  classes, 
299-310;  their  individualism,  592; 
speculative  character,  709 ;  salient 
intellectual  features,  825,  830  ;  recent 
developments  of  thought,  842  ;  want 
of  brilliant  personalities,  844 ;  in¬ 
tellectual  relations  to  Europe,  847  ; 
opinion  of  themselves,  ib. ;  intellec¬ 
tual  promise  for  the  future,  853 ; 
their  oratory,  862  ;  reserve  of  audi¬ 
ences,  868  ;  charm  of  their  character, 
875  ;  character  of  the  Western  States, 
891;  future  of  their  political  institu¬ 
tions,  902;  growing  modesty,  911; 
social  and  economic  future,  916;  in¬ 
fluence  of  immigrants  upon  them, 
482-484,  923  ;  their  place  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  world’s  progress,  930. 

Anglo-American  race,  intrinsic  excel¬ 
lence  of,  i.  28 ;  political  genius  of, 
ib. 

Anglophobia,  Irish  in  America  retain 
their  hereditary,  ii.  370. 

Annapolis,  convention  at,  1786,  i.  21. 

Ann  Arbor  (University  of  Michigan), 
ii.  717,  719,  721,  735,  736,  749. 

Annual  letter  of  Secretary  of  the  Treas¬ 
ury,  i.  177. 

Anson,  “Law  and  Custom  of  Constitu¬ 
tion”  cited,  i.  284. 

Appropriation  bills,  i.  213. 

Aristotle,  quoted,  i.  11. 

Arizona,  State  of,  the,  i.  46,  97,  199, 
585,  592. 

Arkansas,  great  canon  of  river,  ii. 
648. 

Arkansas,  pronunciation  of  name  of 
State,  i.  120. 

Army,  control  of,  i.  33,  53  ;  increase  of, 
96  ;  smallness  of,  ii.  524. 

Arthur,  President,  ii.  144. 

“Articles  of  Confederation  and  Per¬ 
petual  Union”  of  1781,  i.  21,  22,  382, 
698-703. 

Assemblies,  modern  deliberative,  com¬ 
paratively  small,  ii.  224. 

Assessments,  levying  of  on  Federal 
officials  forbidden,  ii.  205. 


Athens,  Democrats  of,  i.  197  ;  generals 
of,  218;  Assembly,  221;  politics 
in,  ii.  58,  224,  292,  314. 

Attorney-General,  the,  i.  87,  89. 

Australia,  Constitution  of  the  Com¬ 
monwealth  of,  i.  33,  101. 

Bagehot,  Walter,  quoted,  i.  92,  288. 

Balance  of  power  in  the  Federal  Con¬ 
stitution,  i.  223-228,  401 ;  ii.  270,  271. 

Ballot,  Australian  system  in  force  in 
most  of  the  States,  ii.  148,  328. 

Balloting  in  convention,  mode  of,  ii.  197. 

Baltimore,  City  of,  election  frauds  in, 
ii.  106. 

Bank,  United  States,  i.  292,  377,  381. 

Bar,  the  American:  its  influence  on 
public  opinion,  i.  267  ;  on  the  judici¬ 
ary,  514  ;  the  legal  profession  undi¬ 
vided  in  America,  ii.  306,  666,  676 ; 
no  general  organization,  669 ;  pro¬ 
vision  for  legal  education,  671  ;  con¬ 
servatism  of  the  Bar,  667 ;  decline 
in  its  political  influence,  673  ;  arid  in 
its  social  position,  ib. ;  its  moral 
influence,  675 ;  reflections  on  the 
fusion  of  the  two  branches,  676  ;  fo¬ 
rensic  oratory,  865. 

Beaconsfield  Government,  i.  287. 

Beecher,  H.  Ward,  influence  on  elec¬ 
tions,  ii.  208,  777. 

Belgian  courts,  referred  to,  i.  251. 

Belgian  parliamentary,  system,  i.  92  ; 
Constitution,  360. 

Bemis’s  “Local  Government  in  Michi¬ 
gan,”  i.  611-613. 

Bench,  the,  ii.  679  ;  American  State, 
ii.  657.  See  Judiciary. 

Bernheim,  A.  C.,  on  Primary  Elections, 
ii.  105. 

Best  men,  why  they  do  not  go  into 
politics,  ii.  69-75. 

Betting,  speculating,  etc.,  ii.  710. 

Bill  of  Rights  (English),  i.  242. 

Bill  or  Declaration  of  Rights  of  1791, 
embodied  in  Constitution,  i.  27 ; 
contained  germ  of  Civil  War,  28 ; 
referred  to,  367,  704,  713;  in  State 
Constitutions,  437-443,  719. 

Bills,  Congressional,  always  private 
bills,  i.  170. 

Bills,  Government,  in  England,  their 
policy  carefully  weighed,  i.  168. 

Bills,  House  and  Senate,  i.  138. 

Bishop,  J.  B.,  on  “Money  in  City 
Elections,”  i.  549;  ii.  170. 


INDEX 


943 


Blackstone,  Mr.  Justice,  quoted,  i.  29, 
282,  446. 

Blaine,  J.  G.,  i.  44,  129  ;  ii.  45,  183,  201, 
210,  227,  229. 

“Bolters,”  ii.  117,  332,  336. 

“Bosses,”  ii.  111-135;  “Bosses”  v. 
European  demagogues,  118;  Bosses, 
168-175,  391,  392,  407. 

Boston,  City  of,  i.  636;  ii.  881. 

Boycotting,  ii.  341. 

Bradford,  Mr.  Gamaliel,  on  the  nomi¬ 
nating  machinery  of  Massachusetts, 
ii.  935. 

Bribery  and  corruption,  i.  463  ;  ii.  147- 
156,  240,  638,  639,  685. 

Bribery  in  Congress,  ii.  167. 

Brigandage,  ii.  894. 

British  colonies,  self-governing,  i.  92, 
278 ;  governors  in,  irremovable  by 
the  Colony,  278. 

British  Columbia,  ii.  569-572. 

British  immigrants,  ii.  35. 

Brooklyn,  City  of,  i.  661  ;  bribery  in,  ii. 
151. 

Bryn  Mawr  College  for  women,  ii.  737. 

Buchanan,  President,  i.  83,  337  ;  ii.  159. 

Burr,  Aaron,  i.  46. 

Cabinet,  the  President’s,  i.  85-95 ; 
ii.  159. 

Cabinet,  the,  system  of  government,  i. 
278  sqq. 

Cabinet-government,  English,  i.  278. 

Caesarism,  improbability  of,  in  America, 
i.  68 ;  ii.  623. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  i.  83  ;  ii.  13,  178,  865. 

California,  State  of,  Constitution,  i. 
460,  473,  478,  742;  ii.  187,  436, 
669 ;  character  of  the  State,  426 ; 
Kearneyism,  432  sqq. ;  937. 

Campaign  committees,  ii.  83. 

Canada,  Constitution  of,  referred  to,  i. 
249,  387,  473,  695  ;  ii.  142  ;  relations 
of,  to  the  United  States,  659-572. 

Canada,  Supreme  Court  of,  i.  265. 

Candidates  for  office  in  England  now 
mainly  chosen  by  the  party  organiza¬ 
tions,  ii.  81  ;  interrogating  them  for 
pledges,  330. 

Capital,  influence  of  a,  upon  society,  ii. 
855 ;  want  of  one  in  the  United 
States,  ib. ;  causes  of  this,  859 ;  its 
results,  860. 

Capitalists,  class  of,  ii.  304,  811  ;  attack 
upon,  436. 

Carolina,  North,  State  of,  i.  25,  414,  559. 


Carolina,  South,  i.  42,  198  ;  and  State 
rights,  i.  390 ;  defies  Congress, 
404. 

“Carpet-baggers”  in  the  South,  i.  348; 
ii.  165,  242,  598  sqq. 

Carthaginian  Councils,  encroachments 
of,  i.  227. 

Catholics,  Roman,  and  politics,  ii.  767, 
777. 

Caucus,  Party,  in  Congress,  i.  141,  170. 
205,  206. 

Central  Pacific  R.  R.,  ii.  798. 

Chambers,  Second,  American  view  of, 
i.  185  ;  ii.  658. 

Chancery  Courts,  i.  501. 

Charles  I.  and  the  English  Parliament, 
i.  262. 

Charleston,  Democratic  convention  of 
1860,  at,  ii.  186,  189. 

Chase,  Judge  Samuel,  impeachment  of, 
i.  230,  269. 

Chase,  Mr.,  i.  88. 

Cherokee  Indians,  the,  i.  269,  335. 

Chicago,  City  of,  Republican  national 
convention,  of  1880,  and  1884,  at,  ii. 
184,  185  ;  of  1860,  224  ;  outbreak  of 
anarchism  of  1886,  in,  302. 

Chicago  World’s  Fair  Exhibition,  of 
1893,  inventiveness  and  taste  of 
the  buildings  of,  ii.  852. 

Chinese  in  America,  the,  i.  742  ;  ii.  43, 
50,  302,  439,  441,  444  ;  case  of  indig¬ 
nity  to,  435  ;  attacks  on,  441. 

Church  and  State,  separation  of,  in 
America,  ii.  649,  763  sqq.  ;  reasons  for 
it,  767  ;  legal  position  of  a  church, 
770 ;  result  to  religion,  782 ;  to 
society  in  general,  874. 

Churches  and  clergy,  the,  ii.  763-780. 

Cincinnati,  City  of,  ii.  125. 

Circuit  Courts,  i.  231. 

Cities,  debts  of,  i.  528,  641-643  ;  their 
relation  to  townships,  596,  614; 

their  growth,  628  ;  their  organization, 
629  sqq. ;  indraught  towards  them 
from  the  country,  ii.  924.  See 
Municipal  Government. 

“Citizen’s”  (or  “  Independent”)  ticket 
in  voting,  ii.  147. 

Citizenship  of  the  United  States,  i.  419, 
717;  ii.  102. 

City  governments,  necessity  for  con¬ 
trol  over,  i.  543. 

Civil  Service  Reform,  i.  650  ;  ii.  26,  59, 
144,  145,  656  ;  Act  of  1883,  909. 

Civil  Service,  the,  ii.  656. 


944 


INDEX 


Civil  War,  what  it  settled,  i.  337. 
Classes  in  America  as  influencing  opin¬ 
ion,  ii.  297  ;  the  farmers,  ib. ;  shop¬ 
keepers,  299 ;  working  men,  ib.  ; 
city  residuum,  302  ;  capitalists,  304  ; 
professional  men,  305  ;  literary  men, 
307 ;  summary,  308 ;  no  dass 
struggles,  647. 

Clay,  Henry,  i.  47,  69;  ii.  11-13,  183, 
236,  375. 

Clergy,  the  American,  and  politics,  ii. 
208,  333, 417,  767,  776  ;  their  equality, 
763  sqq. ;  their  social  standing,  774. 
Cleveland,  Grover  (President),  i.  44, 
58,  59,  70,  210;  ii.  35,  47,  183,  195, 
210,  227. 

Clinton,  Governor,  i.  41  ;  ii.  137,  177. 
Closure  of  debate  in  Congress,  i.  131- 
138. 

Co-education,  ii.  800. 

Coinage  Act  of  1873,  i.  182. 

Collisions  between  the  Senate  and  the 
House,  i.  188,  190. 

Colonists,  early,  elements  of  diversity 
as  well  as  of  unity  among  them,  i.  24. 
Colorado,  State  of,  i.  488 ;  ii.  686. 
Columbia  College,  New  York,  ii.  719, 
720. 

Columbia,  District  of,  i.  585  ;  ii.  181. 
Commerce  and  Labor,  Department  of, 

i.  89. 

Commerce  Commission,  Inter-State, 

ii.  694. 

Commerce,  power  of  regulating,  i.  33. 
Commercial  distress,  1783-1786,  i.  20,  21. 
Committee  of  Appropriations,  i.  179, 
181. 

“Committee  of  Conference,”  i.  189. 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  i.  149, 
176,  179. 

Committee  on  Credentials  in  party 
conventions,  ii.  86,  108. 

Committee  on  Rivers  and  Harbours,  i. 
179. 

Committees  of  Congress,  i.  115,  141, 
151,  156,  166,  178,  179. 

Common  Councils,  i.  630. 

Commons  House  of.  See  House  of 
Commons. 

Competitive  examinations,  ii.  144. 
Complexity  of  American  institutions,  i. 
17. 

Confederate  States,  Constitution  of 
1861,  i.  696. 

Confederation  of  1781,  i.  20,  690. 
Congress  of  1754  at  Albany,  i.  19 ;  of 


1765  at  New  York,  20;  of  1774- 
1788  at  Philadelphia,  20,  21,  157. 

Congress  of  the  United  States,  estab¬ 
lished  by  the  Constitution  of  1789,  i. 
35,  36,  706 ;  its  relation  to  the 
President,  56,  59,  93,  209,  215,  284, 
285,  289;  its  powers,  61,  708; 
committees,  115,  141,  156,  166,  178, 
179  ;  criticism  of  its  legislation,  171  ; 
of  its  finance,  176,  184  ;  the  division 
into  two  chambers,  185  ;  their  sub¬ 
stantial  identity  of  character,  186, 
189 ;  collisions  between  the  two, 
188  ;  influence  of  local  feeling  in  the 
elections,  191 ;  comparison  with  the 
English  system,  193  ;  salaries  of  mem¬ 
bers,  195  ;  short  tenure  of  office,  197  ; 
and  short  duration  of  a  Congress, 
198  ;  its  numbers,  199  ;  good  attend¬ 
ance  of  members,  200 ;  want  of 
opportunities  for  distinction,  201  ; 
absence  of  leaders,  203  ;  party  cau¬ 
cuses,  205,  207  ;  want  of  a  consistent 
policy,  208,  301,  304;  few  open  rela¬ 
tions  with  the  executive,  210;  con¬ 
trol  over  the  latter,  211;  power  of  the 
purse,  213  ;  cannot  dismiss  an  offi¬ 
cial,  ib. ;  and  supreme  power  in  the 
government,  230 ;  the  Constitution 
out  of  the  reach  of  Congress,  243  ; 
statutes  passed  ultra  vires,  247  ;  pro¬ 
posed  veto  on  State  legislation,  257 ; 
defects  in  the  structure  and  working 
of  Congress  summarized,  300 ;  its 
relations  to  the  electors,  302;  “con¬ 
current  legislation,”  327;  electoral 
franchise,  396  ;  origin  of  the  system, 
684  ;  private  bills  in  Congress,  688  ; 
“lobbying,”  463;  ii.  160,  164;  how 
far  Congress  is  corrupt,  162,  166 ; 
congressional  caucus  for  the  early 
Presidential  elections,  179  ;  checks  on 
the  tyranny  of  the  majority,  339 ; 
congressional  oratory,  865 ;  the 
future  of  Congress,  1906. 

Congressional  encroachment,  distrust 
of,  i.  59. 

Congressional  record,  i.  147. 

Congressman,  term  explained,  i.  105. 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  i.  62. 

Connecticut,  State  of,  i.  19,  198,  428, 
430,  481,  482,  485,  508,  510,  520,  522. 

Constitution  (Federal),  of  1789,  diffi¬ 
culty  of  framing  it,  i.  22  ;  an  instru¬ 
ment  of  compromises,  25,  321  ;  oppo¬ 
sition  to  its  ratification,  26 ;  fear  of 


INDEX 


945 


European  aggression  led  to  its  adop¬ 
tion,  27 ;  original  amendments  to, 
ib. ;  causes  of  its  excellence,  28 ; 
its  double  aspect,  32  ;  the  comple¬ 
ment  and  crown  of  the  State  Consti¬ 
tutions,  ib. ;  functions  of  govern¬ 
ment  it  provides  for,  33  ;  objects  of 
its  framers,  34,  220,  310,  318;  ii. 
269 ;  method  of  choosing  Senators 
under,  i.  100,  102  ;  creation  of  two 
chambers  by,  185  ;  scheme  of,  tends 
to  put  stability  above  activity,  116; 
oath  of  allegiance  to  it,  133  ;  balance 
of  power  it  provides  for,  223,  407  ; 
ii.  270,  271  ;  its  relation  to  Congress, 
i.  243  ;  to  the  Courts,  ib.  sqq.  ;  respect 
felt  for  it,  257,  311  ;  Puritanic  ele¬ 
ment  in  it,  306 ;  its  success,  310 ; 
peculiar  distribution  of  governmental 
functions,  313,  316;  remarkable 

omissions,  318,  321  ;  limits  the  com¬ 
petence  of  Congress,  335  ;  its  devel¬ 
opment,  360 ;  by  amendment,  363, 
371  ;  by  interpretation  and  construc¬ 
tion,  374,  391  ;  by  legislation,  392  ; 
by  usage,  394 ;  collisions  with  the 
executive  or  legislative,  398  ;  results 
of  this  development,  401,  408;  ser¬ 
vices  of  the  Constitution  to  the 
nation,  407 ;  provisions  it  owes  to 
State  constitutions,  684  ;  the  Consti¬ 
tution  given  at  length,  706—718. 

Constitution  of  California,  extracts 
from,  i.  742. 

Constitution  of  Confederate  States,  of 
1861,  i.  696. 

Constitution  of  North  American  colo¬ 
nies,  i.  19,  427-430  ;  of  1777,  19. 

Constitutions  of  the  States,  i.  30  ;  their 
history,  427,  476  ;  mode  of  adoption, 
432 ;  their  real  nature,  433  ;  their 
contents,  437 ;  confusion  of  provi¬ 
sions,  443  ;  less  capacity  for  expan¬ 
sion  than  in  the  Federal  Constitution, 
444  ;  their  development,  451  ;  types 
of  constitutions,  454 ;  their  length, 
455  ;  growth  of  democratic  tenden¬ 
cies,  456  ;  comparative  frequency  of 
change,  457 ;  jealousy  of  officials, 

459  ;  protection  of  private  property, 

460  ;  extension  of  State  interference, 
ib. ;  penalties  not  always  enforced, 
462 ;  legislation  by  a  Constitution, 
464  ;  its  demerits  and  its  advantages, 
474;  constitutional  conventions,  101, 
477. 


Constitutions,  rigid  or  written,  i.  30,  34, 
36,  37,  60,  66,  101,  360,  364,  382,  384, 
397-400,  401,  407,  696  ;  ii.  643,  658  ; 
contrasted  with  flexible  constitutions, 
i.  361,  397. 

Constitutional  Amendments,  i.  27,  55, 
101,  126,  236,  328,  365,  373,  470,  713, 
715-718. 

Constitutional  Conventions.  See  Con¬ 
ventions. 

Continental  Congress  of  1774  at  Phila¬ 
delphia,  i.  19. 

Convention  (Constitutional)  of  1786  at 
Annapolis,  i.  21  ;  of  1787  at  Phila¬ 
delphia,  22-24,  30,  95,  185,  216,  223, 
280,  282,  312,  324,  681-683;  ii.  5; 
271 ;  of  different  States,  i.  26,  27,  103, 
681-683. 

Conventions,  Note  on  Constitutional,  i. 
681  ;  nominating,  ii.  84,  107,  874 ; 
National,  84;  their  evolution,  176, 
222.;  composition,  180;  working, 
182;  objects,  186;  classes  of  aspir¬ 
ants,  188 ;  complexity  of  their 
motives,  190  ;  preliminary  work,  ib.  ; 
opening  of  the  convention,  192 ; 
the  voting,  196  ;  effect  of  the  system 
upon  public  life,  223  ;  their  tempes¬ 
tuous  character,  224. 

Cooley,  T.  M.  (Judge),  quoted,  i.  55,  67, 
309,  313,  334,  338,  377,  384,  400,  695. 

Cooley’s  “Constitutional  Limitations,’’ 
quoted,  i.  234,  446,  448,  470,  532,  560, 
695. 

Cooley’s  “History  of  Michigan,”  cited, 
i.  384,  405. 

Cooley’s  “Principles  of  Constitutional 
Law,”  quoted,  i.  234,  237,  314,  420. 

“Copperheads,”  the,  ii.  33. 

Copyright,  i.  33 ;  International,  ii. 
328,  839. 

Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  ii.  719,  720. 

Corporations  in  America,  i.  89,  526, 
729-735. 

Corruption,  ii.  156-167,  240.  See 

Bribery. 

County  Organization,  i.  603-610,  612, 
614,  616;  ii.  935. 

Courtesy  of  the  Senate,  i.  62. 

Court  of  Claims,  i.  232,  235. 

Creative  intellectual  power,  ii.  832. 
See  Intellectual  productivity. 

“Croker  Correspondence,”  the,  i.  279. 

Currency,  control  of  the,  i.  33;  currency 
question  a  source  of  disquiet,  ii.  359. 

Customs  Courts,  i.  232. 


3  p 


946 


INDEX 


“Dark  Horse,”  meaning  of  the  term, 
ii.  188;  referred  to,  201. 

Dartmouth  College  v.  Woodward,  i. 
698. 

Darwin,  the  “struggle  for  existence,” 
and  political  strife,  i.  401. 

Debt,  National,  i.  178,  183 ;  public 
debts  of  States,  528;  of  cities,  533, 
640. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  the,  i.  30, 
91,  307;  ii.  360,  602. 

Deficiency  Bill,  i.  180. 

Degrees  and  Examinations,  University, 
ii.  725. 

Delaware,  State  of,  i.  127,  414,  434,  439, 
457,  465,  490. 

Demagogues,  influence  of,  ii.  627. 

Democracies,  and  the  control  of  foreign 
policy,  i.  108,  222,  342  ;  charged  with 
fickleness,  457 ;  and  the  judiciary, 
512,  516;  ii.  635;  “rotation  in 
office,”  136;  may  be  tested  by  the 
statesmen  produced,  230 ;  the 
strength  of  popular  government:  its 
excellence,  263  ;  two  dangers  to  which 
it  is  exposed,  264  ;  safeguards  against 
these,  265  ;  its  educative  power,  ib. ; 
democracy  and  State  interference, 
589  sqq.  ;  chief  faults  attributed 
to  democracies,  613  ;  how  far  these 
are  present  in  America,  614  ;  their 
true  faults,  630-641 ;  how  far  ob¬ 
servable  in  America,  633  ;  necessity 
of  reverence  and  self-control,  794 ; 
effect  of  social  equality  upon  manners, 
818 ;  on  thoughts,  822  sqq. ;  pro¬ 
fusion  of  speech  due  to  democracy, 
864  ;  not  rightly  charged  with  pro¬ 
ducing  uniformity  of  character,  887. 

Democracy  in  America  and  the  ju¬ 
diciary,  i.  512,  516;  and  rotation  in 
office,  ii.  138 ;  tested  by  the  states¬ 
man  it  produces,  230 ;  its  educative 
influence,  368 ;  its  supposed  faults 
examined,  613 ;  weakness,  614 ; 
fickleness,  615  ;  insubordination,  ib. ; 
jealousy  of  greatness,  624 ;  tyranny 
of  the  majority,  625  ;  love  of  novelty, 
626  ;  influence  of  demagogues,  627  ; 
its  true  faults,  630  sqq. ;  its  merits, 
642  ;  stability,  ib. ;  obedience  to  law, 
644  ;  consistency  of  political  ideas, 
645 ;  restrictions  on  officials,  646 ; 
no  class  struggles,  647-649 ;  en¬ 
ergetic  use  of  natural  resources, 
648 ;  latent  vigour  of  the  govern¬ 


ment,  650  ;  spirit  of  fraternity,  652  ; 
application  of  American  experience 
to  Europe,  655-662 ;  influence  of 
democracy  on  the  position  of  women, 
808 ;  spirit  of  equality,  810,  859 ; 
its  influence  on  manners,  820 ;  in¬ 
fluence  of  democracy  on  American 
thought,  825  sqq.  ;  on  the  pleasant¬ 
ness  of  life,  870  ;  on  uniformity,  887  ; 
its  future,  902  ;  democracy  and  the 
approaching  economic  struggle,  914. 

Democratic  party,  the,  of  1793  (or  Re¬ 
publicans),  i.  42;  ii.  6;  of  1829,  i. 
269;  ii.  11,  13,  14,  17,  19,  24-30, 
32,  40,  180  ;  intelligent  adherents  of, 
32. 

Denominational  Census  (1906),  ii. 
773,  789. 

Desty’s  “Constitution  Annotated,” 
quoted,  i.  328. 

Dicey’s  “Law  of  the  Constitution,” 
quoted,  i.  245. 

Direct  Primary  laws,  the,  i.  102. 

Distinguished  men,  want  of,  in  America, 
i.  78-85,  201,  202  ;  ii.  51,  69  sqq.,  237, 
641,  661,  844. 

District  Courts,  i.  230,  232,  272. 

Divisions  of  Congress,  mode  of  taking, 

i.  105,  134. 

Divorce  in  the  United  States  increas¬ 
ing  :  more  frequent  in  the  West,  ii. 
791. 

Domestic  service,  aversion  of  Americans 
to  enter,  ii.  817. 

Dred  Scott  decision,  i.  254,  263,  265, 
270,  388;  ii.  14,  15. 

Education,  Bureau  of,  i.  89,  620. 

Education,  legal,  provision  for,  i.  630. 

Education,  public,  in  America,  i.  461, 
622  ;  higher  education  and  politics, 

ii.  255  ;  public,  289,  317,  711  sqq.,  796, 
812. 

Elections,  influence  of  local  feeling  in,  i. 
191-195;  question  of  annual  elec¬ 
tions,  198 ;  winning  of  the  work  of 
politics,  ii.  62 ;  their  machinery, 
146  sqq. ;  fraudulent  practices,  147, 
156,  214,  216,  242,  639  ;  cost  of  elec¬ 
tions,  152  ;  a  corrupt  district  of  New 
York  State,  151  ;  machinery  in 
Massachusetts,  935 ;  elections  the 
instrument  of  government  by  public 
opinion,  328-331. 

Elections,  Presidential,  i.  69,  72,  298, 
299 ;  nominating  conventions,  ii. 


INDEX 


947 


176 ;  the  campaign,  204 ;  enthusi¬ 
asm  evoked,  227  ;  disputed  election 
of  1876,  643. 

Eliot,  C.  W.,  on  the  material  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  United  States,  ii.  649. 

Elliott’s  “Debates,”  quoted,  i.  22,  23, 
24,  26,  28,  41,  95,  99,  103,  113,  198, 
256,  280,  361. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  quoted,  ii.  924,  927. 

England,  former  American  hatred  of, 
i.  24  ;  ii.  850  ;  growing  friendliness 
to,  570,  850. 

England  and  America  compared  ;  the 
judiciary,  i.  35,  230,  240,  274  ;  ii.  679, 
681  ;  Parliamentary  system,  i.  35, 
56,  86,  92,  97,  98,  120,  129  sqq.,  137, 
140,  149,  152,  163,  196,  200,  202,  278, 
475  ;  control  of  foreign  policy,  108, 
109  ;  royal  prerogative,  56-59,  69  ; 
elections,  i.  70,  73,  129,  193  ;  ii.  77, 
90,  174,  220 ;  the  cabinet,  i.  86,  90, 
91  ;  parties,  151 ;  ii.  21,  39,  141  ; 
finance,  i.  176 ;  whips,  151  ,  203  ; 
interpretation  of  statutes,  251, 
259-265  ;  relations  of  executive  and 
legislature,  278;  ii.  665;  “referen¬ 
dum,”  i.  466,  467  ;  municipal  govern¬ 
ment,  576,  581;  counties,  603,  616; 
sanitation,  622 ;  politicians,  ii.  56, 
61,  63,  70;  corruption,  166,  239; 
political  morality,  243  ;  public  opin¬ 
ion,  251,  254,  272,  274  sqq.,  321  sqq., 
374 ;  classes,  295 ;  government  in¬ 
terference,  349  sqq.  ;  the  Bar,  665  ; 
power  of  wealth,  814 ;  intellectual 
productivity,  834,  838 ;  liberty, 

848 ;  oratory,  862. 

English  Acts  of  Parliament,  mode  of 
interpretation  by  the  judges,  i.  251. 

English  borough-owning  magnates,  ii. 
237. 

English  common  and  statute  laws, 
taken  by  the  United  States  as  a 
model,  i.  345. 

English  Constitution,  referred  to,  i. 
28,  29,  30,  34,  35,  39,  56,  57,  60,  176, 
219,  245,  255,  259,  278,  360,  387,  394, 
397,  403,  446;  ii.  287. 

English  counties,  formerly  independent 
kingdoms,  now  local  administrative 
areas,  i.  16. 

English  Crown,  antiquity  of,  i.  217  ;  in¬ 
dependent  part  of  the  Constitution, 
219. 

English  kings,  members  of  Parliament, 
i.  56,  209. 


English  moralities  in  public  life,  ii.  243- 
245. 

English  Parliament,  omnipotent,  i.  243; 
cited,  ii.  321. 

English  parties,  ii.  22. 

Equality,  senses  of  the  word,  ii.  810; 
inequality  of  wealth  in  America,  zb. ; 
social  equality,  813  ;  effect  on  man¬ 
ners,  820  ;  its  charm,  873. 

Equalization,  Board  of,  i.  520,  636. 

European  aggression,  fear  of,  i.  27,  309. 

European  statesmen,  representative 
types,  ii.  231. 

European  travellers,  and  the  study  of 
the  State  Governments  of  America,  i. 

411. 

Exchequer,  Chancellor  of  (English),  his 
budget,  i.  176. 

Executive,  American :  influence  of 
public  opinion  on  it,  ii.  267 ;  its 
latent  vigour,  651.  See  Cabinet, 
President,  Senate. 

Executive  and  Legislative  departments, 
separated  by  the  American  Consti¬ 
tution,  i.  89,  90,  178,  209  sqq.,  216 
sqq., ;  their  relations  under  the 
European  cabinet  system,  279  sqq. ; 
struggles  between  them  in  England, 
288 ;  and  in  America,  289  ;  results 
of  their  separation,  293  ;  danger  of 
making  legislature  supreme,  675 ; 
separation  not  essential  to  democ¬ 
racy,  ii.  636. 

Farmers’  Alliance,  the,  i.  573 ;  ii. 
41,  44. 

Farmers  in  America,  characteristics  of, 
ii.  297. 

Fatalism  of  the  multitude,  ii.  347,  352. 

“Favourite,”  meaning  of  the  term,  ii. 
188. 

“Favourite  Son,”  ii.  188. 

Federal  Courts.  See  Judiciary  (Fed¬ 
eral)  . 

Federal  Government,  the :  its  chief 
functions,  i.  33,  315;  limitations 
on  its  powers,  36,  37,  316  ;  its  several 
departments :  the  President,  38 ; 
Cabinet,  85  sqq.  ;  Senate,  97  sqq.  ; 
House  of  Representatives,  126  sqq.  ; 
the  legislature  and  executive,  216 
sqq. ;  the  judiciary,  229  sqq. ;  “con¬ 
current  powers,”  316;  working 
relations  with  the  State  governments, 
325 ;  intervention  in  disturbances, 
329 ;  its  relations  to  individual  citi- 


948 


INDEX 


zens,  330  ;  cases  of  resistance,  333  ; 
coercion  of  a  State  impossible,  336, 
338  ;  the  determination  of  its  powers, 
379,  380  ;  lines  of  their  development, 
382;  results  of  the  latter,  391,  401- 
408. 

Federalist  party,  the,  i.  41,  92,  335; 
ii.  6-12,  177. 

Federalist,  The,  quoted,  i.  29,  86,  113, 
192,  198,  199,  230,  236,  256,  283, 
394. 

Federal  System  of  America,  the:  its 
main  features,  i.  312  ;  distribution  of 
powers,  313,  702  sqq.  ;  omissions 
in  the  Constitution,  317,  321  ;  in¬ 
destructibility  of  the  Union,  322 ; 
working  of  the  system,  325,  358 ; 
criticism  of  it,  341-349  ;  its  merits, 
350-357  ;  causes  of  its  stability,  357  ; 
dominance  of  the  centralizing  ten¬ 
dencies,  358,  404 ;  its  future,  ii. 
539,  902. 

Federal  System  of  Canada,  i.  697. 

Federal  Union  of  1789,  parallels  to,  i. 
23. 

Federations,  faults  attributed  to,  i.  341 ; 
their  merits  as  illustrated  by  America, 
350-358. 

Female  Suffrage.  See  Woman  Suf¬ 
frage. 

Fifteenth  Amendment,  the,  i.  318,  326. 

Financial  bills  in  England,  i.  176  ;  mode 
of  passing  them  in  America,  177-180  ; 
results  of  the  system,  182  ;  reason  for 
it,  183  ;  flourishing  financial  condi¬ 
tion  of  America,  ib. ;  yearly  surpluses, 
ib. ;  the  paying  off  of  the  national 
debt,  ib. ;  State  finance,  518-533. 

Fletcher  v.  Peck,  i.  258. 

Florida,  sale  of,  by  Spain,  i.  8,  27. 

Florida,  State  of,  the,  i.  48,  49. 

Foreign  relations,  control  of,  i.  33,  53, 
107-110  ;  discontinuity  of  policy,  70  ; 
difficulty  of  control  by  popular  as¬ 
semblies,  221  ;  division  of  powers  in 
America,  225 ;  faults  due  to  the 
Federal  system,  342 ;  influence  of 
public  opinion,  ii.  374  ;  and  territo¬ 
rial  extension,  565  ;  and  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  spirit  of  fraternity,  652. 

Forensic,  oratory,  ii.  801.  See  Oratori¬ 
cal  excellence. 

Fourteenth  Amendment,  the,  i.  126, 318. 

France,  sale  of  Louisiana  by,  i.  27 ; 
intellectual  relations  to  America,  ii. 
849. 


Franklin,  Benjamin,  i.  22,  196. 

Fraternity,  spirit  of,  in  America,  ii.  652. 

Freedom  of  discussion  in  America,  ii. 
353. 

Freeman,  Prof.  E.  A.,  quoted,  i.  71. 

Free  trade  and  protection,  i.  178  ;  ii. 
26,  49. 

“Free  Soilers”  party,  ii.  14,  31. 

Fremont,  General,  ii.  14,  180. 

French  Canadians  in  New  England,  i. 
602  ;  ii.  38. 

French  Chamber,  ii.  224. 

French  Constitution  and  Government 
referred  to,  i.  60,  73,  91,  197,  222, 
245,  251,  288,  372;  ii.  262. 

French  Constitution  of  1791,  referred 
to,  i.  60,  295. 

French  Senate,  i.  97,  197. 

Fundamental  Orders  of  Connecticut,  of 
1638,  the  oldest  political  Constitu¬ 
tion  in  America,  i.  428. 

Future,  the  intellectual,  of  America,  ii. 
842-844. 

Future,  the,  of  American  political  insti¬ 
tutions,  ii.  902;  of  the  Federal  system, 
ib.  ;  of  Congress,  the  executive,  the 
judiciary,  906 ;  of  the  Presidency, 
908  ;  of  the  party  system,  909  ;  of  the 
spoils  system  and  the  machine,  ib. ; 
the  democracy  and  the  approaching 
economic  struggle  for  existence,  913. 

Future,  the  social  and  economic,  of 
America,  ii.  916;  great  fortunes, 
ib. ;  corporations,  918 ;  changes  in 
population,  919  ;  the  negroes,  921  ; 
question  of  the  evolution  of  an  Ameri¬ 
can  type  of  character,  922,  923  ;  ten¬ 
dency  towards  city  life,  924 ;  the 
development  of  an  aristocracy  im¬ 
probable,  926  ;  future  of  literature 
and  thought,  927  ;  of  other  elements 
of  civilization,  929. 

Gallatin,  Albert,  i.  88,  181. 

Garfield,  J.  A.  (President),  i.  46,  54, 
62,  63,  64,  191 ;  ii.  142,  183,  189,  201. 

General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  i.  545. 

General  election  in  England,  a  period  of 
disturbance,  i.  70. 

“General  Ticket”  system  of  voting, 
i.  43. 

George  III.  and  English  pocket  bor¬ 
oughs,  i.  280;  and  “place,”  ii.  139. 

George,  Henry,  the  Labour  party  can¬ 
didate  for  mayor,  ii.  43;  referred  to, 
252, 


INDEX 


949 


Georgia,  State  of,  i.  185,  236,  258,  269; 
and  the  Supreme  Court,  404  ;  and 
pensions,  519  ;  and  a  second  chamber 
684. 

German  Constitution,  referred  to,  i.  221  ; 
ii.  261. 

Germanic  Confederation,  i.  16,  350. 

German  immigrants  in  America,  ii.  35- 
37,  299,  850. 

Germany  and  America,  intellectual 
relation  of,  ii.  850. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  i.  126. 

Goschen,  Mr.,  on  laissez  faire,  ii.  592. 

Government,  forms  of,  in  free  countries, 
i.  278  ;  ii.  267  ;  their  influence  upon 
national  character,  369,  823. 

Governors,  State.  See  State  Executive. 

Granger  movement,  the,  ii.  438-440, 
693. 

Grant,  U.  S.  (President),  i.  45,  46,  64, 
68,  70,  77,  83,  214,  276 ;  ii.  183,  372. 

Great  men,  why  not  chosen  as  presi¬ 
dents,  i.  77  sqq. 

Greece,  ancient  constitutions  of,  re¬ 
ferred  to,  i.  23,  36,  71,  218,  221,  259, 
362,  369,  580;  ii.  154,  224,  267. 

Greeley,  Horace,  ii.  179,  277. 

Greenbackers,  the  (party  of),  ii.  41-43, 

46,  213. 

Guelfs  and  Ghibellines,  wars  of,  ii.  24. 

Habeas  Corpus ,  suspension  of,  i.  55. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  i.  23,  25,  30,  39, 

47,  63,  88,  91,  98,  99,  113,  181,  209, 
230,  236,  667;  ii.  6-8,  11,  13,  18,  34, 
224,  236. 

Hanseatic  League,  i.  16,  350,  581. 

Hare’s  “American  Constitutional 
Law,”  quoted,  i.  337,  381,  389. 

Harrington,  author  of  “Oceana,” 
quoted,  i.  37,  104. 

Harrison,  Benjamin  (President),  ii.  183. 

Hart,  Prof.  A.  B.,  “Practical  Essays  on 
American  Government,”  ii.  154. 

Hartford  Convention  of  1814,  i.  390  ;  ii. 

11. 

Hartington,  Lord,  ii.  223. 

Harvard  University,  ii.  719,  721. 

Hastings,  Warren,  i.  50. 

Hawaii,  Constitution  of,  i.  696 ;  rela¬ 
tions  of  the  island  to  the  United 
States,  ii.  575,  577,  578. 

Haves,  R.  B.  (President),  i.  47-49,  214, 
215,  329;  ii.  144. 

Henry,  Patrick,  i.  307. 

Hereditary  titles,  i.  710  ;  ii.  815. 


History,  its  services  to  politics,  ii.  655. 

Hitchcock’s  “State  Constitutions,” 
quoted,  i.  554 ;  ii.  697. 

Holker,  Lord  Justice,  case  of,  i.  272. 

Home  of  the  Nation,  the,  ii.  449-469  ; 
phenomena,  racial,  climatic,  and 
economical,  of  the  New  World,  449  ; 
relation  of  geographical  conditions  to 
national  growth,  450 ;  influence  of 
physical  environment,  ib. ;  physical 
characteristics,  451  ;  climate  an 
historical  factor,  452  ;  aridity  of  the 
West,  453  ;  influence  of  early  colonial 
and  frontier  life  on  the  national 
character,  ib. ;  early  European  settle¬ 
ments  in  America,  455  ;  settlement 
of  the  Mississippi  basin  and  the  unity 
of  the  nation,  456  ;  easy  acquisition 
of  the  Pacific  coast,  previously  held 
in  the  feeble  power  of  Mexico,  457, 
458 ;  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the 
South  dependent  upon  slave  labour, 
459  ;  imperilled  unity  of  the  South, 
ib. ;  the  chief  natural  sources  of 
wealth  —  fertile  soils,  mineral  wealth, 
and  standing  timber,  460  ;  varieties 
of  soil,  ib. ;  mineral  resources,  461 ; 
industrial  population  increasing 
faster  than  the  agricultural,  462 ; 
geography  and  commerce  point  to 
one  nation,  463  ;  with  a  vast  home 
trade,  free  trade  with  foreign  countries 
of  little  consequence,  ib. ;  railways 
and  interstate  commerce  unifying 
influences,  464  ;  assimilating  power  of 
language,  institutions,  and  ideas,  465  ; 
unpeopled  gaps  narrowing  daily,  ib.  ; 
dialectic  variations  over  the  Union 
few,  ib. ;  immigration  and  climate 
may  in  time  create  differences  in 
national  and  physical  types,  468 ; 
average  duration  of  life  and  physical 
well-being,  467  ;  the  nation  sovereign 
of  its  own  fortunes,  468 ;  immunity 
from  foreign  aggression,  ib. ;  im¬ 
mense  defensive  strength  and  ma¬ 
terial  prosperity,  ib. 

Homicide  condoned  in  some  States, 
ii.  616,  682. 

Honourable,  title  of,  i.  131. 

House  of  Commons  (English),  referred 
to,  i.  61,  98,  99,  109,  116,  131,  137, 
138,  144,  146,  149,  150,  168,  176,  185, 
199-201,  205,  211,  280,  281,  286,  299  ; 
ii.  55,  223,  226.  See  Parliament. 

House  of  Lords,  referred  to,  i.  61,  97, 


950 


INDEX 


99,  116,  120,  123,  186,  189,  199,  274, 
289  ;  ii.  56.  See  Parliament. 
Howard  on  “Local  Constitutional 
History  of  the  United  States,”  i.  606. 
Hume  (David),  “Essays,”  referred  to, 

i.  24  :  ii.  18. 

Hyde  Park  (London),  meetings  in,  ii. 
229. 

Idaho,  State  of,  i.  127,  442,  462,  589, 

590,  591,  592. 

Illinois,  State  of,  i.  485,  606-610,  612. 
Immigrants  in  America,  i.  24  ;  ii.  35, 
303,  857  ;  pounced  upon  by  voting 
agents,  103 ;  influence  of  public 
opinion  upon  them,  370  ;  in  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century,  469-490  ;  nationality 
of  the  new  influx,  469-471,  478,  479  ; 
its  character,  472-477  ;  its  influence 
in  politics,  477 ;  the  probability  of 
its  continuing,  479-482 ;  its  effect 
upon  the  nation,  482-484,  486,  489  ; 
the  effect  upon  it  of  the  American 
environment,  487-490 ;  their  in¬ 
fluence  upon  the  national  character, 
922. 

Impeachment  of  executive  officers,  i.  50, 
90,212,505;  of  judges,  111,231,563. 
Income  tax  (Federal),  referred  to,  i.  370. 
Indian  affairs,  i.  88,  210,  269,  585,  593  ; 

ii.  374. 

Indiana,  State  of,  i.  414. 

Indian  Territory  (west  of  Arkansas),  i. 
97,  585,  593. 

Individualism,  spirit  of,  in  America,  ii. 

591. 

Individuals  and  Assemblies,  combats 
between,  i.  227. 

Influence  of  religion,  the,  in  America, 
ii.  781-794. 

Initiative,  the,  and  Referendum,  as 
parts  of  the  machinery  of  govern¬ 
ment,  i.  102,  479. 

Insular  Affairs,  Bureau  of,  the,  i.  90. 
Intellectual  eminence,  position  ac¬ 
corded  to,  ii.  816. 

Intellectual  productivity,  conditions  of, 
ii.  834  sqq. ;  how  far  existing  in 
America,  835  ;  recent  developments 
of  American  thought,  842 ;  promise 
for  the  future,  853,  927. 

Intellectual  relation  of  America  to 
Europe,  ii.  845-854. 

Interior,  Secretary  of  the,  i.  85,  88. 
Interpretation  of  the  Constitution,  i. 
372,  374-391  ;  the  interpreting  au¬ 


thorities,  376 ;  judicial  principles  of 
interpretation  and  construction,  379  ; 
lines  of  development  of  implied 
powers,  382 ;  development  by  the 
executive  and  Congress,  383  ;  checks 
on  the  process,  387 ;  its  important 
results,  388-391. 

Iowa,  State  of,  i.  414,  524,  614. 

Irish  Draft  Riots,  of  1863,  ii.  651. 

Irish  in  America,  the,  i.  24 ;  ii.  35-37, 
303,  370,  371,  920. 

Irish  Parliament,  placemen  in,  i.  224. 

Irish  vote,  the,  ii.  158. 

Isle  of  Man,  Constitution  of,  i.  219. 

Italian  labour  vote  in  America,  ii. 
103. 

Italian  ministers,  usually  members  of 
Parliament,  i.  86. 

Italian  Parliamentary  system,  i.  92. 

Italian  Representative  chambers,  i. 
188 ;  Italian  members  of,  and  free 
railway  passes,  ii.  161. 

Italian  Senate,  i.  189. 

Jackson,  Andrew  (President),  i.  47, 
56,  58,  63,  66,  83,  269,  291,  292,  377, 
395 ;  ii.  137,  178,  376. 

Jackson,  Mrs.  Helen,  appeals  on  behalf 
of  the  Indians,  ii.  376. 

Jamison  on  “Constitutional  Conven¬ 
tions,”  i.  366. 

Jefferson,  Thomas  (President),  i.  30, 
41,  44-47,  57,  59,  76,  77,  83,  87,  91, 
92,  210,  214,  268,  276,  304,  334,  336, 
342,  377,  384,  425 ;  ii.  6-12,  33,  136, 
177,  236,  375. 

Jefferson’s  “Manual  of  Parliamentary 
Practice,”  i.  144. 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  ii.  719,  720, 
729,  730,  751,  753. 

Johnson,  Andrew  (President),  i."51,  56, 
59,  61,  124,  190,  207,  212,  214,  276, 
291. 

Johnson,  Reverdy,  treaty  of  1869,  i. 
108. 

Joint  stock  companies,  ii.  705. 

Judiciary,  American,  general  remarks 
on,  ii.  657,  679-689. 

Judiciary,  English,  independence  of, 
i.  259. 

Judiciary  (Federal),  the,  i.  35,  712; 
cases  of  impeachment,  111 ;  Federal 
courts  a  necessary  part  of  the  govern¬ 
ment,  229,  247  ;  Supreme  Court,  230  ; 
Circuit  courts,  231  ;  District  courts, 
232  ;  Court  of  Claims,  ib. ;  Court  of 


INDEX 


951 


Customs  Appeals,  ib. ;  their  Juris¬ 
diction,  232-239  ;  procedure,  237  ; 
working  of  the  system,  239  ;  separa¬ 
tion  of  the  judicial  from  the  executive 
and  legislative  departments,  ib. ; 
necessity  ‘  for  its  creation,  246;  the 
courts  do  not  control  the  legislature, 
but  interpret  the  law,  253  ;  impor¬ 
tance  of  their  functions,  254 ;  the 
system  not  novel,  256  ;  its  success, 
ib. ;  not  peculiar  to  a  Federal  govern¬ 
ment,  259  ;  the  Courts  and  politics, 
262  ;  salutary  influence  of  the  Bar, 
266 ;  conflict  of  other  authorities, 
268 ;  weak  point  in  the  constitution 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  271,  276,  305  ; 
superiority  of  Federal  Circuit  and 
District  judges,  272  ;  State  judiciary 
ill-paid,  ib. ;  corruption  and  partisan¬ 
ship  rare,  273 ;  Supreme  Court 
‘feels  the  touch  of  public  opinion,’ 
274;  value  of  the  Federal  courts  to 
the  country,  272  ;  degree  of  strength 
and  stability  possessed  by  them,  274  ; 
independence  of,  276,  305 ;  their 
relation  to  the  State  courts,  331  ; 
mode  of  interpreting  the  Constitu¬ 
tion,  375 ;  development  of  their 
powers,  403  ;  character  of  the  Bench, 
ii.  681  ;  freedom  from  corruption, 
685  ;  its  future,  688. 

Judiciary  (State),  the,  i.  35;  nature  of 
its  authority,  446 ;  principles  of 
action,  447  ;  variety  of  courts,  507  ; 
jurisdiction,  508  ;  attempts  of  codifi¬ 
cation,  509;  power  of  judges,  510; 
mode  of  appointment,  ib.  ;  tenure  of 
office,  511;  salaries,  512;  character 
of  the  bench,  ib. ;  amount  of  inde¬ 
pendence,  562 ;  local  judiciary  in 
Illinois,  610 ;  city  judges,  632 ; 
American  State  Bench,  ii.  657,  679- 
689  ;  charges  of  corruption,  685. 

Kearneyism  in  California,  ii.  426-448, 
938. 

Kent’s  “Commentaries,”  quoted,  i. 
232,  447,  484. 

Kentucky  legislature,  on  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  Sedition  and  Alien  Acts,  i.  334  ; 
on  the  tariff  of  1798,  335;  on  the 
right  of  assembly,  440;  on  life  and 
property,  ib. ;  on  child  labor,  461. 

Kentucky,  State  of,  i.  333,  334. 

Knights  of  Labour,  ii.  41. 

“Know-nothing”  party,  ii.  14,  16,  295. 


Knox,  Henry,  of  Mass.,  i.  91,  92. 

Ku  Klux  Klan  outrages,  i.  348. 

Labour  Party,  ii.  41,  301,  441. 

Labour  troubles,  ii.  552,  646,  647. 

Laissez  faire,  policy  of,  i.  340  ;  ii.  19, 
28, 534-547. 

Laws,  American,  four  kinds  of,  i.  248  ; 
their  want  of  uniformity,  345. 

Lawyers  in  America,  ii.  306,  307,  624. 
See  Bar  (American). 

Lea,  Henry  C.,  quoted,  ii.  424. 

Lectures  in  America,  ii.  867. 

Legal  issues,  their  importance  in 
Congress,  i,  89. 

Legal  profession.  See  Bar. 

Legal  Tender  Acts,  i.  249,  270,  276,  315. 

Legislation  in  America  :  the  President’s 
part  in  it,  i.  56  ;  tests  of  its  excellence, 
167;  applied  to  English  legislation, 
168 ;  and  to  American,  170  ;  criti¬ 
cism  of  the  method  of  direct  legisla¬ 
tion  by  the  people,  464-480;  ii.  659. 

Legislation,  special,  distinguished  from 
general,  i.  217  ;  an  evil  in  America, 
540,  558,  559,  577,  646,  674. 

Legislative  intervention,  chief  forms  of, 
ii.  541. 

Legislative  power,  supreme,  rests  with 
the  people,  i.  250,  464  sgq.  ;  ii.  659. 

Legislature  and  Executive.  See  Ex¬ 
ecutive. 

Legislature  (Federal).  See  State  Legis¬ 
latures. 

Legislatures  (City).  See  Municipal 
government. 

Levermore’s  “Town  and  City  Govern¬ 
ment  of  New  Haven,”  quoted,  i.  633. 

Lewis,  Sir  G.  Cornewall,  ii.  233. 

“Liberty”  party,  ii.  14. 

Lincoln,  Abraham  (President),  i.  51, 
55,  64,  72,  77,  83,  87,  101,  189,  270, 
296,  297,  366,  399,  421  ;  ii.  14,  67, 
278,  286,  367,  376. 

Liquor  prohibition,  i.  474,  577  ;  ii.  25. 

Literary  men  in  America,  ii.  307. 

Literature,  American,  ii.  828 ;  com¬ 
parative  want  of  creative  power,  833; 
causes  of  this,  835  ;  recent  develop¬ 
ments  of  thought,  839  ;  relation  to 
Europe,  847  ;  promise  for  the  future, 
854  ;  influence  of  a  capital  on,  856. 

“Lobby,”  the,  i.  463,  691  ;  ii.  160,  161, 
164. 

Local  feeling,  strength  of,  i.  80-81,  191- 
195,  482,  486,  544,  591. 


952 


INDEX 


Local  government,  types  of,  in  America, 
i.  596,  616  ;  township  type,  597,  616  ; 
county  type,  603  ;  mixed  type,  599, 
606,  614 ;  instance  of  Illinois,  607 ; 
of  Michigan,  610;  of  Iowa,  614;  of 
Pennsylvania,  614,  615 ;  control 

over  local  authorities,  619  ;  taxation, 
620  ;  absence  of  representation,  621  ; 
chief  functions  of  local  government, 
ib. ;  influence  of  party  spirit,  625  ; 
simplicity  of  the  system,  626  ; 
government  of  cities,  628-639  (see 
Municipal  government)  ;  character 
of  the  statesmen  produced  by  the 
system,  ii.  233. 

Local  option,  i.  474. 

Local  self-government,  advantages  of, 
i.  351 ;  ii.  659. 

Locke  on  “Civil  Government,”  i.  283. 

Logan,  General,  ii.  201. 

Log-rolling,  ii.  160. 

London,  indifference  to  voting,  ii.  324. 

Long  Parliament  (England),  the,  i.  218. 

Lord  Chancellor  (English),  powers  of, 

i.  98 ;  on  woolsack,  120. 

Louisiana  (French  territory  west  of  the 

Mississippi),  i.  27,  384,  388,  390; 

ii.  11. 

Louisiana,  State  of,  i.  55,  345,  439,  440, 
441 ;  code  of,  509,  519  ;  rings  and 
jobbery,  ii.  127. 

Louisville  (Kentucky),  ii.  127. 

Low,  Honourable  Seth,  on  “Municipal 
Government  in  the  U.  S.,”  i.  648, 
656-679. 

Lowe,  Robert,  referred  to,  ii.  613,  823. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  quoted,  i.  34,  and  the 
“White  House,”  ii.  143. 

Luther  v.  Borden,  i.  55. 

Lynch  law,  i.  338 ;'  ii.  617. 

Machine,  the,  its  organization,  ii.  82  ; 
what  it  has  to  do,  93  ;  its  working 
and  results,  101  ;  the  desire  for  office 
its  source  of  power,  111;  Rings  and 
bosses  its  inner  springs,  112;  Ma¬ 
chines  of  New  York  City,  155;  the 
struggle  against  it,  168-175,  313  ; 
popular  opinion  of  it,  242 ;  the 
Machine  in  the  South,  316;  unscru¬ 
pulous  men  who  work  it,  363  ;  the 
nominating  machinery  in  Massachu¬ 
setts,  935  ;  how  far  it  is  due  to  de¬ 
mocracy,  636 ;  its  future,  909.  See 
under  Party  Organization,  also  under 
Tammany  Ring. 


Machinery  of  American  Government,  to 
Europeans  conspicuous  by  its  ab¬ 
sence,  i.  18. 

McKinley,  President,  i.  59. 

Macy,  Professor,  on  “Government,” 

i.  614,  617. 

Madison,  James  (President),  i.  23,  39, 
63,  77,  87,  452  ;  ii.  8,  136. 

Magna  Charta,  i.  242,  447. 

Majority,  power  of  the,  in  America,  ii. 

338-346,  349,  352. 

Manhood  Suffrage,  ii.  656. 

Manx  constitution,  referred  to,  i.  219. 
Marriage  laws,  i.  345. 

Marshall,..  John  (Chief- Justice),  i.  63, 
236-238,  246,  255,  268,  275,  377, 
379  sqq.,  385-387. 

Marshall’s  “Life  of  Washington,” 
quoted,  i.  306. 

Maryland,  State  of,  i.  42,  43,  195,  414, 
439,  442. 

Massachusetts,  State  of,  i.  28,  29,  414, 
428,  442,  453,  535,  545,  580 ;  ii.  96, 
874. 

Mayoralty,  the,  and  its  powers,  i.  630, 
665. 

“Mean  Whites,”  ii.  318. 

Merchant  Guilds,  English,  i.  427. 
Mexico  and  the  United  States,  i.  342  ; 

ii.  566,  572,  574.' 

Michigan,  State  of,  i.  43,  611  ;  and  the 
ballot,  ii.  148. 

Militia,  the,  i.  55,  704,  709,  715. 
Militarism,  freedom  from,  ii.  568,  623. 
Millionaires,  ii.  908. 

Ministers,  the  President’s.  See  Cabi¬ 
net. 

Minneapolis,  rings  and  bosses  in,  ii. 
128,  129 ;  St.  Paul  and,  rivalry 
between,  129,  897,  898. 

Minnesota,  State  of,  ii.  173. 

Minorities  under  government  by  public 
opinion,  ii.  264,  349. 

Minority  representation  in  cities,  i. 
626 ;  ii.  330. 

Mirabeau,  quoted,  i.  116. 

Mississippi,  State  of,  Constitution,  i. 

439,  440,  441,  460-462. 

Missouri,  compromise  of  1820,  i.  265 ; 
ii.  12,  13,  14. 

Missouri,  Constitution  of,  i.  531. 
Missouri,  State  of,  ii.  12  ;  rings  in,  132. 
Moderator  of  a  Town-meeting,  i.  600. 
Molly  Maguire  conspiracy,  ii.  619. 
Money  in  City  Elections,  i.  549 ;  ii. 
170.  See  Bishop,  J.  B. 


INDEX 


953 


Monopolies,  hostility  to,  in  State 
Constitutions,  ii.  625. 

Monroe,  James  (President),  i.  87  ;  ii.  7, 
12,  177,  522,  523. 

Montana,  State  of,  i.  127,  590. 

Montesquieu,  referred  to,  i.  29,  283. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  his  “Utopia,” 
quoted,  i.  527. 

Mormons,  the,  ii.  37,  38,  595,  668, 
721. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  i.  280. 

Mugwumps,  the,  ii.  45,  46,  50,  308. 

Municipal  Government  in  America ; 
its  organization,  i.  629  ;  the  mayor, 
630 ;  aldermen  and  Common  Coun¬ 
cil,  631;  judges,  632;  nature  of  its 
functions,  634  ;  municipal  system  of 
Boston,  636 ;  of  St.  Louis,  639 ; 
tests  of  efficiency,  640 ;  case  of 
Philadelphia,  ib. ;  the  system  of  a 
conspicuous  failure,  642  ;  nature  of 
the  evil,  642 ;  remedies  proposed,  649 ; 
Hon.  Seth  Low,  on  municipal  govern¬ 
ment,  656  ;  system  of  Brooklyn,  661  ; 
problem  of  the  legislative  branch  of 
city  government,  675 ;  tendency 
towards  improvement,  676 ;  cor¬ 
ruption,  ii.  165,  389  ;  efforts  of  re¬ 
formers,  174,  402. 

National  character  and  tendencies, 
i.  3. 

National  debt.  See  Debt. 

National  Government.  See  Federal 
Government. 

National  Nomination  Conventions. 
See  Conventions. 

Nations  and  small  communities,  types 
of  relationship  between,  i.  16. 

Naturalization  laws,  i.  419  ;  ii.  99. 

Navy,  control  of  the,  i.  33,  53 ;  in¬ 
crease  of,  96. 

Navy,  Secretary  of  the,  i.  85. 

Nebraska,  State  of,  i.  102. 

Negro,  the,  present  and  future  of,  ii. 
512-564;  physical  conditions  in  the 
South  favorable  to  his  development, 
509,  513  ;  proportion  of  coloured  to 
the  white  population,  513  ;  the  negro, 
save  in  two  States,  a  relatively  de¬ 
creasing  element,  ib. ;  infant  mor¬ 
tality,  ib. ;  economic  and  industrial 
condition,  514;  poorest  and  lowest 
social  stratum,  ib. ;  occupation  best 
suited  to  the  blacks,  ib. ;  from  the 
slaveship  to  the  plantation,  516 ; 


political  rights  thrust  prematurely 
upon  them,  ib. ;  character  and  gifts 
of  the  negro,  517,  542  ;  educational 
status,  518,  519,  542 ;  illiteracy, 
ib. ;  religion  formerly  the  only  civil¬ 
izing  influence,  520 ;  religion  and 
morality  often  divorced,  ib. ;  in¬ 
dustry  a  means  of  self-help,  522  ; 
need  of  provision  for  instructing  the 
negro  in  handicraft,  ib. ;  insanity  and 
crime,  523  ;  intermarriage  forbidden 
by  law,  ib. ;  his  social  status  before 
and  after  the  war  contrasted,  524  ; 
no  social  intermixture  between  races, 
525 ;  new  coloured  generation  lost 
its  instinctive  subservience  and 
dependence,  526  ;  strained  relations, 
white  women  and  negro  lust,  ib. ; 
social  repulsion  and  lynchings,  527, 
528 ;  race  antagonism  and  the 
political  problem,  529,  530 ;  the 
whites  and  electoral  malpractices,  ib. ; 
question  of  negro  disfranchisement, 
531,  532,  533,  544-547;  proposed 
educational  test,  532  ;  graver  social 
problems,  ib. ;  deportation  imprac¬ 
ticable,  533,  534 ;  setting  the  negro 
apart  inexpedient,  535;  “miscegena¬ 
tion,”  536;  the  future  likely  to  con¬ 
fine  him  to  the  ‘Black  Belt’  and 
the  Gulf  Region,  536,  537 ;  potency 
of  moral  remedies,  538 ;  his  future, 
921. 

Negro  problem,  later  reflections  on  the, 
ii.  540-564 ;  the  capacity  of  the 
negro,  542 ;  his  progress  in  edu¬ 
cation,  542-544 ;  social  relation  to 
the  whites,  549  ;  race  friction,  549- 
551 ;  labour  troubles,  552;  the  atti¬ 
tude  of  the  Southern  whites,  552, 
554 ;  the  attitude  of  the  negroes, 
554,  556 ;  people  of  mixed  blood, 
555-557 ;  a  forecast  of  encourage¬ 
ment,  557—564. 

Negro  vote,  the,  i.  44  ;  ii.  37,  134,  148, 
149,  320. 

Nevada,  State  of,  i.  127. 

New  England  States,  usually  Republi¬ 
can,  i.  81. 

New  Hampshire,  State  of,  i.  439  ;  ii. 
151. 

New  Haven,  Town  and  City  of,  i.  602, 
632. 

New  Jersey  and  independence  of  Eng¬ 
land,  i.  430. 

New  Mexico,  State  of,  i.  586,  593. 


954 


INDEX 


New  Orleans,  “rings”  in,  ii.  135; 
attractive  history,  882. 

Newspaper  Press,  the,  ii.  275,  279 ; 
rewards  to  owners  or  editors  of,  277  ; 
influence  as  organs  of  opinion,  840. 

New  York,  City  of,  i.  653,  641-651, 
655;  ii.  118,  150,  155,  165,  686,  705, 
860. 

New  York  commissioners  of  1876,  on 
the  city’s  misgovernment,  i.  643  sqq. 

New  York,  State  of,  i.  24,  25,  26,  98, 
127,  463,  570;  ii.  131. 

Nominating  Conventions.  See  Con¬ 
ventions. 

Nominations,  winning  of,  ii.  62  ;  nomi¬ 
nations  to  office,  cost  of,  122 ;  ob¬ 
servations  on,  222. 

North  Dakota,  State  of,  i.  442. 

Northwest,  most  populous  section  of 
the  Union,  i.  80  ;  usually  Republican, 
81. 

Northwestern  man,  prima  facie  the 
best  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  i. 
80. 

Norway,  and  its  indifference  to  politics, 
ii.  57. 

Oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Constitution, 
i.  133. 

Obligations,  public,  regard  for,  ii. 
645. 

Ohio,  State  of  (executive  officials  of), 

i.  503  ;  ii.  90,  212. 

Oklahoma,  State  of,  i.  586,  592. 

Opinion,  public,  in  America,  the  ulti¬ 
mate  force  in  government,  i.  6 ;  the 
real  source  of  the  President’s  power, 
7  ;  its  influence  on  the  Supreme  Fed¬ 
eral  Court,  274 ;  on  the  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  Constitution,  387 ;  on  the 
State  judiciary,  514;  on  the  profes¬ 
sional  politicians,  ii.  68  ;  its  strength, 

ii.  241  ;  its  nature,  251 ;  stages  of 
formation,  ib.  ;  opinion  in  the  edu¬ 
cated  and  uneducated  classes  com¬ 
pared,  254  ;  leaders  of  opinion,  256  ; 
not  a  new  force  in  the  world,  260  ; 
difference  between  free  and  despoti¬ 
cally  governed  states,  261  ;  evolu¬ 
tion  of  opinion,  262  ;  government  by 
it,  263,  267-273  ;  its  dangers,  264 ; 
and  safeguards,  265 ;  its  character 
on  the  whole  upright,  240,  366 ; 
its  powerfulness,  251  ;  American 
opinion  of  various  features  of  their 
political  system,  240 ;  government 


by,  259 ;  nature  of  its  rule,  267 ; 
causes  of  its  importance,  271 ;  the 
consequences,  272 ;  mode  of  its  ex¬ 
pression,  274 ;  necessity  of  efficient 
organs,  ib. ;  the  newspaper  press, 
275 ;  public  meetings,  280 ;  elec¬ 
tions,  281 ;  associations,  ib. ;  com¬ 
parative  influence  of  urban  and  rural 
population,  283  ;  the  discernment  of 
opinion,  284  ;  the  effect  upon  it  of 
national  characteristics,  285 ;  class 
characteristics,  297 ;  local  types  of 
opinion,  311 ;  in  the  East,  ib. ;  West, 
313;  Pacific  slope,  316;  South,  ib. ; 
tendency  to  homogeneity,  320 ; 
analysis  of  opinion  in  England,  321  ; 
different  phenomena  in  America,  325  ; 
its  influence  exerted  through  elec¬ 
tions,  328  ;  independent  opinion  and 
the  great  parties,  329,  337 ;  its  in¬ 
fluence  on  officials,  331 ;  mutability 
of  electoral  bodies,  332 ;  private 
agencies  for  the  expression  of  opinion, 
333  ;  its  relation  to  the  regular  party 
organizations,  334  ;  its  activity  less 
continuous  than  in  Europe,  ib. ;  tyr¬ 
anny  of  the  majority,  338 ;  in 
Congress,  331;  in  the  States,  340; 
in  the  action  of  public  opinion,  341 ; 
improvement  in  this  respect,  343 ; 
its  defects  as  a  governing  power,  357  ; 
fatalism  of  the  multitude,  347,  352  ; 
its  effect  on  the  action  of  opinion, 
356 ;  difference  in  this  between  the 
States  and  the  whole  Union,  361  ; 
its  merits,  366 ;  educative  influence 
on  newcomers,  370  ;  its  influence  on 
public  appointments,  373  ;  on  foreign 
policy,  374 ;  influence  of  a  capital 
on  public  opinion,  855 ;  effect  of 
the  absence  of  a  capital  in  America, 
860. 

Orangemen  and  Irish  Catholics,  ii. 
651. 

Oratorical  excellence,  nature  of,  ii.  862  ; 
how  far  attained  in  America,  865 ; 
American  defects,  ib. ;  different  kinds 
of  oratory,  864 ;  three  kinds  spe¬ 
cially  developed  in  America,  866  ;  re¬ 
serve  of  audience,  868. 

Oratory,  and  the  parties,  ii.  232,  234, 
235. 

Oregon,  State  of,  i.  101,  102. 

Oxford  University,  Parliamentary  rep¬ 
resentation,  ii.  192  ;  and  the  Thirty- 
Nine  Articles,  244. 


INDEX 


955 


Palmerston,  Lord,  referred  to,  ii.  231. 

Parliament,  English,  a  sovereign  and 
constitutional  assembly,  i.  35 ;  re¬ 
ferred  to,  56,  168,  175,  251,  252,  255, 
256,  285  sqq.,  564;  ii.  272. 

Parties,  political,  in  America :  their 
development,  i.  5,  6,  389 ;  effect  of 
struggle  over  the  Constitution  of 
1789,  26 ;  their  interference  with 
presidential  elections,  42,  44  ;  growth 
of  a  Federalist  party,  92,  390 ;  ii.  6  ; 
influence  of  parties  in  the  Senate  on 
foreign  policy,  i.  109  ;  their  cohesion 
in  Congress,  152  ;  no  real  party  gov¬ 
ernment  in  America,  292 ;  State 
parties  engulfed  by  the  National,  571, 
572 ;  causes  of  this,  573  ;  its  results, 
574,  575 ;  cases  of  genuine  State 
parties,  578 ;  factions,  579  ;  party 
spirit  in  rural  local  government, 
580-582 ;  in  cities,  ib.,  670 ;  im¬ 
portance  of  the  parties,  644 ;  the 
great  moving  forces  in  America,  ii.  5  ; 
their  history,  ib.  ;  Federalists  and 
Republicans,  6 ;  National  Republi¬ 
cans  or  Whigs  and  Democrats,  12 ; 
Republican  party  of  1856,  14  ;  the 
foundations  of  party  in  America 
compared  with  Europe,  16  ;  the  an¬ 
tithesis  of  liberty  and  order,  18 ;  no 
definite  principles  in  the  modern 
parties,  21 ;  illustrations  of  this,  24; 
composition  of  the  Republican  party, 
30  ;  of  the  Democratic,  32  ;  politics 
of  immigrants,  34  ;  of  negroes,  *37  ; 
influence  of  religion,  ib. ;  geographi¬ 
cal  distribution  of  parties,  38  ;  lesser 
organizations,  39  ;  test  of  a  party, 
ib. ;  Greenbackers,  ib.,  214  ;  Labour 
party,  41,  42,  301,  855;  Prohibition¬ 
ists,  42,  213,  558;  Woman  Suffrage 
party,  45,  209,  548  ;  the  Mugwumps, 
45,  46,  50 ;  causes  of  the  persistence 
of  the  parties,  48  ;  eminent  leaders 
less  important  than  in  Europe,  51  ; 
the  selection  of  candidates,  53,  84, 
177 ;  social  influence  of  parties,  53  ; 
their  connection  with  State  politics 
54 ;  the  politicians,  55  ( see  Politi¬ 
cians)  ;  the  best  men  indisposed  for 
politics,  69  ;  party  organization  ( q.v .), 
76 ;  types  of  statesmen  produced, 
230 ;  public  opinion  and  the  system, 
240 ;  the  strength  of  party  founded 
on  the  national  character,  294 ; 
Know-nothing  party,  297  ;  the  parties 


and  independent  opinion,  327,  336 ; 
their  future,  909. 

Party  government  a  necessary  evil,  i. 
74  ;  its  meaning  in  America,  292. 

Party  organization  in  America :  its 
perfection,  i.  79  :  in  Congress,  149- 
152,  201  ;  the  party  caucus,  205  ; 
aims  of  a  party  organization  in  Eu¬ 
rope,  ii.  76;  in  America,  77;  modes 
of  selecting  candidates,  ib. ;  the 
American  system,  78 ;  its  history, 
79 ;  the  Machine,  82 ;  organizing 
committees,  ib. ;  primaries,  85,  93, 
102,  150 ;  nominating  conventions 
(q.v.),  84,  176;  procedure,  85;  tests 
of  party  membership,  87 ;  party 
loyalty,  88 ;  profusion  of  elections, 
90 ;  case  of  Ohio,  ib. ;  Massachu¬ 
setts,  93  ;  the  results,  94  ;  the  work¬ 
ing  of  the  Machine  in  the  country, 
97  ;  in  large  cities,  98  ;  manipulation 
of  elections,  100  ;  the  Rings  (q.v.),  108, 
111-122,  169,  380,  388,  406;  the 
Bosses,  110-119  ;  Slates,  Trades,  and 
Tickets,  115,  116;  hatred  of  re¬ 
formers,  119;  revenues  of  the  Ring, 
ib.  ;  sale  of  offices,  121  ;  the  system 
strongest  in  cities,  124;  illustra¬ 
tions,  124-130  ;  exceptional  in  rural 
districts,  131-133 ;  and  in  the 
South,  133 ;  spoils,  135 ;  party  or¬ 
ganizations  at  elections,  154 ;  presi¬ 
dential  election,  177,  204  ;  organiza¬ 
tion  in  Massachusetts,  935  ;  lessons 
for  Europe,  655-662  ;  its  future,  909. 

Patents,  i.  33,  818. 

Patronage,  i.  61-67,  110,  111,  293;  ii. 
136  sqq.  See  Spoils  System. 

“Patrons  of  Husbandry,”  ii.  693.  See 
Grangers. 

Patterson’s  “Federal  Restraints  on 
State  Action,”  quoted,  i.  379. 

Paupers,  i.  622. 

Payment  of  legislators,  i.  195  ;  ii.  59. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  referred  to,  ii.  231, 
259. 

Peers,  English,  creation  of,  by  the  sov¬ 
ereign,  i.  289. 

Pendleton  Act  of  1883,  ii.  144. 

Pennsylvania,  State  of,  i.  24,  42,  103, 
126,  185,  570,  614,  640 ;  ii.  32. 

Pennsylvania  judiciary,  i.  510. 

Pensions,  i.  88,  178. 

People,  the,  and  the  parties,  ii.  241. 

People’s  party,  the,  i.  579;  ii.  31,  36, 
44,  213. 


956 


INDEX 


Philadelphia,  City  of,  i.  640;  ii.  165, 
333,  406-425. 

Philadelphia  Convention  of  1787,  i.  21- 
25,  30,  223,  280,  312,  324,  669;  ii. 
5,  271. 

Philadelphia  Gas  Ring,  ii.  406-425. 

Philadelphia,  “History  of  Municipal 
Development  of,”  quoted,  i.  641,  651. 

Philanthropy  in  America,  ii.  790. 

Philippine  Islands,  the,  i.  90;  ii.  577— 
580. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  i.  77,  83  ;  ii.  183. 

“Pinkerton’s  men,”  ii.  621. 

Plan  of  the  Work,  i.  5. 

Platform,  the,  in  politics,  ii.  334. 

Plato,  referred  to  in  connection  with 
democracy,  ii.  826. 

Plutocratic  element  in  America,  ii.  661. 

Police,  the,  in  America,  ii.  411,  618 
sqq • 

Police  administration  in  New  York 
City.  See  Tammany  Ring. 

Political  and  social  experiments  in 
America  cited  as  patterns  and 
warnings  in  Europe,  i.  2,  9. 

Political  institutions  in  America,  future 
of,  ii.  902.  See  Future. 

Political  morality  in  England  and 
America,  ii.  243. 

Political  supremacy  in  Britain  in  the 
householder,  ii.  321. 

Politicians,  professional,  in  Europe,  ii. 

55  ;  conditions  of  their  development, 

56  ;  the  conditions  in  America,  57  ; 
and  their  results,  57 ;  number  of 
professional  politicians,  60 ;  their 
“work,”  62;  ward  politicians,  63; 
minor  office-seekers,  64;-  managers, 
65;  non-professional  politicians,  66  ;  a 
term  of  reproach,  ib. ;  their  objects, 
place,  and  income,  68 ;  the  ablest 
citizens  averse  to  political  life,  69  ; 
causes  of  this*  70-75  ;  party  organiza¬ 
tions,  76;  Rings  and  Bosses,  111; 
professional  politicians  and  the  Spoils 
system,  137;  struggle  with  reformers, 
168  sqq.  ;  number  of  lawyers  amongst 
politicians,  306.  See  Tammany  Ring. 

Politics,  American,  unattractiveness  of, 
77,  201  ;  ii.  65,  69  sqq.,  239,  588,  612. 

Politics  in  England,  a  social  fascination, 
ii.  72. 

Polk,  President,  i.  54,  77,  83. 

Position  of  women,  the,  in  America,  ii. 
795-809. 

Postmaster-General,  the,  i.  85. 


Postmasters  and  Civil  Service  reform, 
ii.  59. 

Post-office,  the,  i.  33. 

President,  the,  i.  36  ;  reasons  for  creat¬ 
ing  the  office,  38,  39 ;  nature  of  his 
powers,  39,  40  ;  mode  of  election,  40, 
46-52  ;  ii.  204 ;  re-election,  i.  45  ; 
removal  by  impeachment,  50 ;  his 
powers  and  duties,  53-68 ;  the  veto 
power,  58-60,  224-227,  289  ;  ii.  ISO¬ 
MS  ;  source  of  his  power,  i.  67 ; 
jealousy  of  ‘the  one  man  power,’ 
68  ;  dignity  of  the  position,  ib. ;  de¬ 
fects  of  the  system,  69-72,  298,  299  ; 
its  success  on  the  whole,  72 ;  im¬ 
portance  of  presidential  elections,  73  ; 
the  office  as  a  social  institution,  74 ; 
causes  of  the  want  of  eminent  Presi¬ 
dents,  77  ;  brilliant  gifts  not  required, 
80 ;  power  of  sectional  feeling,  81 ; 
position  of  ex-Presidents,  82 ;  his¬ 
torical  review  of  the  Presidents,  83  ; 
his  responsibility,  90  ;  relation  to  his 
ministers,  ib.  ;  to  Congress,  92,  93— 
95,  209-215,  284,  289  ;  the  President, 
when  attacked  in  Congress,  211; 
the  President  really  a  branch  of  the 
legislature,  224  ;  his  veto  power  the 
real  strength  of  the  executive,  212, 
225,  226 ;  conflicts  with  Congress, 
291 ;  his  consent  not  required  to 
Constitutional  amendments,  361  ; 
claim  to  interpret  the  Constitution, 
377 ;  development  of  his  functions, 
402  ;  origin  of  the  office,  685  ;  pro¬ 
visions  of  the  Constitution,  708,  710- 
712;  his  position  compared  with  a 
State  Governor’s,  535 ;  Spoils  sys- 

‘  tern,  ii.  136  ;  never  seriously  charged 
with  corruption,  158  ;  mode  of  nomi¬ 
nation,  178,  224  ;  election  campaign, 
205  ;  the  issues  at  stake  in  a  presi¬ 
dential  election,  214;  future  of  the 
office,  908. 

Presidential  campaign,  the,  ii.  204  ;  in¬ 
fluence  6f  newspapers,  207  ;  of  the 
clergy,  208 ;  of  women,  209 ;  pa¬ 
rades,  ib. ;  the  issues  at  stake  in  a 
presidential  election,  214;  nature 
of  personal  attacks  on  candidates, 
218-220;  points  of  difference  in 
English  elections,  220. 

Presidential  election  dispute  of  1876, 
i.  47-50,  72,  271,  299. 

Presidential  election,  sometimes  a 
turning-point  in  history,  i.  74. 


INDEX 


957 


Presidential  election  in  France,  i.  73. 

Presidential  electors,  i.  40-46,  702,  708. 

Primaries,  the,  ii.  84,  85,  93,  98,  102, 
168. 

Private  Bills.  See  Legislation  (Spe¬ 
cial). 

Privy  Council  of  England,  i.  19,  95, 
248,  249,  387. 

Prohibitionist  party,  i.  578 ;  ii.  25,  42, 
43,  44,  213,  558. 

Prohibitionists  and  the  tariff,  ii.  43. 

Property  tax,  criticism  on,  i.  520-524. 

“Proprietors”  in  the  North  American 
colonies,  i.  283. 

Protection  and  Free  Trade,  i.  178 ; 
ii.  26,  47,  215. 

Protection  and  the  tariff,  i.  183. 

Protection  of  citizens,  provided  for  by 
the  Constitution,  i.  33,  716,  717. 

Prussian  Constitution,  referred  to,  i. 

221. 

Prussian  Herrenhaus,  i.  97,  99. 

Public  agents,  validity  of  their  acts,  i. 
244. 

Public  lands,  wasteful  disposal  of,  i.  354. 

Public  life,  bracing  atmosphere  of,  in 
America,  ii.  369. 

Public  opinion.  See  Opinion. 

Public  Service  Commission,  the,  in  New 
York,  i.  505,  554. 

Public  works,  controlled  by  Congress, 
i.  90. 

Puerto  Rico,  i.  90;  ii.  577,  578. 

Pure  Food  Laws,  i.  90. 

Puritanism,  influence  of,  in  America,  i. 
(in  Constitution)  306 ;  traces  of, 
415;  ii.  20,  313,  782,  890. 

Quorum,  in  Congress,  i.  127,  200. 

Railroads,  freight  rates,  i.  563;  strike 
riots  of  1894,  ii.  599  ;  blackmailed, 
158,  649  ;  abuse  of  free  passes,  161  ; 
their  wealth  and  influence,  427,  441, 
442,  690,  702  ;  conflicts,  693  ;  Inter- 
State  Commerce  Commission,  694  ; 
their  autocratic  character,  697. 

Railroad  passes,  granting  of,  to  legisla¬ 
tors  forbidden  by  many  States,  ii.  161. 

Railway  companies  (English),  i.  245. 

Railway  kings  (American),  ii.  698-700. 

Redfield,  Chief  Justice,  of  Vermont, 
case  of,  i.  272  ;  quoted,  445. 

“Referendum,”  the,  i.  466-472,  475, 
477,  479,  554,  584,  616;  ii.  71,  263- 
358. 


Reform  Act  (English)  of  1832,  i.  287 ; 
ii.  321,322. 

Relation  of  the  United  States  to  Eu¬ 
rope,  the,  ii.  845. 

Religion  and  politics,  ii.  37. 

Religious  denominations  in  America,  ii. 
770-776. 

Religious  equality,  enforced  by  the 
Federal  and  State  Constitutions,  i. 
439,  706  ;  ii.  763  ;  in  the  Universi¬ 
ties,  734  ;  explanation  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  view,  765 ;  national  recogni¬ 
tion  of  Christianity,  770  ;  legal  posi¬ 
tion  of  religious  bodies,  ib.  ;  social 
equality,  775  ;  the  charm  of  religious 
freedom,  874. 

Religious  spirit  of  the  Americans,  ii. 
290 ;  religion  in  the  Universities, 
734 ;  national  recognition  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  765  ;  infl dence  of  religion  on 
the  people,  776,  781  sqq. ;  gain  to 
religion  from  the  absence  of  State  in¬ 
terference,  771  ;  its  influence  on  con¬ 
duct,  779  ;  on  the  imagination,  792. 

Representatives,  Federal,  House  of, 
instances  of  election  of  Presidents  by 
it,  i.  46 ;  influence  on  foreign  policy, 
54;  mode  of  election,  126;  speeches 
in,  120 ;  character  of  its  members, 
130,  148 ;  its  powers,  129 ;  proce¬ 
dure,  132-139 ;  the  Speaker,  140- 
143  ;  the  House  at  work,  144-155  ; 
its  homogeneity,  150 ;  absence  of 
party  leaders,  151-203  ;  effect  upon 
the  discharge  of  its  functions,  152  ; 
American  conception  of  its  position, 
153  ;  mode  of  voting,  154  ;  its  com¬ 
mittees,  156-166,  178-180 ;  results 
of  the  system,  161-166 ;  why  it  is 
maintained,  165;  criticism  of  the 
House’s  legislation,  170 ;  of  its 
finance,  176 ;  collisions  with  the 
Senate,  186 ;  salaries  of  members, 
195  ;  short  tenure  of  office  and  its 
results,  197 ;  want  of  opportunities 
for  distinction,  201  ;  party  caucuses, 
206  ;  how  far  the  House  is  a  party 
body,  207 ;  number  of  members,  127, 
225  ;  provisions  of  the  Constitution, 
706 ;  oratory  in  the  House,  ii.  865  ; 
future  of  the  House,  907.  See 
Congress. 

Representatives,  State,  Houses  of. 
See  State  Legislatures, 

Representative  system,  essentials  of  a, 
i.  302. 


958 


INDEX 


Republican  party  of  1793  (or  Demo¬ 
crats),!.  42;  ii.  6  ;  National  Republi¬ 
cans  or  Whigs,  of  1829,  12,  18-20  ; 
Republican  party,  ii.  21,  31,  38,  183, 
186,  200,  205  ;  characteristic  modern 
adherents  of,  31,  32. 

Rhode  Island,  State  of,  i.  19,  21,  22, 
25,  55,  128,  198,  249,  329,  335,  354, 
413,  430,  432,  434,  481-483,  485,  486, 
491,  510-512,  562,  580,  626. 

Riders  to  Appropriation  Bills,  i.  189, 
215. 

Rings,  ii.  Ill;  mode  of  working,  115; 
revenues,  120 ;  their  local  extension, 
124 ;  case  of  Cincinnati,  125 ;  St. 
Louis,  Louisville,  128  ;  Minneapolis, 
127 ;  and  St.  Paul,  129 ;  rural  dis¬ 
tricts  generally  free  from  them,  133  ; 
modes  of  combating  them,  168-175, 
279 ;  Tammany  Ring,  New  York 
City,  379 ;  Philadelphia  Gas  Ring, 
406. 

Robinson,  J.  H.,  on  “Features  of  the 
United  States  Constitution,”  i.  686. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  occasional 
outbreaks  of  hostility  against,  ii. 
17,  767. 

Roman  Catholics  and  denominational 
schools,  ii.  340,  341. 

Roman  praetor,  i.  273. 

Roman  Senate,  i.  221,  227. 

Rome,  Constitution  of  ancient,  referred 
to,  i.  218,  221,362;  ii.  57,  269. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  his  presidential 
vetoes,  i.  59 ;  on  misgovernment  of 
cities,  546,  547 ;  ii.  107,  123,  175. 

Rotation  in  office  considered  essential 
to  democracy,  ii.  136,  138,  140. 

Ruskin,  influence  exerted  by  his  books 
on  American  art  taste,  ii.  852. 

Salaries  of  Congressmen,  i.  195-197. 

Sand  Lot  party  in  California,  ii.  430, 
435,  438-440. 

San  Francisco,  ii.  434,  441,  446. 

Sanitation,  an  unimportant  function  of 
local  government  in  America,  i.  623. 

Scandinavian  immigrants  andAmerican 
politics,  ii.  36. 

Schedule,  the,  of  a  Constitution,  i.  437. 

Scott  v.  Sandford,  case  of,  i.  254,  263, 
265,  270,  388;  ii.  15. 

Scottish  law,  different  from  that  of 
English,  i.  346. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  on  Edinburgh  mobs, 
ii.  227. 


Secession  of  a  State  impossible,  i.  322, 
336,  343,  424. 

Secession,  War  of,  referred  to,  i.  25, 
55,  59,  72,  88,  124,  180,  270,  275,  296, 
308,  310,  322,  336,  348,  367,  384,  416, 
422-424. 

Second  Chambers,  utility  of,  i.  185 ; 
ii.  658. 

Secretary  of  the  Interior,  i.  85,  88 ;  of 
the  Navy,  85,  88 ;  of  State,  85,  87  ; 
of  the  Treasury,  85,  87,  88,  177; 
of  War,  85,  88. 

Sectionalism.  See  Local  feeling. 

Senate,  the  Federal:  its  control  over 
foreign  policy,  i.  54,  107-110;  pat¬ 
ronage,  61,  62,  110,  111;  ii.  137; 
composition,  i.  97 ;  functions,  98 ; 
the  Senate  essential  to  the  Federal 
Scheme,  98,  121,  124,  125;  mode  of 
election,  100,  370 ;  of  voting,  102 ; 
tenure  of  office,  103 ;  treatment  of 
money  bills,  104 ;  procedure,  105, 
119,  673;  executive  functions,  107  ; 
judicial  functions,  111 ;  objects  of 
its  creation,  113;  nature  and  causes 
of  its  success,  115;  character  of  its 
members,  121  ;  its  place  in  the  con¬ 
stitutional  system,  124 ;  its  Com¬ 
mittees,  156-166,  178,  179;  collisions 
with  the  House,  180,  185 ;  salary  of 
members,  195 ;  quorum,  200 ;  ab¬ 
sence  of  party  leaders,  203  ;  party 
caucus,  206 ;  development  of  its 
functions,  402 ;  extracts  from  rules, 
687  ;  provisions  of  the  Constitution, 
706  ;  its  oratorical  standard,  ii.  865  ; 
its  probable  future,  907.  See  Con¬ 
gress. 

Senates,  State,  See  State  Legislatures. 

Seward,  Mr.,  i.  87. 

Share  Market,  of  New  York,  ii.  705. 

Shaw’s  “Local  Government  in  Illinois,” 

i.  610. 

Shopkeeper,  the,  in  America,  ii.  300. 

Siey^s  and  the  Reign  of  Terror,  i. 
310. 

Signal  Service  Weather  Bureau,  i.  90. 

Silver,  free  coinage,  and  the  Democrats, 

ii.  27. 

Slave-emancipation  proclamations  of 
President  Lincoln,  i.  55. 

Slavery  Question,  the,  i.  99  ;  ii.  12  sqq., 
214,  339,  343,  549. 

“Slip  tickets,”  ii.  147. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  on  Canadian  Constitu¬ 
tion,  i.  475. 


INDEX 


959 


Smith’s  Wealth  of  Nations,  quoted,  i. 
430. 

Social  and  economic  future  of  America, 
ii.  917. 

Social  equality  in  America,  ii.  774,  778, 
779,  810  sqq. ;  existence  of  fine  dis¬ 
tinctions,  817,  818 ;  effect  of  social 
equality  on  manners,  822  ;  its  charm, 
872. 

Social  intercourse  between  youths  and 
maidens  in  America  easy  and  unre¬ 
strained,  ii.  803. 

Social  life,  influence  of  political  parties 
on,  ii.  53. 

Solicitor-General,  the,  i.  89. 

South  African  Union,  Constitution 
of  the,  i.  33. 

South  America  and  the  United  States, 
ii.  575. 

South  Dakota,  State  of,  i.  442. 

Southern  Confederacy,  the,  i.  71,  209, 
696. 

Southern  States,  population  of  the,  ii. 
316;  character  of  their  statesmen, 
317;  “mean  whites,”  319  ;  negroes, 
320  ;  relations  with  the  North,  374  ; 
their  future,  921.  See,  also,  pp. 
491-511. 

South,  the,  since  the  war,  ii.  491-511 ; 
exceptional  political  and  social  condi¬ 
tions  of  the  Southern  States,  491  ; 
type  of  its  civilization  long  moulded 
by  slavery,  ib. ;  alien  and  unab¬ 
sorbed  coloured  population  a  peculiar 
and  menacing  problem,  ib. ;  physical 
characteristics,  ib. ;  the  plantation 
and  the  mountain  country,  492  ; 
contingents  from  the  latter  on  the 
northern  side  in  the  Civil  War,  ib. ; 
the  planter  aristocracy,  the  “mean 
whites,”  and  the  negro,  493  ;  break¬ 
up  of  old  plantation  life  after  the 
war,  ib. ;  amnesty,  and  the  problems 
it  brought  with  it,  494 ;  temper  of 
Congress  in  approaching  the  problem 
of  reconstruction,  495 ;  headstrong 
violence  of  President  Johnson,  ib. ; 
rejection  of  the  Fourteenth  Amend¬ 
ment,  496  ;  the  Reconstruction  Act, 
496,  497 ;  ratification  of  the  Four¬ 
teenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments 
and  readmission  of  Confederate  States 
to  full  political  rights,  ib. ;  the 
Freedmen’s  Bureau,  495,  497  ;  sinis¬ 
ter  activity  of  the  “carpet-baggers,” 
498 ;  roguery  and  plunder,  499 ; 


the  spoilers  run  up  the  State  debts, 
500;  outrages  of  the  “Ku  Klux 
Klan,”  500,  501 ;  Federal  repression 
ineffective,  ib. ;  political  reaction  in 
favor  of  self-government,  502  ;  with¬ 
drawal  of  the  carpet-baggers,  ib. ;  the 
“colour-line”  in  politics,  503;  the 
negroes  and  the  suffrage,  ib. ;  the 
new  Democratic,  or  anti-negro  party, 
504,  505;  “bulldozing”  at  the 

polls,  and  ballot-box  stuffing,  505 ; 
with  white  control  came  industrial  re¬ 
generation,  507  ;  the  iron  industry, 
508 ;  profitable  extension  of  the 
cotton  trade,  ib. ;  manufactures 
transform  Southern  life,  ib. ;  rise 
of  a  new  middle  class,  509 ;  educa¬ 
tional  progress,  ib. ;  civilization  in 
many  respects  still  backward,  510; 
homicide  rife,  ib. ;  sanguine  views, 
511,  557-564. 

Spain,  sale  of  Florida  by,  i.  27. 

Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representa¬ 
tives,  i.  51,  133,  140-143,  402. 

Speculation  and  betting,  ii.  709,  710. 

Spoils  system,  the,  i.  63,  395,  505,  647; 
ii.  50,  124,  125,  136-145,  168,  243, 
637,  909. 

Stampede  a  convention,  to,  ii.  200. 

State  Constitutions.  See  Constitu¬ 
tions  of  the  States. 

State  Executive :  position  of  the 
Governor,  i.  225,  483,  492-494,  498- 
506 ;  537-540,  557  ;  outlines  of  the 
system,  483 ;  executive  councils, 
484-502  ;  other  officials,  503  ;  power 
of  removal,  506. 

State  Governments  :  their  relation  to 
the  National  government,  i.  312- 
323  ;  restraints  upon  them,  317,  326, 
327  ;  cases  of  resistance,  334,  337 ; 
secession  impossible,  336,  343,  424 ; 
large  measure  of  independence  al¬ 
lowed  them,  338,  418  ;  political  com¬ 
binations  amongst  them,  344 ;  the 
study  of  them  comparatively  neg¬ 
lected,  411;  causes  tending  to  dis¬ 
similarity,  411  ;  causes  tending  to 
uniformity,  414;  franchise,  419; 
power  over  minor  communities,  420  ; 
treason  against  a  State,  ib. ;  State 
sovereignty,  421-425;  history  of 
State  Constitutions,  427-435,  586- 
590 ;  mode  of  alterations,  433 ; 
their  real  nature,  436  ;  their  contents, 
437 ;  less  capacity  for  development 


960 


INDEX 


than  the  Federal  Constitution,  444; 
development  of  State  Governments, 
451  ;  growth  of  Democratic  tenden¬ 
cies,  456,  584 ;  comparative  fre¬ 
quency  of  change,  457;  jealousy  of 
officials,  and  of  the  Federal  Govern¬ 
ment,  459 ;  protection  of  private 
property,  460 ;  extension  of  State 
interference,  ib. ;  penalties  not  al¬ 
ways  enforced,  462  ;  budgets,  518  ; 
forms  of  taxation,  519;  exemptions 
and  mode  of  collection,  526  ;  amount 
of  taxation  restricted,  527 ;  public 
debts,  528 ;  restrictions  on  borrow¬ 
ing,  530-533  ;  working  of  the  govern¬ 
ment,  534-554  ;  its  defects,  555,  556  ; 
remedies  for  them,  556-559  ;  decline 
of  its  importance,  567,  568,  580 ; 
change  of  character,  568,  569 ;  re¬ 
lation  to  the  great  parties,  570 ;  ii. 
52  ;  decline  of  State  politics,  i.  580  ; 
local  government,  570 ;  seats  of,  in 
small  towns,  ii.  58. 

State  Governors,  i.  225,  226. 

State  legislative  interference,  eagerness 
for,  ii.  594  ;  its  chief  forms,  ib. ;  illus¬ 
trations,  597. 

State  Legislatures :  their  relation  to 
the  Federal  Senate,  i.  100,  102  ;  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  Governor,  225,  493,  494  ; 
relation  to  the  State  Constitutions, 
432-435  ;  to  the  courts  of  law,  435  ; 
distrusted  by  the  people,  444,  474  ; 
their  character,  474,  539,  543,  566 ; 
composition,  484 ;  the  right  of  suf¬ 
frage,  489 ;  their  numbers,  490 ; 
salaries,  491,  544;  sessions,  491, 
564-566  ;  powers  of  the  Senate,  492  ; 
procedure,  493 ;  constitutional  re¬ 
strictions  on  them,  495,  687 ;  busi¬ 
ness,  540  ;  character  of  the  members, 
543  ;  charges  of  corruption,  545  ;  ii. 
163 ;  local  influence,  i.  549 ;  rest¬ 
lessness,  551  ;  timidity,  552  ;  philan¬ 
thropy,  553  ;  their  defects  summa¬ 
rized,  556  ;  safeguards  and  remedies, 
ib. ;  effect  on  their  working  of  the 
political  parties,  576;  powers  and 
characteristics  of,  ii.  358,  359  ;  style 
of  oratory,  866. 

States-General  of  France,  i.  185. 

Statesmen,  types  of,  in  Europe,  ii.  230  ; 
in  America,  236 ;  want  of  first-class 
men,  i.  201  ;  ii.  231,  641,  661. 

States’  Rights,  i.  389,  421-425 ;  ii.  6, 
11,  24. 


Statutory  recognition  of  party  as  a 
qualification  for  office,  ii.  155. 

St.  Louis,  City  of,  i.  639 ;  ii.  125,  127. 

St.  Paul  (Minnesota),  ii.  129. 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  i.  207. 

Stimson,  F.  J.,  on  the  “Ethics  of  De¬ 
mocracy,”  ii.  595. 

Story’s  “Commentaries,”  cited,  i.  237, 
263,  328,  484 ;  ii.  624. 

“Stump,”  the,  ii.  234. 

Suffrage,  right  of,  i.  419,  718;  ii.  103, 
657. 

Suffrage,  Woman,  ii.  600-612. 

Sunday  observance  in  America,  ii.  782. 

Supreme  Court,  the  Federal.  See  Judi¬ 
ciary  (Federal). 

Surpluses,  Annual,  i.  178,  183. 

Sweden,  Diet  of,  i.  185,  290. 

Swiss  Constitution  and  Government, 
referred  to,  i.  16,  23,  38,  66,  251,  260, 
261,  299,  326,  337,  343,  350,  360,  372, 
413,  446,  466,  485,  500,  503,  580 ;  ii. 
71,  73. 

Swiss  railways,  under  control  of  govern¬ 
ment,  ii.  693. 

Swiss  Referendum.  See  Referendum. 

Switzerland,  cantons  of,  i.  413,  581 ;  ii. 
43,  154,  263,  292. 

“Talisman,  The,”  Saladin  quoted  in, 
i.  79. 

Tammany  organization,  ii.  103,  106, 
189,  195,  381  sqq. 

Tammany  Ring  in  New  York  City,  ii. 
378-405;  the  city  ‘the  seat  of  in¬ 
trigues  and  battle-ground  of  factions,  ’ 
379;  doctrine  of  ‘the  Spoils  to  the 
Victors’  first  formulated  by  New 
York  politicians,  ib. ;  foreign  popu¬ 
lation,  poor  and  ignorant  voters,  led 
by  shrewd  and  forceful  party  mana¬ 
gers,  380  ;  leading  men  neglect  local 
civic  duties,  ib. ;  early  origin  of 
Tammany,  ib. ;  Aaron  Burr’s  malig- 
•  nant  influence,  ib.  ;  Tammany  pre¬ 
dominant  as  early  as  1836 ;  its 
mercenary  objects,  382  ;  nationality 
of  its  members,  382  ;  Fernando  Wood, 
383,  384,  386;  W.  M.  Tweed,  384- 
396 ;  Tweed  and  his  friends  capture 
the  organization,  387;  P.  B.  Sweeny, 
388 ;  A.  Oakley  Hall,  ib. ;  R.  B. 
Connolly,  ib. ;  Albert  Cardozo, 
George  Bernard,  and  J.  H.  McCunn, 
members  of  the  Tammany  bench, 
389  ;  Governor  J.  T.  Hoffman,  ib. ; 


INDEX 


961 


offices  occupied  by  the  junto, 
388  ;  executive  power  concentrated  in 
Mayor  Hall,  ib. ;  treasury  plundered 
through  jobs  and  contracts,  389  ; 
county  court-house  steal,  390 ;  as¬ 
tounding  advance  of  the  city  debt, 
391  ;  corruption  rampant,  ib. ;  press 
muzzled  or  subsidized,  ib. ;  licentious 
luxury  of  the  Ring,  393  ;  dissensions 
and  fall,  ib. ;  New  York  Times' 
exposure,  394 ;  Nast’s  caricatures, 
395 ;  Governor  S.  J.  Tilden’s  part 
in  the  exposure,  387,  400 ;  Tweed’s 
trial,  Sweeny’s  flight,  Cardozo’s 
resignation,  395,  398  ;  Tammany  and 
John  Kelley,  396,  398 ;  Richard 
Croker  and  Tammany  benchmen 
of  to-day,  398  ;  the  Machine  organi¬ 
zation,  399  ;  blackmailing  and  com¬ 
plicity  with  criminals,  400  ;  assessing 
office-holders,  ib. ;  leaps  and  bounds 
of  the  city  revenue,  and  reduction  of 
city  debt,  403  ;  sense  of  public  duty 
quickened,  404  ;  progress  of  reform, 
ib. ;  Tammany  heavily  smitten  by 
the  elections  of  November,  1894,  ib. ; 
downfall  of  the  Ring  referred  to,  688. 

“Tancred,”  Disraeli’s  novel  of,  quoted, 
ii.  78. 

Taney,  Chief  Justice,  quoted,  i.  234. 

Tariff,  the,  and  lobbying,  ii.  160. 

Taxation:  for  Federal  purposes,  i.  33, 
104,  332,  519 ;  for  State  purposes, 
518-528 ;  for  local  purposes,  619- 
621  ;  mode  of  levying,  626  ;  taxation 
in  cities,  635. 

Temper  of  the  West,  the,  ii.  891-901. 

Tenure  of  Office  Act  of  1867,  i.  63,  64  ; 
repeal  of,  in  1886,  227. 

Territorial  extension,  problem  of,  ii. 
565-586. 

Territories,  the,  i.  127,  230,  353,  354, 
585-595  ;  their  organization,  587  ; 
position  of  their  citizens,  588 ;  their 
conversion  into  States,  589 ;  re¬ 
marks  on  them,  590-593 ;  working 
of  the  system,  590,  594  ;  their  dele¬ 
gates  admitted  to  national  conven¬ 
tions,  ii.  181  ;  women’s  suffrage  in  the 
different  States,  603. 

Texas,  State  of,  area,  i.  413;  Constitu¬ 
tion  of,  441,  455,  460,  495. 

Texas  v.  White,  case  of,  i.  322. 

Thayer,  J.  B.  (Harvard  Law  School), 
quoted,  i.  448,  449. 

Thirteen  original  British  colonies,  i. 

3  Q 


19,  249  ;  each  a  self-governing  com¬ 
monwealth,  ib. 

Thought,  influence  of  democracy  on,  ii. 
822—831 ;  in  the  case  of  America, 
824-831 ;  recent  developments  of 
thought,  842  ;  promise  for  the  future, 
853. 

Tilden,  Mr.,  i.  47,  49. 

Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  referred  to,  i.  3, 
117;  ii.  41,  339,  342,  570,  624,  822, 
845,  911,  916. 

Tories  and  Whigs  in  England,  ii.  22, 
28.  See  English  Parties. 

Town  or  Township  system,  i.  596,  605, 
607,  614,  617,  626 ;  ii.  288. 

Transmarine  dominions,  ii.  576-586 ; 
canal  zone,  580 ;  Guam,  577,  578  ; 
Hawaii,  ,577,  585 ;  the  Philippine 
Islands,  577-580,  585 ;  Puerto  Rico, 
577,  578 ;  Tutuila,  578 ;  relations 
with  Cuba,  580,  581 ;  the  United 
States  as  a  World  Power,  584-586. 

Treasury,  Secretary  of  the,  i.  85,  87  ; 
his  Annual  Letter,  175. 

Treaties,  power  of  making,  i.  53,  107- 
110. 

Tweed,  W.  M.,  and  Tammany,  ii.  109, 
286,  384  sqq. 

Tyler,  President,  i.  329. 

Tyranny  of  the  majority,  ii.  251  ; 
change  in  this  respect  in  America, 
338,  346,  625. 

Union,  Indestructibility  of  the  Federal, 
i.  322,  336,  343. 

United  States,  splendour  of  the  past 
reserved  for  them  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  civilization,  i.  2. 

United  States  institutions  of  a  new 
type  —  an  experiment  in  the  rule  of 
the  multitude,  i.  1. 

Unity,  want  of,  in  the  American  gov¬ 
ernment,  i.  294,  302. 

Universities,  American  :  their  influence 
on  politics,  ii.  307  ;  statistics  of,  714, 
715  ;  their  history,  713  ;  their  general 
character,  715-737  ;  general  observa¬ 
tions  on  them,  738-762  ;  their  later 
development,  743-747 ;  in  endow¬ 
ments,  743  ;  in  scope,  744  ;  increase 
of  salaries,  745 ;  in  number  of  stu¬ 
dents,  745,  748  ;  in  quality  of  instruc¬ 
tion,  747  ;  causes  of  the  changes,  ib. ; 
their  effects,  747,  748 ;  three  main 
types,  749-751  ;  courses  of  study, 
751-753 ;  graduate  schools,  753 ; 


962 


INDEX 


extension  work,  754 ;  women  stu¬ 
dents,  755 ;  athletic  competitions, 
756;  present  needs,  760-762. 

U.  S.  District  Attorney,  i.  238. 

U.  S.  Marshal,  i.  238. 

U.  S.  Pacific  Railway  Commission  and 
legislative  corruption,  ii.  162. 

Utah,  State  of,  i.  586,  592. 

Van  Buren,  President,  i.  83,  269 ;  ii. 
183. 

Vassar  College,  ii.  722,  737. 

Venetian  Councils,  encroachment  of, 

i.  227. 

Venice,  oligarchy  of,  influenced  by  the 
opinion  of  the  nobles,  ii.  260. 

Veto  power,  the,  in  America :  of  the 
President,  i.  57-61,  224-226,  290; 

ii.  327  ;  of  State  Governors,  i.  226, 
453,  494,  499,  500,  539,  557  ;  ii.  364  ; 
proposed  for  Congress,  i.  257 ;  of 
mayors,  630. 

Veto  power,  the,  in  Canada,  i.  475. 
Veto  power,  the,  in  England,  i.  60. 
Veto  power,  the,  in  France,  i.  60. 
Vice-President  facetiously  named  “His 
Superfluous  Excellency,”  i.  74. 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  i. 
40,  51,  97,  119,  300,  402,  710,  712, 
716;  ii.  184. 

Villages,  their  place  in  the  system  of 
local  government,  i.  610,  612. 
Virginia  Convention  of  1788,  i.  236. 
Virginia  legislature,  on  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  and  Sedition  and  Alien  acts,  i. 
334. 

Virginia,  State  of,  i.  19,  25,  236,  430. 
Voting,  machinery  of,  ii.  146-149. 

Wall  Street  and  its  influence  on 
American  life,  ii.  654-661,  703-710. 
Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  England  under, 
ii.  239. 

War  of  1812,  the  Union  drifted  into  it, 
i.  342,  344. 

War  power  of  the  President,  i.  33,  54. 
War,  Secretary  of,  i.  85,  88. 
Washington,  City  of,  i.  75,  121,  200, 
585  ;  ii.  140,  858. 

Washington,  George  (President),  i.  21, 
23,  38,  41,  44,  45,  57,  58,  74,  76,  85, 
91,  264,  401;  ii.  7,  8,  136,  177, 
381. 

Washington,  State  of,  i.  591 ;  ii.  552. 


Wealth,  influence  of,  in  America,  ii. 
627,  638,  661,  810,  814. 

Weather  Bureau,  i.  90. 

Webster,  Daniel,  i.  69,  83,  118;  ii.  14, 
236,  376,  869^ 

Wellesley  College,  ii.  722,  737. 

Wells,  David  A.,  on  perjury,  i.  523. 

Western  States  of  America,  distinc¬ 
tively  American,  ii.  315;  their  pe¬ 
culiar  character,  879  ;  development, 
ib. ;  their  temper,  891  ;  carelessness, 
895 ;  superstition,  894 ;  loyal  con¬ 
ception  of  greatness,  896 ;  rivalry 
of  Western  towns,  897;  their  confi¬ 
dence,  898 ;  air  of  ceaseless  haste, 
899. 

West  Indies,  relations  of  the,  to  Amer¬ 
ica,  ii.  574. 

Whig  party,  the,  of  1830,  ii.  12-14,  29, 
31,  41. 

Whigs  and  Tories,  English,  and  corrup¬ 
tion,  i.  280. 

Whips,  Parliamentary,  their  impor¬ 
tance  in  England,  i.  203 ;  want  of 
them  in  America,  204  sqq. 

Whiskey  Ring  of  1875,  ii.  159. 

Whiskey,  women’s  war  against,  ii.  333. 

White  House,  the,  i.  74,  75,  82,  214. 

William  and  Mary,  College  of,  ii.  712. 

Wilson,  James,  referred  to,  i.  22,  23, 
256,  361. 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  quoted,  i.  123,  163, 
182. 

Wisconsin,  State  of,  i.  485. 

Woman  Suffrage,  ii.  600-612. 

Women,  position  of,  in  America :  the 
suffrage,  ii.  47,  209,  600-612 ;  their 
influence  in  politics,  209,  333,  797, 
798;  education,  736-738,  799-801; 
legal  rights,  795 ;  professional  em¬ 
ployment,  796 ;  freedom  of  social 
intercourse,  803 ;  deference  to 
women,  804  ;  their  literary  taste,  807 ; 
influence  of  democracy  on  their 
position,  808  ;  results  to  themselves, 
ib. ;  and  to  the  nation,  809. 

Women’s  Anti-Suffrage  Association,  ii. 
610. 

Working  man,  the,  in  America,  charac¬ 
teristics  of,  ii.  300,  302. 

Wyoming,  State  of,  i.  127  ;  ii.  603-607. 

Yale  University,  New  Haven,  ii.  712, 
717,  719,  720,  721,  732,  734. 


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“We  know  nothing  on  the  subject  at  all  approaching  it  in  brevity,  joined 
to  clearness  and  completeness,  as  an  essay,  nothing  where  intellectual 
disinterestedness  so  dominates  all  things,  none  where  a  happy  sentence  or 
a  striking  phrase  so  effectually  tells  a  story  which  many  pages  in  other 
hands  have  in  vain  sought  to  tell.”  —  New  York  Times. 

By  ARCHIBALD  CARY  COOLIDGE,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  History  in  Harvard  University 

The  United  States  as  a  World  Power 

Cloth ,  i2mo,  $2.00  net 

This  book  is  based  on  the  lectures  delivered  by  the  author  at  the  Sorbonne 
in  Paris  in  the  winter  of  1906-1907.  Among  the  questions  considered  as 
affecting  the  relations  of  the  United  States  with  other  countries  are 
immigration  and  race  questions,  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  our  relations 
with  Latin  America,  the  Spanish  War  and  the  acquisition  of  colonies,  our 
relations  wTith  the  chief  continental  powers,  with  England  and  with 
Canada,  the  Isthmian  Canal,  the  United  States  in  the  Pacific  and  our 
relations  with  China  and  with  Japan. 

“  The  book  is  justly  entitled  to  recognition  as  a  work  of  real  distinction. 
It  has  substance  as  well  as  symmetry  and  force ;  it  is  void  of  dogmatism 
or  special  pleading,  but  it  moves  the  reader  to  thought ;  it  handles  serious 
and  complicated  questions  with  a  light  touch,  but  the  impression  of  its 
solid  qualities  is  the  impression  that  remains.”  —  New  York  Post. 


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By  CHARLES  RICHARD  VAN  HISE 

President  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin 

The  Conservation  of  the  Natural  Resources  in 
the  United  States 


Cloth ,  8vo,  $ 2.00  net 

An  extremely  valuable  summary  of  the  whole  subject  of  the  natural 
resources  of  the  United  States.  It  covers  the  minerals,  waters,  forests 
and  soils ;  their  relations  to  the  needs  of  humanity  and  to  law,  existing  or 
desirable.  In  brief,  it  contains  the  essential  information  which  an 
intelligent  citizen  might  desire  for  his  better  understanding  of  the 
increasingly  important  subject  of  conservation. 


By  JOHN  R.  COMMONS 

University  of  Wisconsin 

Races  and  Immigrants  in  America 

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“  Some  of  the  most  valuable  portions  of  the  book  deal  with  economic 
causes  of  immigration.  It  is  shown  how  the  change  in  the  character  of 
industry  has  had  its  effects  in  the  changing  character  of  the  stream  of 
immigration,  and  how  alterations  in  the  laws  governing  property  in  labor 
have  similar  results.  There  is  also  an  excellent  discussion  of  the  relation 
of  immigration  to  overproduction  and  commercial  crises,  with  an  illustra¬ 
tion  of  the  ultimate  results  of  stimulated  immigration  on  government 
drawn  from  Hawaiian  experience.”  —  Chicago  Record-Herald. 


By  DELOS  F.  WILCOX 

Author  of  “  The  American  City  ” 

Great  Cities  in  America 

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Dr.  Wilcox’s  forthcoming  book  differs  from  most  wrorks  on  this  subject  in 
that  it  is  practical  and  concrete,  rather  than  critical  and  theoretical.  It 
embodies  a  careful  first-hand  investigation  of  administration  in  a  number 
of  typical  cities — Washington,  New  York,  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  St. 
Louis,  and  Boston.  It  brings  to  the  student’s  desk  a  great  amount  of 
statistical  and  statutory  matter  for  which  otherwise  he  would  have  to 
make  difficult  search.  It  exposes,  in  short,  the  actual  workings  of  the 
municipal  government  in  American  cities  in  a  way  that  every  scholar 
should  appreciate. 


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“  IT  IS  NOT  PROBABLE  THA  T  WE  SHALL  SEE  A  MORE 
COMPLETE  OR  BETTER  BALANCED  HISTORY  OF  OUR 
GREA  T  CIVIL  WAR."  —  The  Nation. 


History  of  the  United  States 

From  the  Compromise  of  1850  to  the  Final  Restoration 
of  Home  Rule  at  the  South  in  1877. 


By  JAMES  FORD  RHODES,  LL.D.,  Litt.D. 

Complete  in  seven  octavo  volumes ,  attractively  bound 
in  dark  blue  cloth. 


I. 

1850-1854 

II. 

1854-1860 

hi. 

1860-1862 

IV. 

1862-1864 


V. 

1864-1866 


VI. 

1866-1872 


The  first  volume  tells  the  history  of  the  country  during  the  four  years’ 
futile  attempt  to  avoid  conflict  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  ending  with 
its  repeal  in  1854. 

The  second  volume  deals  with  the  stirring  events  which  followed  this  re¬ 
peal,  through  all  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  struggles,  to  the  triumph  of  the 
then  newly  organized  Republican  party  in  the  election  of  Lincoln  in  i860. 

The  third  volume  states  the  immediate  effect  upon  the  country  of  Lincoln’s 
election;  covers  the  period  of  actual  secession;  the  dramatic  opening  of 
the  war,  the  almost  light-hearted  acceptance  of  it  as  a  11  three-months’  pic¬ 
nic”;  and  closes  in  the  sobering  defeat  of  Bull  Run. 

The  fourth  volume  follows  the  progress  of  the  war  in  vivid  discussions  of 
campaigns,  battles,  the  patient  search  for  the  right  commander,  and  the 
attitude  toward  this  country  of  the  British  government  and  people. 

The  fifth  volume  opens  with  the  account  of  Sherman’s  march  to  the  sea. 
The  adoption  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  Lincoln’s  assassination,  John¬ 
son’s  administration,  and  the  state  of  society  in  the  North  and  South  at  the 
end  of  the  exhausting  war  are  fully  treated.  The  volume  ends  with  an 
account  of  the  political  campaign  of  1866. 

The  sixth  volume  considers  the  enactment  of  the  Reconstruction  Acts  and 
their  execution;  the  impeachment  of  President  Johnson,  the  rise  of  the 
Ku  Klux  Klan,  the  operation  of  the  Freedman’s  Bureau,  the  ratification 
of  the  XIVth  and  the  passage  of  the  XVth  Amendment,  are  among  other 
topics  in  the  volume. 


The  seventh  volume  begins  with  an  account  of  the  Credit  Mobilier 
VII.  scandal,  the  “Salary  Grab”  Act,  and  describes  the  financial  panic  of 
1872-1877  *873. .  The  account  of  Reconstruction  is  continued  with  a  careful  summing 

'  '  up,  and  the  work  ends  with  an  account  of  the  presidential  campaign  of 

1876  and  the  disputed  Presidency. 

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three-quarters  levant ,  $40. 


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Date  Due 


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JK246  .B9  1911  v.2 

The  American  commonwealth 


